This years Garlic Harvest

Decided to harvest our garlic crop.  We ended up with about 300 bulbs mostly soft neck and 1 variety of hard-neck.  Soft-neck lasts longer and has smaller cloves, the hard neck has the garlic scapes, doesn't last as long but is great for baked garlic because it has only 4-5 large cloves.  Drying them inside on the fireplace mantle.

This was a test pull a week ago to see if they were ready. This is a hard neck variety

300 bulbs drying on the fireplace mantle.

Can't wait to start eating them, Friend & family will a get a package in the mail!

Eastern Phoebe Birds in the Garage - 3rd Straight Year

For three years in a row, these birds have built their nest and hatched a family in our garage. Each year they add on to the nest making it bigger. I can't go fishing any more!  I had though they were barn Swallows, but after extensive research Elly found out that they are Easter Phoebes

Eastern Phoebes learning to fly. Mom shows baby how to fly and then the baby tries it for herself. Really Cool! This is in my garage and has gone on for 3 years now. I think they may be leaving us soon!

 

 Some close-up pictures.

 A few weeks after this family moved out of the nest, another family moved in after adding to the nest again.  At fist we thought that this family had "sub-let" the nest to another couple.  But our research showed that it was the same couple that came back to raise a second family.  It seems that the Eastern Phoebe has two broods each year. Cool!
 

Posting Again after a long Hiatus

Haven't posted here in a while, over a year ago.  Time to start posting again. I got wrapped up in Facebook, but would like to continue this blog.

We survived the winter and made it to the Spring

 
During the winter Our backyard seemed to become the feeding ground for lots of wild turkeys.

Now they are all gone except two lonely males. The large male and the females are probably tending to the babies now.  Maybe they will show up with the babies in tow soon.

 Our garlic garden is doing quite well with 6 different varieties of garlic (1 hard-neck and 5 soft neck).  They were planted in October and should be ready for harvesting in the next few weeks.