Finally got the garden in

The rain has held off for a few days now and we finally got our garden planted this evening after Rodger got home. He had gotten the ground ready a few days ago and it was dry enough and with rain in the forecast tomorrow we had to get er done. We got our sweet corn and green beans planted and the corn for cornmeal also. He filled in the plowed ground with purple hull and long horn peas. Those make excellent cover crops that feed the wild life and replenish the soil too. They add a good deal of nitrogen to the ground that has had corn on it.Our potatoes look good so far, no bugs as of yet. I am sure they are just waiting till it gets too muddy for us to get in there and then they will attack. My peas are blooming. They are really short too. So am not looking to get too many messes of peas off those vines at all. Simple fact we left town at a bad time. But dang it was worth it to see that precious lil grandson. And he gets sweeter every day.

 

I love getting pictures of this lil fellow every day in email or on my phone. I keep some pictures on my phone so when I need a Liam fix I can just check my phone.

Anyway after supper Rodger took the tractor and corn planter to the field to plant corn. He used the tractor to make rows for the sweet corn and green beans and the planter put down the fertilizer and then he used the hand corn dropper to plant the corn and beans. Didn't really take long but was hard on his back.

 It does take a lil longer to plant corn this way but it works. Imagine having to plant several acres using this method. The old folks did. My dad said he remembered planting 4 acres like this when he was a young man. The only drawback to this method of planting nowadays is that crows are smarter than they use to be or there is more of em. They can see where the planter leaves a lil hole in the ground and they will walk down the row and dig in each hole and pick our the grains of corn and eat it. Unless it rains like it is supposed to and the dirt fills in the lil holes so they cant see em. Hope we are lucky in that respect. He did use the tractor and corn drill to plant the corn for cornmeal and to plant the purple hull peas and long horn peas. I cant imagine his using this dropper to plant all that amount. The tractor does much better and is much faster.

He made a row marker to mount on the front of the tractor to use as a guide to get the rows evenly spaced. It is made with a piece of pipe and a piece of re-bar run thru with bolts to use as pins to hold the marker in place. A neat trick. If you click on the picture you can see the pieces of garden hose extending down on each side of the marker.  So its all planted. After I came back to the house I weeded the strawberry bed beside the drive way and got it taken care of for now. All that is left to weed is the herb bed and that will do the weeding for a few weeks.

My friend Anna made these neat lil cowboy boots for Liam. She is so talented when it comes to crafting stuff. They turned out so dang cute. I am sending those off to Amoy and Rob for the baby this week. I am sure they will fit him soon.

Don't ya just love em? I have no talent to even come close to this lady I tell ya.

Not much else happening here on the farm right now, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Raising meat birds and butchering

As most of you know we raise the Cornish cross chickens for meat every year. Last year I had ordered from a hatchery and the genetics were not as good and the chicks did not grow as well for us. I have always tried to butcher at 6 weeks old and had 5lb or more birds. Last year the largest one didn't weigh that much. I ordered from Cackle hatchery this year and the birds were awesome. They more than met my expectations for meat birds. I feed the highest protein feed I can the first 2 weeks of life, round the clock and fed freely. The second 2 week period of their life drop the protein to about 22%, feed 24/7. The last 2 weeks of life they get finisher or feed that is non medicated and about 20 % protein, fed 24/7. I don't have a problem with sick birds, none are down and crippled, all good strong healthy birds. We got a lil off schedule with the birth of our first grandson but thas OK too. The birds we butchered today were 8 weeks old, none crippled, all good strong birds. They averaged 7 lbs each. They look like small young turkeys. We had to purchase 2 gallon zip top freezer bags to put these birds in, would not fit in the gallon size.

So if anyone wants to raise these birds for meat I highly recommend ordering from Cackle hatchery. They do grow just as well as the ones I always ordered from Marti poultry farms before they closed down. Most of these birds are frozen whole so we can cook them on the rotisserie  Some of the birds we did cut for fryers too and used the bony pieces to make stock to can. I did manage to get the stock cooked down today after butchering but am gonna wait till tomorrow to can it after we get finished butchering the last 8 birds. We did manage with help from Jason and Mary Kay to get 16 done today and we were all killed. And to think I use to do far more than that by myself in my younger days. Sucks to get older. It ain't for sissies I tell ya.

This is mothers day weekend. So I would like to take a second to wish all the mothers out there a very happy mothers day. God bless you all. 

