Saturday, August 18, 2007

The corn harvest!!!!

My square meter corn patch has finally ripened. This weekend I'm home in PA harvesting the fine corn. After some inspection it appears that heirloom corn looks a bit different from regular genetically modified corn. For one thing, no two ears are of the same size. Upon closer inspection it looks like as if even individual kernels on the same ear are differently sized. As I worked in the garden picking beans and corn, I noticed the appearance of a familiar and much detested character. There is this squirrel in my back yard, a scruffy looking thing. He's slender, gray, and has an unusually thin tail. I had already lost several beefsteaks and some corn to this tree rat, and now he's back for more. So I decided to tip toe back to the garage, where I strung up my long bow, and tip-toed back ready for action.

And there he was, sinking his teeth into a small ripening tomato. I tried to get as close as possible but it wasn't long before he saw me. So there I was, being stared at by the critter. So I promptly notched a blunt arrow that I made, drew, took aim, loosed....and MISSED!!!! The squirrel scurried up my neighbor's fence, hopped a few meters and disappeared up a tree. My arrow had lodged itself between the wooden planks of my neighbor's fence. There has to be a better way to take out this villein. In any case, about 20lbs of corn was harvested. 3 ears had suffered some squirrel damage but not too severe. The yield for corn per unit of cultivated area seems to be substantially lower than the yield for potatoes.

Aside from the corn, the beans and tomatoes continued to yield. I picked up 2 tomatos(1 lb) and 4 lbs of pole beans. The onions should be ready for another cutting next week it seems.









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