Unsettled Weather

It's been way too long since my last post so here's a few words to let y'all know we're still kicking.  It was a very busy time last October harvesting and putting up all the produce from the garden and finishing getting all the wood in and ready for the winter heating season.  More and more, it seems, I hunker down and hibernate during the winter, staying up late and sleeping in in the morning, which I did a lot of, but the winter was our most mild yet so lots of little things got done over the winter.

We expanded our garden area with another plot 50 ft. x 60 ft. for planting small blocks of sweet corn and some watermelons, cantaloupes, and sweet potatoes. I'm interested to see how our new plot produces.  I tilled the patch which was mixed fescue/clover pasture, but really only scratched it up, not completely turning over the soil and grass.  Next we laid down heavy weight weed blocking biodegradable organic paper and covered the entire plot with several inches of aged hardwood mulch.  We let that set over the winter and was ready to plant in this spring.

As I said, the winter was very mild overall with a very dry January and March with way below normal rainfall or snow, sandwiching a very warm February with lots of tropical rain, severe thunderstorms and an episode of tornado warnings.  We were well prepared for all this and were well ahead of last year in having the garden prepared and ready for spring planting.  Broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and onion seedlings all went in in mid March but needed lots of irrigation to thrive through the dry weather and get well established.  Direct sown spinach, beets and peas, did not do well with the dry weather, despite lots of irrigation and had to be replanted once conditions improved.  Direct sown carrots were a 50/50 proposition.  We planted two varieties side by side in 100 ft. long rows 1 ft. apart on the same raised ridge.  Both were newly purchased seed and one variety germinated well and is growing nicely and the other variety totally failed.  Bad seed ??

Kale seedlings were planted out in early April along with lettuce seedlings and finally tomato, pepper and eggplant seedlings were planted out at the end of April.  Lately it has been raining very frequently with lots of cloudy days.  Perfect for the broccoli and it's cousins..

So here we are in mid May and the garden is in full swing.  We are harvesting broccoli and the kale is ready to start picking.  The cabbages are heading up and the cauliflower is just beginning to head up too.  The 600 onions we planted (two 100 ft rows) are very well established and many have 7 leaves already, the tomatoes have nearly tripled in size since planting, the peppers are getting established nicely and the eggplants seem to be fairing OK against the usual onslaught of flea beetles.

The peas just don't seem to be roaring along as they did last year.... I don't know what's up with that.  I'm not expecting good yields and the spinach may run out of steam and not yield much either if the weather turns hot (which it will eventually).

We are attempting to grow three varieties of sweet corn with staggered planting dates so they don't cross pollinate.  When it was time to plant the first variety on May 1st the ground was so wet I had to plant in propagation trays and now need to transplant them into the garden plot now.  The second variety was also planted in propagation trays and are now germinating.  I need to plant the third variety in the propagation trays today.

Two varieties of watermelon and a variety of cantaloupe have sprouted in biodegradable paper pots I made from the weed block paper.  They will transplant well without disturbing the roots when they develop a couple of true leaves.  I "planted" a few sweet potatoes on their sides in a 10x20 tray, half covered with soil and watered liberally for a week weeks.  We now have dozens of large healthy sprouts that are ready to be cut and put into jars of water.  When they sprout roots from the stems in a few days the slips will be ready to plant out in the garden.  There are many different methods of growing sweet potato slips, but I like the method I use the best.

Our only real set back this winter/spring was the complete and utter failure of the hard drive in my Mac laptop.  Lost almost everything.  Not good about backing up.  I have a new PC laptop now.  I used to download images from my digital camera to the laptop with the memory card from the camera plugged into the SDHC card slot on the Mac.  No card slot on the PC laptop and I can't find the mini USB patch cord for the camera anywhere.  It will turn up immediately after I buy a new patch cord, of course, but meanwhile - no pictures with the blog posts.... sorry.  Too bad really because the garden looks awesome.

Is it Spring Yet?

There has been enough of this … it's not fun.

