Rotten bean row and making vanilla....and ducklings?

I think the solar flares got my wireless router because its been kinda funky. Hopefully its all fixed up. But I'm getting some quick notes in before it goes out again....

That's all there is to it - vodka and vanilla beans.

First, I'm starting a batch of home made vanilla. Vanilla - I know! How weird is that? Actually not so weird. Have you noticed how ridiculously expensive it is in the store now? So I'm taking evasive action. I found these directions here and they seem to be pretty consistent with a few other links I found. I had to make a slight alteration because the $13 I shelled out for Madagascar whole vanilla beans only bought me TWO.  So I used slightly less than 2 cups of vodka to accommodate the recommended 3 beans per 2 cups of booze. Its in a dark cupboard where it will be shaken every once in a while and will be ready in October. Until then I think I paid about $9 for my current store-bought bottle of vanilla.

Next - as for planting notes, I took all the over-ripe beans from our Horticulture Bean binge and planted them, shells and all next to the 4 new rows of fresh green beans in the square garden. If they don't sprout that's just fine, I'll just heavily mulch that row and call it a slow compost heap. I planted cylindrical beets on the other side of that raised row.

And here is a funny thing... this morning there was some mysterious peeping in the garage.... turns out my little milking helper micro duck hatched! This was quite a surprise because we got rid of our drakes a while ago.... hum...... I knew she had a nest but let her sit on what I thought we unfertilized eggs just to give her something to do (she's kind of a trouble maker)....and there you have it. There were at least 3 of the cutest little duckling ever this morning. Pix tomorrow, I'm sure.

So far its been quite a day. Hope the solar flares haven't wonked out your router like mine!

Happy Monday!

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