It was a week of lots of eating lots of fresh pico de gallo, canning corn relish, helping our friend Steffan prepare for his outdoor wedding here next month, and finally completing the new velociraptor cage all around the processing area, to keep the chickens from strolling in and hanging out.

It was also a week of strange and amusing critter happenings.

First something was screaming horribly in the woods in the late evening and early morning hours. Like, loud terrible repeated shrieks of utmost dismay … which turned out to be a hunter using an app that plays sounds designed to draw in predators, like the coyotes he was hunting.

Then there was the creature that haunted the Fish House – the repurposed ice fishing shed that WWOOFer Jenny has been staying in. Something was inside the wood stove in the middle of the night, scratching and scrambling and being terrifying. When we came to investigate, there was nothing to be found … well, nothing alive. There was however, a flat, mummified, long-dead flying squirrel preserved in the ashes.

We told her not to worry, it was just the ghost of the squirrel and he couldn’t hurt her. Of course, the sound came back a couple hours later, and she spent the night in her car. Then next night, it returned, so she opened the woodstove … and a quite- alive flying squirrel came ambling out into her cabin.

Eventually, it went out the door, and eventually, she got back to sleep.

Inside Box 11

• Hot & Sweet Peppers – hot peppers are either cayenne or jalepeno. Sweet peppers are a mix of other peppers – all larger than the hots.
• Sweet Corn
• a Melon! – a magical blend of fate and free has brought you either a watermelon, Crenshaw melon, or Musk melon.

• Tomatoes – they are definitely slowing down lately, and getting less perfect as the season slides down further from summer;s pinnacle, starting the descent into autumn. We have many more ugly ones now for saucing and salsas … and fresh pico on everything.

• Basil: (either full-size or micro-greens) – “Don’t put them in the fridge,” he repeated, again.
• Cucumbers – maybe slowing down
• Zucchini – not slowing down
• Cherry Tomatoes – hitting their stride in the field!

• Sweet Onions
• Shallots
• Micro-Greens (either radish, kale, or amaranth)

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