Squirrel, squirrel go away...............

Good Monday morning! I hope you had a wonderful weekend and got to do some fun end-of-summer activities.  Fall is fast approaching.
Do you remember the Moleinator I purchased a month or so back trying to rid my yard of the little beast(s)?  I am happy to report that it works like a charm. The mere placement of this fabulous device made those moles dig their way right over into my neighbor's yard!!  So there was nothing to do but loan it to him and, yes, he got the little bugger. Yea!!!! But Mother Nature is a fickle lady and she wasn't about to let me rest so now I am faced with ridding my yard of ground squirrels. They are super destructive not only in making your property look like some giant cookie cutter punched a zillion holes in the ground along with a zillion dirt piles, but they carry diseases ---- the plague in particular ----,they eat tender young plants, gnaw on veggies, they provide food for rattlesnakes, and worst of all they can undermine a building's foundation. Fortunately, the teacher for my Master Gardener's class told us how we can make a bait station that is pet-proof along with bait that is deadly to the squirrels but not to pets as long as it is administered in the bait station.  If you are interested in the recipe for this bait just email me and would be happy to send it along to you along with directions on how to make a station.  Here's a picture of it.

It is made of PVC pipe and the bait is put in the piece that is standing vertical.  It has a cap to keep it from getting wet should a shower pass through and pets can't get to it.  I did have to purchase a new hacksaw to cut the pieces, and I found the cutest little thing.  Just take a look at it; half the size of a regular hacksaw and so much easier for us ladies to use.  I love tools and this thing is one of my favorites!  I know --- I am a little strange, but hey, it gives me such a sense of accomplishment to be able to do a few things myself.

Thanks for stopping by Two Dogs. Have a fabulous week!

Recipe

Good morning!  So glad you could stop by today.  I don't know if any of you are canners, but I wanted to share my Dilly Beans recipe with you in case you have a bumper crop of green beans or want to buy some from a local farmer's market and can a few.  They are easy and delicious..............and they are super to take along on a picnic, but they won't last until next summer!  You can begin eating them after they have sat on the shelf for a couple of weeks to let the flavors develop.  Because of the high acidity of the vinegar, these beans can be safely processed in a boiling water bath  Hope you like them!

Dilly Green Beans

4 pounds whole green beans
1 3/4 t crushed dried hot red pepper
3 1/2 t dried dill seed, OR 7 fresh heads of dill
7 cloves of fresh garlic, peeled, OR use equivalent in chopped garlic (you know, the kind in the jar :-)
5 C apple cider vinegar
5 C water
1/2 C less 1 T pickling salt (non-iodized)


Wash beans thoroughly, remove stems and tips, and cut them as much as possible into uniform lengths to allow them to stand upright in 1-pint canning jars---  Or you can use 1/2 pints, just cut them shorter----, coming to the shoulder of the jar.  Have jars clean and very hot, and lids and sealers ready in scalding water.  In each jar place 1/2 t dill seed (or one dill head), 1 garlic clove (or equivalent in chopped garlic), and 1/4 t crushed hot red pepper.  Pack beans upright in jars, leaving 1 inch of headroom.  Heat together the water, vinegar, and salt; when the mixture boils, pour it over the beans, filling each jar to 1/2 inch from the top.  Run a table knife down and around to remove trapped air, adjust lids, and process in a Boiling-Water Bath (212 F/100 C) for 10 minutes (or longer if you are above 3000 feet; check a reliable source for correct processing times) after the water in the canner returns to boiling.  Remove jars, complete seals if necessary.  Makes 7 pints.
PS If you substitute GROUND cayenne pepper for the CRUSHED hot red pepper be sure to halve the amount of cayene:  Use only 1/8 t of cayenne to each jar.  Wait at least two weeks for these beans to develop their flavor.

If you give this a try, please let me know how you like them. I would love to hear from you!!!!

Indian summer

Good morning!  Or afternoon ----- I am a little late posting this week, and I know I missed last Monday altogether; it has been very busy around here.  The plan this morning was to grab a cup of coffee and sit outside to watch the sun rise.  That was the plan anyway, until I actually went outside.  COLD!!!  I came back in to check the temp and it read 34 degrees!!!!  This caught me by surprise as I have not been monitoring the weather reports; but it is, after all, September.  Keeping an eye on weather predictions will have to become routine now in order to cover everything in the garden on that one killer night we usually get.  It will extend our harvest by quite a bit.  Seems like most years we get one good freeze that kills everything and then it warms back up. So I am still hoping for an Indian summer because I am so not ready for winter. Fall is such a beautiful time of the year and I love it, but this year I am yearning for as much summer as possible.  I looked up the meaning of Indian summer and it was explained as 

1.A period of mild weather occurring in late autumn.  (YEAH!!!!!)

2.A pleasant, tranquil, or flourishing period occurring near the end of something: the Indian summer of the administration   (ooooooh, this begs for a comment, but I will refrain :-)   
 
I froze corn and canned some "Dilly" beans (pickled green beans) yesterday.  The previous week I picked jalapeno peppers and bells and got them sliced or diced and frozen.  Wood stacked, lawns mowed. Scurrying around like a squirrel getting ready for winter.  I am beginning to ramble so I will leave you with this picture of some of the produce from my veggie patch.  Have a fabulous week!!!!
 

The hot "Dog Days" of Summer

The dog days of summer......
 I posted this on http://www.paperkissesandinkywishes.com/ but thought I would post it here also in case you missed it. I love finding out the origins of old sayings and such, so I hope you do not mind indulging me.
The dog days of summer is a phrase I have heard many,many times and I wanted to find out what it actually meant. I worked a little research time into my schedule and thought you might like to know what I found

The “dog days of summer” occur during the hottest and muggiest part of the season --- no surprise there, right?  Webster defines “dog days” as...
1 : the period between early July and early September when the hot sultry weather of summer usually occurs in the northern hemisphere.

