Sept 11, 2002

Hello farmers. Today is the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks. The memorial services were very moving, sad, inspiring, and the event is still just unbelievable. I hope America understands what an enemy with no conscience is capable of, and I am sure this was just the beginning. We can't let them win. We need to fight to keep the freedoms our patriots and others since them fought for, otherwise all our wars have been for nothing, lives lost for nothing.
Yesterday I got the last of the apricots canned, I had stored them in our spare referigerator to slow down the ripening and give myself some time. I've got more brocolli ready to be processed (it never seems to quit growing side shoots) and there seem to be a lot of beans ready to pick. I should also crawl around all the tomato plants and see what needs to be done there, probably I should pick and referigerate until there is enough for a canner load. So far the tomato production has been disappointing, I grew some romas, they are very small, and a roma type called Bellstar is also making very small fruits, not what I wanted for canning.
Early this morning, just after daylight we got ladders and a wide mouth jar and went collecting yellowjacket nests. These are the kind that are flat or slightly mounded and are made of gray paper. There were two under the woodshed roof, one under our back porch roof and one stuck to the side of the house up under the eave. Those were the easy ones. The challenging and biggest one was under the metal cover on the large propane tank, it was stuck to the pipe so after a good spray of raid it was knocked to the ground and stomped into mush. We had a cold night in our favor so the critters were very sluggish. No stings. No wonder we've been seeing a lot of yellowjackets this year.
Another yellowjacket project is getting the strawberry patch cleaned out. Those are a lot of fun. They go down underground next to the roots and into the mulch at night. The tools of this game are a quart jar 2/3 full of water with half an inch of salad oil floating on top, a pair of large needle nosed pliers, and steady nerves. Actually they are so interested in the sugar in the berries that they are not agressive. I catch them one at a time, dunk them into the oil and let go. They can't fly and they die quickly. So far I have about 2 inches of yellowjackets in the jar. I caught them while I was irrigating the garden and waiting for the water to get to the end of the rows. No stings there either. If I can find my bag of diamatacious earth I'll sprinkle some of that around the base of each plant. I put some undiluted frozen fruit punch in some mineral water bottles and set that in the pathway between rows, so a few of them have caught themselves. I think I need to make more of those.
Bullwinkle's pulled shoe was replaced today, and while I was in town I got some groceries, exchanged a pair of jeans and had lunch with my hubby. I hope my long legged, big footed horse will keep his feet out of the fence. We have nicknamed him Bozo because he is the one who also went over the fence 2 or 3 years ago and impaled himself on a metal t-post. Big owie but he managed to miss everything vital, including 3 months of the ride season. I felt lucky to have a live horse after that.
Have a great day everyone, count your blessings.