Not much else happening on the farm with all the rain, so till next time , blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Our lil one is here....

Our first grandson, Liam Robert was born on April 27th. Is he beautiful or what?

                                                           Liam at 3 days old.

                                              Liam at 4 days old. And just look at all that hair!!

                                                      Liam checking out papaw Rodger.

                                                           Grammy's sweet lil boy at 1 week old. Liam is a beautiful combinations of his momma and daddy. A perfect lil angel in my eyes.

We got a call from Rob on Friday afternoon to let us know Amoy was having contractions. We packed up our car for the road trip to Nevada and headed out on Saturday morning. We made it to Missouri when I got a picture message of a precious lil boy on my cell phone. Rodger and I both were so happy that Liam was here and he and his momma were both doing fine. They got to come home on Sunday and we made it to Nevada on Monday before noon. We covered the total of 2000 miles in less than 30 hours total on the road. Then we spent the whole week with out lil man and it was really hard to not just hold him all the time but we didn't as it would have made it hard on him and his mom and dad when we left. I know newborns change daily and I had 2 babies but dang I don't remember seeing them change that fast. Maybe it was because back in the day you were kept in the hospital for 2 to 3 days before you were discharged home with the new baby. This lil fellow went from that wobbly newborn stage to trying to hold his head up by time we left this past Monday. The lil wrinkles had started filling out, he was eating good, sleeping good, just a perfect lil baby. Rob and I learned fast that Liam does not like to be touched with cold or even cool hands. He screams and has a lil fit. But he is really easy to sooth tho. Mine and papaws pride and joy. Grand babies are a whole different level of love. Get ready for it because I will post pictures of this lil fellow on here a lot now.

We finally got back here in KY to our house today, Wednesday around 2 in the afternoon. We got to see some new country the trip home too. Instead of traveling I-80 we took I-70 by turning south in Cheyenne Wyoming and driving thru Denver Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and finally ended up in Ky. Gosh after being on a road trip like that we were exhausted and glad to be back home. Miss the kids a bunch tho.

Now that we are home, it is back to the farm stuff. Jason and Mary Kay took care of things for us while we were gone and everything is good here. The plants in the greenhouse are fine and growing. The meat birds are HUGE!! Oh my, we must do some butchering this week and weekend. I am so very pleased with the results of the Cornish cross from Cackle hatchery. They have grown to my expectations. 

Our yard looks like a jungle, my herb bed is all grown up, the strawberry beds both need to be weeded. That will get done a lil at a time. I think it has rained several days here. The ground is really wet and it rained today. We will get started planting corn and the garden stuff as soon as the fields are dry enough to work. Jason got the big corn field worked while we were gone so it wont need much before it gets planted. We sure got lots of work ahead of us to get caught up. IF you ever really get caught up on a farm.

Not much else happening on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Uhoh!! Yep I am still alive

Well I have been lost in time for a week or so I think. We are all still alive and kicking. Dang I didn't think it had been that long since I had updated and filled you all in on life here. So here goes.

Just the usual stuff, waiting on the ground to dry out so we can plow and plant our garden. Every time it starts to dry then we get more rain showers. I wont complain tho as there are some folks in other states dealing with much worse. Flooding, snow and storms in different areas. Our plants in the greenhouse are not growing like they should with all this cool weather we have had. Gosh it seems one day we run the AC the next its heat. Maybe summer will be here soon. We have survived red bud winter, I think now we are having a lil dogwood winter. Then in a few weeks will be more rain and cool during black berry winter. Then it will get hot and stay that way till fall. I function much better when the sun shines I know that much. This cool damp stuff wrecks havoc on the joints. I saw my family doc this past week and I hope we have my meds better adjusted now to help manage the pain. I flat azz refuse to go to a pain clinic and have the docs label me another drug seeker or abuser. So I just suffer and keep going. The new state law has made it really hard on people who want to get help and don't take their meds just for the high. Some of us need to petition the lawmakers to get the law changed so our docs can treat us at their discretion. The doctors know who the abusers are, and the ones that fail drug test. I have never failed a drug test or taken more meds than prescribed or sold my meds. I don't think I should have to suffer for the damn abusers and ones that sell their meds because they are paid for by medical card and tax payers to begin with. This whole issue makes me mad enough to spit nails. OK off my soap box now.