OK … some of it is fun

but when it's cold outside there is lots of this going on ….

Ah … but now this is happening ...

So … we are getting ready to, uh … sow

Now if only the ground would dry out enough to plant the early Spring broccoli, cabbage, onions, spinach and peas …

No doubt about it.  It's Spring!

THE GREAT WALL (of jars)

Next to the kitchen there is a laundry room <slash> pantry where we store most of our dry good groceries --  flour, bakery ingredients, canned goods, rice , beans, and so forth.  Part way through the gardening season and into the canning season we ran out of room.  In the dining area we built this wall of shelves to hold all our current and future stock of home canned produce.

Preserves, Hot Sauce, Chiles, Relish, Dill Pickles, Bread & Butter Pickles, Tomatoes, Tomato Sauce, Spaghetti Sauce, Tomatillo Salsa, Baked Beans, Summer Squash, Sun-Dried Tomatoes, Pumpkin, Green Chile Enchilda Sauce, Dried Sage, Marjoram, Oregano, Ancho Chile Powder, Dried Parsley, Dried Cilantro, Cayenne Pepper Flakes.  There is room for about 350 jars.  I don't think it will be enough next year.  We have frozen garden peas, green beans and Basil/Walnut Pesto too.

Halloween Pumpkins

I know,  I know..... I haven't posted much on the blog in recent months.  Busy, busy, busy.  Today is a dreary cold drizzly day - a good day for catching up with blog postings.

This year's pumpkin carving was a minor disaster.  Normally the pumpkins I buy for carving keep very well after carving, but this year they didn't.  The complicated carving takes a couple of hours or more for each pumpkin so I usually start a few days before Halloween.  Normally they still look nice and fresh on Halloween night.  I'm sure the very warm day time temperatures for several days before the 31st and the not very cold nights didn't help, but I also think it had something to do with the locally grown pumpkin varieties just not keeping as well as what I'm used to.

So that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.  Here is a photo of the only carved pumpkin worthy of posting.  It is, of course, the last pumpkin I carved on Halloween day, so it was fresh and not wilted.

Random Nature

There is something gratifying about coming across some random bit of the natural world on our property.  Bumble Bees buzzing in the squash blossoms,  a Preying Mantis perched on the string weaving in the tomato patch,  Wild roses blooming next to the road.  I always pause to admire.  I am NEVER in such a hurry to miss the opportunity to enjoy the natural world around me.  And it pleases me that the habitat right here in my yard supports a diversity of life.

Early morning dew on a clothes line spider web.  Made last night in the still air, it will be gone when mid morning breezes dry it out and blow it away.  She will make another tonight.

Little green frog on an Acorn squash leave - acting nonchalant while eying the squash bug.

Frog eggs (no relation to the little green frog) in the seep down by the back of the property.

Snake in the grass

This guy lives somewhere on the property, but I don't know where and probably will never find out.  It's a black snake, very common, very docile and very helpful at keeping the field mouse population in check. 

 

About 4 feet long, I see him every few days moving gracefully between the oak trees in front and on either side of the house.  I've never seen him in the back in the open areas.  If you walk up close to him he'll stop moving and if you then stand very still, he will eventually start moving again, usually a little closer to you to check you out and then move on going where snakes go to do what snakes do.

Springtime Buttercups

First it was the daffodils, then the Dogwoods bloomed.  Next came the violets, followed by the giant bed of Iris in the yard.  Now it's the Buttercups turn. The side yard and part of the pasture next door to the west are a carpet of the stunning bright flowers.  There are enough buttercups to hold under the chins of every man, woman and child in the county, at least.  Yes, they do prove that you like butter.

Remembering Paul

My dad, Paul Emile, passed away in 2006 at the age of 89.  Today would have been his 97th birthday - not an impossible milestone in his family.  His mother lived to be 106, his oldest sister, Juliet is still with us at 103 and his youngest sister, Germaine, is now, umm..... 94, I think.

