Hello!
This week we spent time weeding and feeding the high bush blueberries. Harvested the sunflowers, the handful the deer didn’t eat. Chose to harvest the cannabis plants out of the greenhouse. I was unsure of what the hurricane winds would be like and didn’t want to risk possible loss. The storm thankfully ended up being just another day with small gusts of wind. I sprinkled spinach seeds in the greenhouse with hopes of it growing and being harvested through the winter.
This Tuesday I plan to sow more spinach, kale, cilantro, lettuce, and radishes in the green house. The seedlings of kale, cabbage, and broccoli will go in the ground replacing what was harvested out of the greenhouse. Planning to thin the carrots and weed and feed the raspberry patch. Sowed a cover crop of peas and oats in the garden next to the house. I’ll likely be chasing the turkeys out of there all week.
The freeze dry machines has gotten a lot of action this week too. Experimented with tomatoes. They did well! I haven’t tried to eat them or cook with them. I was very lucky to receive two 5 gallon buckets over flowing with Granny Smith apples from a local land owner. I sliced them up, soaked them in a brine of honey and salt for 24 hours, froze them, and then ran them through the freeze dry machine. They are soooo good!! Sometime in October I want to have a freeze dry sample party. Keep on the look out for that date!
Volunteer hours are different this week due to the Common ground fair and other camping adventures. Please let me know if we should expect you. No Friday Tea Time.
Wednesday 4:00-sunset
Thursday 9:00 am-11:00 am, 4:00 pm-Sunset
Sunday 9:00 am-11:00 am, 4:00 pm-Sunset
Astronomy
-Neptune can be seen a couple hours after sunset. Look slightly above the southeast horizon towards the constellation Pices.
-Venus is visible a few hours before sunrise. Look at the constellation Cancer in the southeast sky. Mercury will also be visible in the East. It can be found in the constellation Leo. Between these two one can find Regulus, Leo’s brightest star.
-Early September 18th, at about 12:30am, fix your telescope on Jupiter. You can find it in the Southeastern part of the constellation Aries. Look to the East, high in the sky. Ganymede, the largest moon in our Solar system, can be seen playing peekaboo behind Jupiter’s rings. The moon will be moving from the west to the northern part of the planet than to the East. As the predawn hours approach, the moon Io’s (contains the most volcanos in our solar system), shadow will appear in the East and pass over Ganymede. May or may not be visible due to the Sunrise.
-From midnight to predawn you can view the comet Hartley 2 high in the Northeast sky with a telescope. This area of the sky houses the constellation Auriga. The brightest stars to identify with the naked eye in this constellation are Eta Aurigae and Capella. Hartley 2 can be found just south of these bright stars. The comet will become brighter through this month.
-The Dumbbell Nebula (an old star dispersing and lighting up its gas) is visible in the southern sky late into the evening. Search for the constellation Vulpecula the Fox. The bright star you should search for is 13 Vulpeculae. Look just little to the southeast and you can find the nebula with a scope or binoculars.
-Friday afternoon the moon will be First Quarter. The night before it can be seen an hour after sunset in the South. Scan the sky westward and there is the constellation Scorpius. The focal star of the scorpion is Antares. This star is classified as a red giant. It is so massive that it burns through all its hydrogen and turns to its oxygen, helium, and carbon for fuel.
Space Flight News
-The Russian Soyuz capsule carrying 3 astronauts made it safely to the International Space Station.
-The company Rocket Lab in New Zealand scheduled to launch 4 Earth-Imaging satellites on an Electron rocket.
-SpaceX Falcon 9 plans to deploy 2 batches or Starlink sats.
