I Only Have Eyes For You

I was struggling on the title of today's post, but remembered that cool song by the Flamingos, "I only have eyes for you."  That has to be it, I thought.  A friend from church sent us a funny text that said, "Don't tell secrets in the garden.  The Potatoes have eyes, the corn has ears, and the beanstalk!"

We try to plant our potatoes around Valentine's Day each year.  That means you have to get busy beforehand.  I asked Tricia to go by the feed store and pick up 8 pounds of seed potatoes.  We like the LaSoda variety as it seems to do well in our growing zone.  Well, Tricia forgot.  When she went the next day, the feed store was already out!  The early bird gets the worm.  They were out the next week, too.  Finally, another shipment came in and Tricia came home with 8 pounds.  Now, you have a choice here.  These potatoes would be great boiled and buttered and topped with fresh parsley.  Why, I'd eat the whole pot.  But, delayed gratification is where it's at.  Patience is a virtue.

Later this spring, we'll weigh our harvest and will be able to determine if planting the potatoes versus eating them was a good investment.  Anything more than 8 pounds is good, but we're shooting for an abundant harvest.  We'll see how it goes...

The first step is to get out the pocketknife and quarter the potatoes, ensuring that you have eyes on each quarter.  Some of the seed potatoes were small, so I cut them in half or in thirds.

I arranged them cut-side up on trays and counted them.  Unfortunately, I lost count, but I'll count them again as I plant them.  It was over 110 pieces.  That's a lot of potato plants, if they all come up.

I then placed them out in the sun and wind and allowed the cut up potatoes to begin to heal, or as we call it, scab over.  This is an important step.  If not scabbed over, if you plant them, they are more likely to rot in the ground.

Since then, the weather has gotten cold and it's rained several times.  Being that it is so cold, the eyes on the potatoes haven't done any growing.  I think I'm going to put them in the warmest room in the house and see if we can't coax some growth.  When we plant, in a week or two, I'd like the eyes to show some more growth.

Fresh, new potatoes in the spring.  Looking forward to it!

Saturday is Potato Planting Day

"The same boiling water that softens potatoes hardens eggs.  It's all about what you're made of not your circumstances." 

I am looking forward to the weekend.  One more day.  I have big plans on Saturday.  I'm going to put some potatoes in the ground.  I've already checked the weather.  It looks like it will be cloudy, but I should be able to plant.  While Tricia was at the feed store picking up some Dairy Ration for the cows, she purchased some seed potatoes for me.  These are the LaSoda variety.

A week before planting I always cut them up and let them "scab" over to keep them from rotting in the ground.

Some planting guides tell you that you can plant the potatoes whole.  You certainly can, but I like to cut the potatoes into chunks with each chunk having an eye.  Each eye will grow a potato plant.

The eyes have it!

But those aren't our only seed potatoes.  Check out what's in the bucket!

That is a wild looking sight!  What is it, you ask?  Those are some potatoes we grew in the Spring of 2018 and harvested in May.  We kept some small ones and rather than rotting, they sprouted.  Since May they've patiently waited to be put in the ground.  Saturday, their wait will be over.

Last year the feed store was out of La Soda potatoes.  These are Pontiac potatoes.  They'll do just fine.  I found that they didn't produce quite as much in yield as the La Sodas, but that's okay.  For these, I won't cut them up.  They are all shriveled up, but they have lots of sprouts and a real will to survive.

I read an inspiring story from HERE about an egg, a potato, and some coffee.  I'll post it here:

Once upon a time, a daughter complained to her father that her life was miserable and that she didn’t know how she was going to make it. She was tired of fighting and struggling all the time. It seemed just as one problem was solved, another one soon followed. Her father, a chef, took her to the kitchen. He filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire.

Once the three pots began to boil, he placed potatoes in one pot, eggs in the second pot and ground coffee beans in the third pot. He then let them sit and boil, without saying a word to his daughter. The daughter moaned and impatiently waited, wondering what he was doing. After twenty minutes he turned off the burners. He took the potatoes out of the pot and placed them in a bowl. He pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. He then ladled the coffee out and placed it in a cup.

Turning to her, he asked. “Daughter, what do you see?” “Potatoes, eggs and coffee,” she hastily replied.

“Look closer”, he said, “and touch the potatoes.” She did and noted that they were soft.

He then asked her to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard-boiled egg.

Finally, he asked her to sip the coffee. Its rich aroma brought a smile to her face.

“Father, what does this mean?” she asked.

He then explained that the potatoes, the eggs and coffee beans had each faced the same adversity-the boiling water. However, each one reacted differently. The potato went in strong, hard and unrelenting, but in boiling water, it became soft and weak. The egg was fragile, with the thin outer shell protecting its liquid interior until it was put in the boiling water. Then the inside of the egg became hard. However, the ground coffee beans were unique. After they were exposed to the boiling water, they changed the water and created something new.

“Which one are you?” he asked his daughter. “When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a potato, an egg, or a coffee bean?”

Moral: In life, things happen around us, things happen to us, but the only thing that truly matters is how you choose to react to it and what you make out of it. Life is all about leaning, adopting and converting all the struggles that we experience into something positive.

Keeping an Eye on Annie

We've kept Annie in her labor and delivery birthing suite (i.e. the barn) for over a week now as we have wanted to keep her out of the miserable weather.  Her due date is somewhere around February 20th.  She's been warm and dry in the barn.  Yesterday Tricia and I wanted to check on her progress.  She seems to be very swollen in her back end and her teats are swollen as well.  She's getting close.  In fact, Tricia and I listened as she sat and moaned.  We were thinking that she was going into labor, but as of this morning, no kids.

While we are talking about goats, I wanted to show you something that is truly interesting about goats - their eyes!  Check out this close-up of Annie's pupils.  They are rectangular!

In the animal kingdom, sheep, goats, and some other animals, have rectangular pupils.  Goats are seen as prey (as opposed to predators).  They are herbivores.  Predators (cats, snakes, alligators) have vertical slits for pupils .  The goats' rectangular pupils allow them to see 280 degrees around them, and that allows them to see predators coming and keeps them safe.  However, they don't have much vision vertically.

Annie will undoubtedly make use of her ability to see 280 degrees around her when she has given birth and has to keep track of at least one more baby.  We'll keep you posted as she progresses in pregnancy.  We have our eyes on her and she's got her eyes on us.