I learned my love of nature, the outdoors and conservation from my dad.  He always dreamed of having a place in the countryside, a family retreat, where all could come for fun, relaxation, and as a permanent touchstone where family could gather, where we could be together.  He called it - the family compound.  I think he may have been dreaming of something more Hyannis and Kennedy-esque, but he did talk a lot about Alaska and researched log cabins and such.  He never did get to travel the length of the Alaska Highway.

I have never forgotten those philosophies of my dad.  They are part of me too.  This place - Reedy Branch Road - is in part, a fulfillment of my father's dream with some slant toward my vision of a country place.  But the essence is the same - a place to gather, to relax, to revel in the peace and companionship and embrace of friends and family.

Happy birthday, dad.

So that's an invitation.  Come.  The door is always open.

1985 - Meme's 100th birthday!  All the cousins of the next generation called the aunts & uncles "The Magnificent 7".  Pictured with Meme are her 6 surviving children at the time.  Front left - Roger.  Front right - Raymond.  Back row, left to right - Lillian, Juliet, Germaine, and my dad Paul.  Clare had passed away many years before.

Rocking Chairs

A month or so ago I needed to get a bent flange from my rototiller straightened at a machine shop.  A neighbor volunteered to take me to a fellow he knew who did such things in his machine shop on his farm.  Being much easier to show someone where something is located out in the country, rather than try to describe which country lane your supposed to turn down after crossing the "crick" past where the tobacco barn burned down back in '68 - we drove on over to James Prichette's place.  It turns out that Mr. James, who is in his 70's doesn't just dabble in his farm machine shop, he runs his shop as a business with a helper, Leroy,also in his 70's, doing quite an array of repair and modification on farm implements and fabrication of all sorts of widgets for all manner of things.  After straightening the flange in his arbor press while I waited and charging the absurdly trivial amount of $5.00 to do so, I mentioned that I grew up in and eventually worked in machine shops and loved the smell of machine oil and metal.  He asked if I like the smell of sawdust too and showed me his woodworking shop located in the other half of the machine shop building.  It reminded me of my Aunt Claire's cabinet making shop, full of large professional size woodworking equipment.  Mr Prichette had it all.

He showed me an unfinished rocking chair he had just completed but not stained or varnished yet and invited me to sit in it while he explained how most rocking chairs were not balanced properly.  They tipped too far forward and not backward far enough and you had to stop your forward motion with your feet and push off too much to rock backward.  This rocking chair was amazing!  At first it seemed like you might want to tip over backwards as the chair easily rocked back, but was actually no where near it's tipping point with plenty of rocker left to go before touching down on the floor.  The chair smoothly rocked forward naturally and all you had to do was barely exert a little push and back you rocked once again.  The curved seat bottom and the rounded arms were so comfortable.  SOLD!!
Mr. Prichette made me two matching rocking chairs and a matching porch swing from quarter sawn oak for our front porch.  These chairs are fabulous beyond words and we finish our day, every day, rocking on the front porch as the sun begins to set.  I don't know how the end of a day working on our little bit of paradise could be any better.  Oh yeah - a cold beer or glass of cold sweet tea does nicely.

Raccoon

Well - not really, but that is what I call this calf in the neighbor's pasture next door.  With her large black patches around her eyes she reminds me of a raccoon.  If the two black patches were joined together into a mask she would look more like a raccoon, but I would probably be calling her 'lone ranger'.  She is the only 'white face' calf among a herd of Angus cattle and is a bit ostracized by the other calves.  Like Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer - they don't always let her play in calf games.

Mowing

Coming out of winter the weather has been cool and wet, which means the lawn has been growing like, well - what it's mostly made of - weeds!  But it's not all bad.  The lawn behind the house erupted into a sea of violets.  Purple ones and white with purple centers.

I't hard to tell just how many tiny violets are in the grass, but there is about a 1/4 acre patch of clover, violets and lawn grass between the back of the house and the garden.  The chairs under the pecan tree are where we rest when working in the garden and enjoy looking over our little bit of heaven.

