Friday Nite Check In

 Well..., I promised to post some more potato pictures for you this week in my piece last week.  I hope I don't overdose you 😉  I started harvesting the second row early this week..., I would have preferred to wait a bit longer to let the skins toughen up a little..., but the weather forecast for later in the week and beyond induced me to get busy in the dry dirt instead of the mud..., and I am glad I did.  We got about half an inch of rain on Thursday..., it kind of drizzled all day long and I even wussed out on the dog shit and horse manure chores and Charlie Horse Playpen duties.  Today we got 1.1 inches of rain before noon..., but it turned off nice and even sunny in the afternoon..., so did double duty on the outdoor chores..., and I decided to hold off on sacking up the spuds until tomorrow 😁.   These are the dandies from the first days diggings that I will save for seed potatoes.

They can't all be seed potato size and quality..., but there are a few here that wouldn't fit on the Ridge Runner Warming Table for the first picture.

The second days harvest produced lots more of those seed potatoes...,

Once again..., there just wasn't enough room on the Ridge Runner Warming Table for all the seed potatoes..., and they can't all be big spuds.

I got this shot of The Garden before I dug up the last few plant hills at the end of the second row..., it is gone now..., and the results are pictured below.

Here's the last batch of the season..., still a little damp from the washing process..., about average for one five gallon bucket for the day.  The previous two days were two bucket days..., and I am happy have the harvest completed before the monsoon season hits.  In the early years I had waited to harvest until the first killing frost had killed back the green plants because I had read that somewhere..., but that made for some muddy harvests and I don't think it made any better spuds than I get with the earlier harvests.

https://scottrthequillayutecowboy.blogspot.com/search?q=killing+frost

I noticed that I must have been in a hurry last week..., and neglected to post a Friday Nite Music Video.  This week I was thinking of a song that I had posted long ago on Facebook..., and low and behold my Google News Feed posted a link to a story about the artist that sang the song that was written by Neil Young.  A sad story of a gal who passed away way too early..., Nicolette Larson.

https://parade.com/entertainment/beloved-70s-singer-who-sang-with-linda-ronstadt-and-neil-young-was-all-but-forgotten-after-her-death-at-45

There is a link in the story to a YouTube video of the song..., but I will link to it here as well..., I am not sure how long the Google link will be available to view.

Friday Nite Check In

 

That's a load of limbs from Dave Soha's property across the road from The Ranch getting ready to head on down our driveway.  I had previously written about hauling a few loads of limbs from the tree you can that is trimmed up.  Those limbs were blocking the road and I thought it was a good idea to lend a neighborly hand..., I mentioned that I could use the limbs to shore up the cut bank on south side of the property above the county road that was slowly sloughing off...,

 https://scottrthequillayutecowboy.blogspot.com/2026/06/friday-nite-check-in_0285770381.html

And I also wrote about depositing some of my own limbs over the eroding bank...,

https://scottrthequillayutecowboy.blogspot.com/2026/07/friday-nite-check-in_030836265.html

Not only that..., about a year ago I trimmed up some apple trees and made some major deposits over the bank...,

https://scottrthequillayutecowboy.blogspot.com/2025/08/friday-nite-check-in_8.html

So when Dave took down another hazard tree back behind the old house, he offered to haul some of the limbs over in his big dump trailer..., and I told him to, "Go ahead on 'er!".

Once you get through the brushy and narrow part of the driveway...,

There is a bit more area for maneuverability.

Since I had been making deposits along one portion of the bank already..., it was built up enough that the dump trailer would leave a portion of the load up on level ground..., but I had the chain saw handy and could munch up the limbs into sizes that I could pitch further over the bank.

That wasn't a problem with the next two loads..., I had cut down the berry bushes further along the bank where that hadn't been any prior deposits...,

Yeah..., both of those loads disappeared with no help from me..., or the chain saw 👍

I was feeling pretty frisky after getting away with no work for me on the last two loads..., that in a fit of "temporary" (I hope) insanity..., I had Dave dump the last load up on the other end where I could chunk it up and throw it over in areas where we can't get the trailer.  And in the interest of full disclosure..., I wasn't feeling quite frisky enough to tackle that pile until the next day 😊

I promised to let you know how the last row of taters were looking in last weeks post..., I dug about half a dozen hills and couldn't be more please with the results..., but I better save the pictures for next weeks post..., I should be recovered sufficiently from the "limbing" by then to get some more digging done..., 

Friday Nite Check In

 In the comments last week I mentioned that the elk used to help me clean up the apples before the neighbors put in the campground / RV park in the upper left of this picture.