2 : a period of stagnation or inactivity.

But where does the term come from? Why do we call the hot, sultry days of summer “dog days?”
In ancient times, when the night sky was unobscured by artificial lights and smog, different groups of peoples in different parts of the world drew images in the sky by “connecting the dots” of stars. The images drawn were dependent upon the culture: The Chinese saw different images than the Native Americans, who saw different pictures than the Europeans. These star pictures are now called constellations, and the constellations that are now mapped out in the sky come from our European ancestors.

They saw images of bears, (Ursa Major and Ursa Minor), twins, (Gemini), a bull, (Taurus), and others, including dogs, (Canis Major and Canis Minor). The brightest of the stars in Canis Major (the big dog) is Sirius, which also happens to be the brightest star in the night sky. In fact, it is so bright that the ancient Romans thought that the earth received heat from it. In the summer, however, Sirius, the “dog star,” rises and sets with the sun. During late July Sirius is in conjunction with the sun, and the ancients believed that its heat added to the heat of the sun, creating a stretch of hot and sultry weather. They named this period of time, from 20 days before the conjunction to 20 days after, “dog days” after the dog star.
 
So the earth isn't flat and Sirius doesn't provide any heat to our planet; but we still use the saying "the dog days of summer".  Interesting, huh? Where did the term "Indian summer" come from? I'm gonna find out and I will share.
 
Until next time............Have a great week and thanks so much for stopping by.

Spray starch

Good morning! I trust you had a fabulous weekend and are enjoying some wonderful weather.  A very short post today, but hopefully with a tip you can use.

Today I want to tell you how to make your own spray starch.  Now I know a lot of people do not use starch any longer.  Heck , most of us probably don't even IRON any more, but there are occasions when we do have to iron something and nothing makes that job a little easier and the results a little prettier than a bit of starch.  So let's get to it!  The recipe couldn't be simpler.

To a quality empty spray bottle add the following and shake vigorously:

1 heaping teaspoon of cornstarch
1 pint cold water
1-2 drops essential oil (optional)
The essential oil is not essential to this formula, but boy-oh-boy does it make whatever you are ironing smell terrific!!  Keep in mind that you will have to shake your spray starch  frequently to keep the cornstarch suspended in the water, but heck, that's a small price to pay for this money saver.

Thanks so much for stopping by Two Dogs.  Enjoy your week --- summer is rapidly going by so I hope you get to enjoy some fun in the sun and make some memories.

Weed killer

Summer is marching on and so are the weeds.  Ever think you are losing the battle?  I sure do.  And I hate using Round Up or other weed killers.  I feel they aren't good for the environment regardless of what the label says and I don't want my grand kids or my dogs around the stuff.  Let me introduce you to some homemade stuff that works just as well.  Actually, you will see a faster kill with this stuff than Round Up.  I have used it on weeds that were dead within two hours of application.  The recipe:

1 gallon of  vinegar (the higher the acid content the better, so check the labels)
1 cup of salt
a few drops of dish detergent (this keeps the solution on the plant)

Mix well and put it in one of those sprayers made for applying week killer/fertilizers. ( you should have two sprayers --- one for weed killer and one for fertilizers ------ you don't want to use the same sprayer for both.  )   Apply the solution liberally to your weeds.  There are other methods that work better for larger areas, and I will be reporting on one here in a week or so, but this works great for application where you need to be pretty precise.  The battle against weeds needs a lot of ammunition in our arsenals.  I leave with another picture of one of the flowers in my garden.  Thank you so much for stopping by Two Dogs and I hope you have a fabulous week!

Poppies that were blooming just a couple of weeks ago.  With all the rain we had in the spring, I had these beauties everywhere!

Moles.................

I have had a tremendous problem with moles.  They have devastated my garden (so far my precious tomatoes have survived the onslaught) destroying my pea patch, my lettuces, and are working hard on everything else.  The green beans and the cucumbers are doing OK, so far, as I planted them along the fence and inside open-ended gallon tin cans.  I think the only reason they are making it is because Mr. Mole doesn't have a clear path in which to burrow and those cans are confusing him.  Maybe. 
Anywho, I called our local county agricultural agent and asked him a few questions.  Do those little windmills that you place in the ground and vibrate when the wind blows keep moles away?  In a word, no.  He also said that trying to drown them by placing a hose down the tunnels doesn't work either.  My idea of hooking up a hose to my car's exhaust and gassing them with carbon monoxide brought a chuckle from him, and he said nothing really works except trapping them.  Yuck. He said moles make extensive tunnels over a 1/4 acre area and are capable of digging 60 -80 feet an hour.  Holy cats! No wonder water and gas don't have much of a success rate.  His suggestion was a trap called ---- are you ready for this? ---------- the moleinator. Such a cheesy name, but he said it works very well.

No one here locally carried them so I was forced to shop online  (oh darn) and found one on Amazon.  The trick to capturing the mole, I am told, is finding a newly made tunnel, stamping it down, then setting the trap over the ruined tunnel.  When Mr. Mole comes back through checking his network of tunnels, he comes to the ruined tunnel and begins to re-open it. As he burrows through the collapsed tunnel and into the center of the trap, SNAAAAP! He meets his maker.  So this week will be the testing of the Moleinator.  I shall keep you posted.  Thanks for stopping by Two Dogs.  Have a fabulous week.