Lehman's Country Life

Autumn is a busy season of squirreling away the garden’s bounty for winter nourishment. These days it seems that every waking moment is consumed by picking, preparing or preserving food. However, to be honest, standing over a hot stove is not my favorite place to be when the weather is gorgeous outdoors. So although we do have plenty of beans in the freezer and tomatoes on the canning shelves, I am also contributing to our winter food storage by doing more planting in the garden.

A number of years back I purchased Eliot Coleman’s book “Four Season Harvest” from Lehman’s, and it has transformed our winter food plan. Eliot is an innovative organic gardener from Maine who runs his gourmet salad business during the winter months using various cold frames and high tunnels. I decided that if he can do it in Maine, I can surely do it in Ohio and the past seven years our family has eaten fresh salad greens all winter long out of my cold frames.
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Well, college is as stressful for me as it’s ever been, but I’m still finding time to keep ahead of my garden. Several days ago, I had my first of (hopefully) many tomatoes, and just yesterday I had my first three green beans – everything has been delicious!

I’ve learned some things, though, too. For instance, a) that tomatoes need pruned, and b) that there is such a thing as loving a cucumber plant to death. For the tomato pruning, it turns out that anything that is dead or dying should be removed. One of my friends advised me to simply lop off a particularly tall shoot. However, it is better to instead cut off any leaves that are near the bottom, and don’t have a chance of getting to the light. By removing these and also the dead leaves, the energy distribution of the tomato plant is more efficient – less energy is wasted on leaves that are dying.
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Curiosity Kitten and the Donkey, by Brigit, age 10

The annual cycle of transition from summer to fall is upon us and everything seems different. Many things change, but much remains the same. I used to tell people, “The only thing you can count on in life is that it changes.” But farm life is a good lesson in the cyclical nature of everything.

Here’s my list of the top three things that stay the same:
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Following are Prevention Tips to minimize getting H1N1 (Swine Flu)…

Dr. Vinay Goyal is an MBBS,DRM,DNB  (Intensivist and Thyroid specialist) having clinical experience of over 20 years. He has worked in institutions like Hinduja Hospital, Bombay Hospital,  Saifee Hospital, Tata Memorial etc. Presently, he is heading the Nuclear Medicine Department and Thyroid clinic at Riddhivinayak Cardiac and Critical Centre, Malad (W). The following is a message given by him:
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The wire skeletons of old lampshades can be transformed into olive oil chandeliers using common canning jars.

Monday, Sept. 7, 2009
United Feature Syndicate

MARYJANE’S EVERYDAY ORGANIC

There’s something about gazing up into a starry night sky that is deeply soul stirring. The sight of all that infinite diamond-studded darkness has the power to erase the trappings of modern life, bringing us back to a more primal part of ourselves, a part that is still exuberantly wild.

Not so long ago, you could simply drive a few miles out of town after dark and find nighttime as nature intended it — silent shadows draping the landscape, a black canopy of limitless stars arching overhead.
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If I had only one word to describe the end of summer it would be “rollercoaster.”  The good, the bad and the ridiculous all seemed to converge at my house, and as the Labor Day weekend drew the summer season to a close, I found I had a surprising capacity for enjoying even the less-than-great times that August-into-September brought.

Among the blessings that went above and beyond anything I could have imagined was when the same friend from work who had come and bush-hogged my land a couple of weeks ago, showed up with a friend of his who’s a skilled mechanic, and the two of them loaded up and took custody of my tractor.  It was hauled it off to the Barn of Generous, Skilled Mechanics, and returned a week later running like a top, with the only “invoice” a muttered estimate for parts alone, that I can cover with a bit under half the money in my Tractor Maintenance fund.

To paraphrase one of my favorite radio financial advisors who says that “goals are dreams that show up in work clothes,” sometimes angels show up in jeans and sweaty T-shirts.
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Fall is on its way and school is back in session. Keeping school papers and other household paper work organized is a challenge.  I myself have already misplaced papers that my daughter needed for school. There are many options out there to help keep us organized but many just look boring or utilitarian (and some cost a small fortune). A simple paper box that you design and create yourself can be an excellent way to store important papers in one place and show your personality at the same time.

Gather all of your supplies together before you begin. You will need: heavyweight drawing paper, cut into one 10 5/8-inch square and one 11-inch square; scissors; Crayons or markers; glitter glue, stickers or stamps; Paints and brushes.
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Many of us have fruit trees in our landscape.  They may be there for pleasure or profit.  On our farm we have a small cluster of different fruit trees – mostly for the fruit and spring flower enjoyment.  This year is the first that I have had to deal with bark damage on our trees.  Your first thought might go to deer peeling the bark which is a common problem.  Mine was less expected – our newly acquired dairy goat Mocha got out and has a great love for anything apple.  She has done some major bark peeling (check out the photos).

So I have had to do some learning about how to treat my damaged apple trees and wanted to share what I have learned with you.  I hope it helps others who also must now repair bark damage, done by deer, goats or whoever.
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Webworms at work in my apple tree. (Click on the photo if you

Webworms are bad this year in our part of Ohio. I’m not sure where they come from or what their purpose in life is, but wherever they build their webs, the leaves die. And this year, I’m seeing them everywhere. Along the roads, in ornamental trees and, most tragic of all, in my fruit trees.

I’ve heard you can control them with Malathion or sevin, but I always prefer and believe in natural solutions, if possible. The “natural solution” for webworms is to cut them out of the tree and burn them. That’s always been my choice. (Webworms can also be controlled with dormant oil spray, usually considered gentle on the environment. But, that must be applied in the Spring before they emerge.)

This year, I was faced with an ethical struggle of mythical proportions in
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Hi there! My name is Matt Lehman. Some of you may have read the blog article I wrote while fulfilling an internship. Since then, times have changed, and I now find myself at college once again. As many of you might have read in my dad’s blog posting, I brought a small square foot garden out with me to college this year, in an attempt to grow my own vegetables year around.

Two weeks into college, the garden seems to be doing remarkably well. Sadly, I had to replant my cucumbers, as the small sprout that grew on my way out to college suddenly broke off at a single touch (oops). My green beans and tomatoes, however, are thriving. The joyous moment of my day was that, while watering, I discovered that one of my green cherry tomatoes had turned a light shade of greenish-orange, practically overnight!

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