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.

Harr Cave #2

This is a long post, so sit back, tell your kids to Go the F**k to Sleep, poor yourself a glass of wine, and read about a remarkable "discovery" we made on our property.

One autumn afternoon several years ago, we were clearing saplings from an area of the property that needed to be "thinned." As we were hauling felled trees into a pile, we happened upon a depression in the ground that contained a dozen old logs piled parallel to each other. When one spends a lot of time in a forest, pattern recognition quickly alerts you to non-natural (i.e., human-made) objects or arrangements. Upon closer examination, these logs were piled onto a gate made of galvanized steel that appeared to be covering a hole in the ground. We pulled the logs off the gate and saw that the hole in the ground had been widened and fitted with an old rusted metal ladder that dropped several feet into complete darkness. Seriously, a hole in the ground through solid limestone. A hole that dropped several feet into darkness. What was in the darkness? An old moonshine still? We were absolutely and completely nonplussed. Neither of us felt like venturing down the ladder, so we covered the hole back up, tossed some leaves over it, and let it be.

Gate Covered Hole

Differences between Cross-country and Downhill Skiers

There are three ski areas over the mountain from us: Canaan Valley State Park, Timberline, and White Grass. The first two are downhill and White Grass is cross-country. The parking lot at Timberline is full of huge SUVs and Hummers and expensive cars made by BMW or Mercedes Benz. The parking lot at White Grass is full of hippie cars like Subaru wagons, Toyota Prius, Jeeps, and old Toyota pick-ups. Just sayin'.

July - The Month of Waiting

Gardens start with so much potential. In April and May we plant and we envision all the bountiful produce that will be the result of our efforts. The plants come up or they don't, they grow, and we wait. We now have foot high corn, beans whose flowering is imminent, garlic that will be ready to harvest by the end of the month, four varieties of potatoes in big mounds of dirt and manure, and adolescent asparagus, mostly ferns with a few miniature spears appearing. The pumpkins have been thinned to just two plants, and they are ready to fall and start growing along the ground. Outside of pulling weeds, which are incredibly bountiful at this time of year, we just sort of coast along until September and October at Dogs Run Farm.

At home, the tomatoes are loving the heat and humidity. The first cherry tomatoes will turn red or black or white in a week or so, and the big boys, the Black Krims, the orange, red, and yellow beefsteaks are getting bigger. These latter tomatoes still have weeks to go until they're going to be ripe. Until then, we will remind ourselves what the wait is all about with a photo of last year's crop. Pretty soon, but never soon enough, we will have to stop by the cheese shop for some fresh mozzarella. We also have a bountiful crop of arugula and lettuce, with green beans and fava beans coming along.

The 2010 Tomato Harvest

So the month of July will be a waiting game, with a few cherry tomatoes to whet appetites for the slicers. The WVa potatoes just need time until a September or October harvest. We will be up to our necks in beans by the end of the month. To help us though, it will soon be berry season in Ohio and that means blueberry, blackberry, and raspberry crisps. Seasonal. That was what it was like before 365 days/year of tasteless apples, plastic-cartoned raspberries, limp asparagus, and warehouse "ripened" tomatoes, all flown in from California or Chile.

We prefer to wait. Eat seasonally; that's why they are called seasons.

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