I finally got my asparagus dug up and most of it shipped off to a friend in Virginia. She was tickled pink to have it and I sure hope it does well for her. I covered the bed over with black plastic and it is killing the weeds out. If we get a lil more hot weather it wont be long till I can plant in there and maybe not have to weed so much. Still need to get my butt in gear and get some plastic put down in parts of the herb bed to get it in order too. I noticed today I have some parsley that is big enough to cut and dry. So hopefully I can get up early enough to beat the rain tomorrow and get it cut and dried. Maybe I take some to Rob and Amoy when we go visit. And no we don't have that lil baby yet. I think he is making us wait till his due date. But knowing this weekend is a full moon, he just might make an appearance. When I worked EMS that is when we alas had baby runs. Gosh that seems so long ago that I was working. It has been 6 years now that I got hurt at work and it disabled me. Disabled, that is really a hard word for me to accept.

My meat birds are doing great. Although they don't grow as well when it is cool. For some reason they do not eat as much. But they are much much better than the ones I had last year. I have a few that are big enough to kill right now and am thinking I might butcher some of them this weekend if we don't get a call to go to Nevada. That will be that many less to feed. I guess the cooler weather has been good in one sense as I have not lost any to heat stress. I still have the 25 I started with 5 weeks ago. That is a plus. So I guess it is OK if they don't grow quite as fast if they all stay alive. It is much easier to keep them warm than to keep them cool. I do have a fan in the building to run when it gets really warm in there. Fans are great things. I have one in the greenhouse too, it is to move air around and to mimic mother nature as far as wind blowing the plants to make the stems stronger. Also I do let the plants dry out almost to the point of wilting before I water and this also encourages them to make thicker stronger stems. A friend of mine that runs a commercial greenhouse told me that. I will have lots of tomatoes as it looks so far. I think every seed I planted came up. I really wish the rain would hold off for a few more days so we could get the sweet corn and green beans planted in the garden. We have a frost warning for tonight here. But if we plant corn and beans it wont be up till after the first of May and by then we should be frost free. No freezes so far so am hopeful of having some fruit this year. Our little pear tree here in the yard was loaded with bloom. If only half the bloom makes a pear I will for sure still have to fruit prune it. Far too many blooms. We also had our young cherry, peach and hazelnut trees bloom in the orchard this spring. I sure would love to get some fruit from those. I do love fresh peaches. The cherries that we planted are sweet cherries and good for eating fresh. Am really looking forward to those. I have never seen hazelnuts grow so this will be a whole new experience for us. Life is good.

I found a recipe online the other day for caramels. Sounded easy and good. So you know I had to try it. Oh my goodness. IT was good. So I will share the recipe with you as I know it is good. It is the perfect texture, just soft enough to be easy to chew yet it can be cut and wrapped individually in wax paper as well. But I am sure you know I ain't gonna stop there. I intend to get some lightly salted peanuts and Cut the caramel in long pieces and roll each piece in the crushed salted peanuts. I love that combo. OK so here is the recipe.

Soft caramels

1/4 cup butter
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup light Karo syrup(corn syrup)
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk
1/2 teas salt
1/2 teas vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients except the vanilla in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil and boil for 6 minutes. Start counting as soon as it starts boiling up good. Stir constantly to prevent scorching. When it is done quickly stir in the vanilla extract, mix well and pour into a greased 9 inch square pan. Let sit overnight to harden and set good. Cut with a sharp knife and roll in small pieces of wax paper, just eat it or cut in longer pieces and roll in crushed lightly salted peanuts and then roll in wax paper. Store in a cool dry place. I did make a double batch and it filled a 9 by 13 glass cake pan with the caramel being about 1/2 inch thick. IF there is enough left to work with tomorrow I will roll some in the crushed peanuts.

If someone had small children and wanted to make a duplicate of the old fashioned "sugar daddy" you could cook this recipe maybe about 7 minutes and it would be a lil bit firmer caramel. You can purchase the sticks to make suckers with online in various places. Or maybe add a bit of chocolate and make "cow tails". Do we ever get too old to enjoy candies from our younger days? I hope not.

