It's Official: Our Road has a Name

Tucker County has finally put up a sign marking our road/driveway. This is important, as the driveway is pretty non-descript, and it is hard to give people directions. The local lumber yard has directions that state: "goat path on left 3.5 miles from WV32." It is now officially "Dogs Run Trail." It's still sort of a goat path, but now Tucker County EMS and police can find us.

This past weekend was hot and dry on the property. Luckily for the garden, the water tank was full, so the corn, beans, and asparagus got a really good watering. Two of three garlic varieties were ready to be dug, but the bulbs were not particularly impressive, with half a dozen cloves each.

Speaking of garlic, did we ever tell you the story of Cathy's daughter Meg's first attempt at preparing a Caesar salad? She was probably eight years old, and naively read "one clove" of garlic in the recipe as one head of garlic; the resulting salad brought tears to our eyes. We love garlic, but that was over the top.

Common Mullein

The potato crop is going to be pretty weak. All the early rains caused many of the seed potatoes to rot, so only about half the hills will be productive. However, the new potatoes that were picked on Saturday were unbelievable. Had them boiled with pesto over fresh linguine. I know potatoes on pasta sounds strange, but it is fantastic. The green beans are looking really good, with small 0.5-1.0" beans. The corn is putting out tassels. The asparagus is just ferns and tiny little spears. The raspberries are still not very vigorous. All the fruit trees look very good, and our one lonely apple is about 1.5" in diameter at this point.

Used the Gravely walk-behind mower to clear the clearing around the garden, leaving as many of the common mullein (Verbascum thapsus) as possible. It's a nice plant with beautiful yellow flowers. Mowed a lot of evil milkweeds and thistles. More at some point on the remarkable Gravely. It is our only hope to tame the land. It'll mow right over a 2" tree. Makes a lot of noise, but easier than using clippers.