There - a close up of a couple of square feet of lawn.  Now that's a lot of violets!  But mow we must to keep control over the property or it will become a jungle and a spa resort for bugs which we don't want - especially ticks.

So we have a new toy.  A 24 horsepower 50"cut Cub Cadet lawn "tractor".  It's big enough and stout enough to mow the 2 1/2 acres we have, but is not really heavy enough or strong enough to be called a garden tractor or subcompact utility tractor.  It's really a very large riding lawn mower.  It should work nicely for us for mowing and hauling around anything with wheels, like a fertilizer spreader or large garden cart and the like.  For digging in the ground we have the BCS tiller.  In the background next to the pick up is the other new toy - a 5'x8' utility trailer for hauling equipment, hay, and building materials.  The flower bed behind me is getting ready to bloom.  I thought the plants were Gladiolus, but now I'm beginning to think they are Iris.  I'm not sure yet.  Time will tell.

Spring Has Sprung!

A couple of days ago it looked like this.

Today it looks like this!

Daffodils are coming up in lots of places all over the property.  These are the first ones to bloom near the base of one of the huge oaks on the east side.  Another clump is coming up at the base of an old oak on the west side.  I rescued a large clump from being plowed under way out in the garden plot.  I'll replant that somewhere today.  Spring has sprung - at least today.  It will probably be winter again in a few days, but today is blissfully warm and sunny and I am going to enjoy every minute of it.

Oh - the seedling farm in the dining area looks like this.

The seedlings are up and running.  Cabbage, Leeks, 2 varieties of Broccoli plus Broccoli Raab, Cauliflower, 2 varieties of Eggplant, and 8 varieties of Tomatoes.  About 280 seedling total so far.  In the next week we will sow all the peppers and some of the herbs, maybe around 100 more seedlings.

Brrrrrr..........!! It's Cold!

It's shocking that it's been almost a month since my last post.  It seems like the days have flown by with most of the days spent indoors keeping the fires burning, literally, to keep the house warm and the cold drafts at bay.

We had our first snow storm last week, blanketing the ground with just over and inch of snow.  Not really that much but it stayed very cold for several days and only finally melted away yesterday.   I love the stark shadows of the trees on the bright white snow.  I've tried to take some publishable images of the black angus cows and their newborn calves in the stark white landscape, but have been unsuccessful.  The contrast is so extreme the cows have no recognizable form unless they are in absolute profile - otherwise they are black blobs.  Anyway - there are several new calves between 1 and 2 weeks old.  They are very curious and will come right up to the fence to check out what I'm up to when chopping firewood or whatever.

Tracks in the snow all the way from the woods across the road, up the driveway, onto the back porch, lots of tracks around the doorway to the cellar, and back down to the woods again.  If they were just a bit bigger I would say they were Bobcat, but I know they are from a very large feral House Cat I have seen around a time or two.  There is a small cut-out corner of the cellar door so cats can and do get into the cellar (they keep mice from invading the house).  The coming and going tracks were made close together time wise so I don't think he/she hung around very long.

We are expected to get another storm of about an inch or so tomorrow so it will be another 'indoor' day with the high temp expected to be about 25 and the low about 12 with the snow expected to fly in the afternoon and evening.  I'll split a little more kindling in the morning and bring some extra wood in next to the fireplaces and the wood stove.  Then maybe bake some banana walnut muffins for breakfast.  During the day I can either spackle the dry wall defects in the bathroom so I can paint the room or I could build the stands to hold the grow lights on the work benches where the seedling flats will go..... or I could do neither and read a good book and take a nap in front of the fireplace.  I'm sure that is what Mosa the cat will do.  Well - the napping part anyway.  I'm not sure what book she might be reading right now.

Happy New Year!

I've mentioned the country idea of 'neighbor' before.  My 'neighborhood' extends a few miles in any direction and my 'neighbors' live anywhere from a few hundred yards to a few miles from my house.
It's the season for exchanging gifts and homemade goodies like cakes and pies, and cookies and.......