Here's a little closer look.  These photos were taken on 9/12/16..., ten years ago..., and it was just about the last time they paid us a visit.  They were getting the easy to reach apples in this photo session..., at other times they would rear up on their hind legs to reach the upper level apples.  I have to admit that they could be kind of hard on the fences.  There used to be about a four foot walk through swing gate between a couple of railroad ties that I used for corner posts in the pastures..., but the herd got spooked one time and took out one of the railroad ties trying to crowd through the open gate.  Another time the herd was leaving the pastures and one cow didn't quite clear the top wire with it's hind legs and those legs caught the next lower wire and scissored her legs between the two wires.  I watched her struggle on her side to free herself for a minute or two and decided that I was going to have to go up and cut some wire to free her.  I didn't have to get too close before she really panicked and kicked her way free.

In more recent news..., "my" heron was back for a visit today.  I tried to get to the camera while he was still in full view on the edge of the pond..., but I am old and slow these days..., and he was in the pond before I got it.  You can just see his head sticking up..., eyeing the big multicolored duck.

I am still waiting for the potato skins to toughen up at bit before I dive into the dirt of the last row of spuds..., the green stocks were cut back a week ago..., I will check out the progress before my next dispatch and let you know if I am going full bore on the harvest.

For your Friday Nite Music Video I was thinking that I should post a record setting number one country song called "Choosin' Texas" by Ella Langley..., but after listening and watching the video I kind of wondered why it was such a big hit?  But the lyrics "He always loved "Amarillo by Morning"..., made me think of that song..., and that it is a much better song..., by many orders of magnitude..., so here's George Strait.  In the interest of full disclosure..., I posted this song once before..., and noted that I would change one word in the song..., he says, "I lost a wife and a girlfriend somewhere along the way".  I would change "girlfriend" to "best friend"..., it would lend a bit of ambiguity to the song..., does he mean that he thought of his wife as his best friend..., or did he lose his wife to a man he once considered his best friend?

Friday Nite Check In

Busy week on The Ranch..., I had cut the green stalks back on the first row in The Potato Garden a week ago and hadn't planned on digging up the spuds for another week..., but the weather forecast was for some significant rainfall later in the week..., so I harvested that row on Monday and Tuesday.  I figured that since I would be eating them regularly instead of keeping them for long term storage as usual, that they would keep well enough..., and I kind of acquired a taste for those thin skinned beauties that I had harvested a while back.  I have also already started the compost piles to cover that old row.  I will cut back the second row green stocks this coming week and dig them up after a couple more weeks for the long term storage crop.

I separated out these larger, well formed potatoes for seed potatoes..., just in case the second row doesn't produce enough of the seed quality spuds that I will need for next years crop.  I secretly hope that there are plenty more seed potatoes to come..., and I get to eat these honkers 👍.

I guess they can't all be seed quality..., here are the other extremes.  Those ugly conglomerates are actually good eaters and are like three or four spuds in one..., maybe I should be using them for seed potatoes?  There is another batch of the small ones that I like for making potato salad and a generous proportion of medium sized spuds that aren't pictured.  I can hardly wait until I can start digging in the dirt again on that second row to see what I come up with.

Along with the rainfall prediction..., a wind warning was issued for 40 mph winds.  I was afraid that there would be a scene even worse than the picture above..., around two more larger  apple trees.  I figured that I would rather climb the ladder and rake as many apples as I could reach off the trees in the nice weather rather than wait of the wind and the rain and battle Charlie Horse for possession of the apples.  I fenced him in The Barnyard and got to work.  I am glad I did..., well..., now that it is over..., but I wasn't so glad when I was doing it.  It turned into way more work than I had anticipated..., those apple trees are LOADED this year.

I tried to count up the number of feed sacks that I filled with apples..., but I ran out of fingers...,and still had four more bags left over.  They pretty much filled up the bed of the Tacoma for the Scotty Green Appleseed delivery service.  I am glad that the winds that were predicted failed to materialize..., I was completely out of feed sacks..., but hope to have more on hand when the real wind and rainy season commences and all those apples that were too high and out of reach of the ladder and the rake start falling to the ground.  We did get some much need rain..., around two and a half inches in a couple of days.  It hasn't healed up the brown spots in The Pastures yet..., but it did overfill The Little Pond and clear out the green algae scum that was floating atop it.

After this busy working week I am looking forward to an easy weekend..., because right now I feel like I am Running on Empty...,