One of my neighbors gave me this as a New Years present........... and that ain't water in that fruit jar.

I just love homemade goodies.

Happy New Year!

Mosa update - Packages under the tree

Good news on the family critter front.  Back in November we (the vet and I) thought her infected eye ulceration was so bad that her right eye needed to be removed.  After a couple of weeks of antibiotics it had healed up so amazingly well that the surgery was not needed.  She is blind in that eye, but it is completely healed and the whitish haze is getting smaller and fainter.  She had also been scheduled to be spayed, but when she was opened up on the operating table the vet discovered she had already been spayed!  She has a great personality and is very sweet.

Christmas Lights

Several neighbors have commented on how nice it has been to see the house with some lights on it, saying that it is the first time EVER that lights have been put up.  Well - that sure convinces me to put up even more next year!  Definitely candles in the windows, more bushes draped with lights,  maybe the columns wrapped and maybe even icicle lights along the roof..... mmmm......35 feet up - maybe not.

It doesn't look all that big, but the rooms are so big and the ceilings so high, it's hard to tell that this tree is 10 feet tall !!  The 600 lights and many ornaments and candy canes aren't enough - more next year !

Playing King-of-the-Hill

There is an old brick barbecue in the yard.  Cracked and broken as it is, it really needs to be demolished..... but what would the neighbor's goat play on when they all come over to visit, mow the lawn and munch on the wild shrubbery growing on the unkempt fence lines?  Actually because we moved into the house, my neighbor has now fenced in the goats on his property.  They don't have a barbecue to play on in their pen.  Too bad.

Winter Storm

Yesterday our first winter storm arrived.  It was right at the freezing mark all day and last night and  continuing today.  We had rain and freezing rain off and on all day, all night, and today.

Fortunately it was mostly rain and not so much freezing rain so ice did not accumulate too thickly on the trees and power lines.  The lights have stayed on....... so far.

I wish all the seed catalogs that come out at this time of year had already arrived.  Today is a good day to sit by the fireplace or stove, and plan the garden for the spring.

Adopted by a cat

'Mosa' by Brent Brokeshoulder - Hopi

This is Mosa - one of the hundreds of Hopi Indian spirits represented in full costume during certain religious dances and represented in hand carved Katsina dolls made by exceptional artisans.
Mosa is the Hopi word for 'house cat' and they are important and respected in the Hopi culture, well -any culture that grows and stores grain for food.  House cats do what house cats do - keeping the mouse population in check protecting the grain.

'Mosa' the one eyed mouser

This also is Mosa - a 7-12 month old wild female feline who has adopted us (cats adopt you - you don't adopt cats).  She has been around people before - probably before being abandoned, and wants to be affectionate, but has been wild long enough to be very wary and skittish.  She was so skinny and scrawny and had a badly infected eye when she showed up.  A little food on the porch kept her around on and off for a couple of days until she made up her mind to stay.  She was meowing insistently at the back door and marched right in when I opened it.  In and out, back and forth, here and gone for several more days until she would let us scratch her behind the ears and purr like mad - but not touch her otherwise.  I managed to corral her - not without a few scratches - and got her to the vet.  I knew she was already blind in the infected eye, which the vet confirmed.  It needs to be removed.  We have had her on antibiotics to clear up the infections, had her wormed, and are scheduled for the eye surgery and spaying next week.  She is eating, gaining weight and becoming less skittish every day.  Now she sleeps on the blanket on the couch right next to you instead of off in a protected corner somewhere.  She is a welcome addition to the household despite the fact that this 'free' cat will cost about $400.00 by the time all is said and done.

Halloween Pumpkins

Here are this year's pumpkins I carved.  I haven't done this for awhile I warmed up on the not so difficult witch before tackling the more advanced skull.  Carving out all the teeth without breaking through the small ribs in between was a challenge.  I could not have done that one without the assortment of specialty knives I have for doing decorative Thai style fruit carving for fancy arrangements.