These rainy days of sitting in the house not doing much I got started crocheting a blanket for Liam. I wanted to use up some of the yarn that my auntie had given me. I got it maybe 1/3 done. We had to stop at walmart today while we were in the big city to get a roll of yellow yarn to add to the blanket. It just needed some yellow with all the greens and blues. Maybe a few rows of yellow to divide the colors. It will be nice to keep that lil boy warm. But our my luck he will end up being like his daddy and not sleep in clothes or under covers. His brother was just the opposite. He had to have his footed jammies and lots of covers.

Not too much else happening on the farm. Unless you want to hear about the guys working on the tractors. Our big tractor, the old Ford, that was my dads needed brakes. So Rodger and Jason jacked the tractor up and took off the wheel. The old brakes are NOT coming off at all. Rodger said it has fairly good brakes at this time, so he will wait and take it somewhere after plowing is done to get new brakes put on. Someone that has the tools to get stuck on brake drums off. They were not happy after all the trouble they went to and didn't accomplish anything. But such is life on the homestead. There will be days like that.

Thas all that has happened lately, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

More rain than we think we needed

This past week for us has been kinda stormy at best. Some pretty heavy storms blew thru last weekend and earlier this week. Nothing that did any damage but it did cause some flash flooding in some areas and raise the river out of its banks. We had some big puddles in our fields but the garden don't flood it just gets muddy. Then last night we had more rain and earlier today we had more heavy rain. This is part of the lil "winters" we have in spring every year. I guess this is red bud winter as they are in full bloom right now. Then dogwood winter we get another rainy spell. Last is blackberry winter when we get a cool and wet spell. Then we are officially in summer. Our temps tonight are supposed to be in the 30's and high tomorrow only low 50's. I have lil tomato plants started in the greenhouse but I think they will be OK. They wont get frost and it should stay a lil warmer in there than outside. Sorry I don't have pics of the started plants but I have had a rough day. I got up early today with intentions of getting a few things done. When I  stood up I found that I was having a really hard time standing up straight and walking. I drank my coffee and decided to lay down again and hope for a better start later. That did not happen. So I have done not a single thing of any worth today. The only accomplishment was going to the car dealer and picking up an extra key and remote entry thingy for the car and came straight home. I sure was not in any shape to walk around anywhere. I did manage to also feed and water the meat birds and let the hens out for the day. I sure hope this passes quick, I cant take much of this kinda pain. Sure makes for a bad day.

With all the rain and flooding in our state I imagine it is worse in the western part of the country because they have been hit with storms as well. Just hope the water recedes and all the roads are open when we have to travel. Not sure yet when that will be yet. But momma and daddy are getting anxious to meet Liam. I do know he has some grandparents right here that are ready to meet that lil fellow. But all in good time. And in accord with God's will.

Sure not much happening here on the homestead this week. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Nine years today..

It has been nine years today that this wonderful man departed this life and "went home to rest". I still miss him as much today as the day he passed away.

This picture was taken in the old home place where I was raised here on the farm on dads 90th birthday. The house still looks the same only he is missing from us.

Not a day goes by that I don't think of something that I learned from him. I guess I am more like dad than I used to think. His motto was, work hard and make an honest living, let your word be your bond, treat others like you want to be treated. And this is how he lived his life. Dad worked hard on the farm doing what he loved most, growing things. He would drive his tractor around the farm checking on crops and he enjoyed seeing things grow. I guess its in the blood. I enjoy the same things. Guess maybe that explains why I always plant way too much of everything. Just to watch it grow. The sweet memories this man left behind. Now he is resting in a rocking chair on the front porch of heaven.

Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Working and waiting

Its spring garden season and we stay busy this time of year with all things pertaining to the garden and food crops here on the farm. Rodger spent most of the time getting corn shelled to plant our big field of stock corn. It takes a lot of corn to plant 5 acres. It takes 10 lbs of corn seed to plant 1 acre so he shelled about 75 just in case. We are planning on changing the plates in the corn planter to a smaller size so it don't plant the corn so thick. The Reid's yellow dent that we raise(open pollinated) is a smaller grain than most and we used the plates for bigger grains thus planting thicker. Didn't hurt the corn tho, we had a good crop last year. The price of fertilizer is ridiculous at best. Some places are charging upwards of $800 a ton. Not sure why as natural gas prices are the lowest they have been in years. You have a choice, pay the price or don't raise crops. We have found that there are lots of people going back to the open pollinated corn as it is higher in protein than the hybrid GMO corn raised elsewhere. All I know is stock and chickens eat it much better and thrive better on it.

Not sure I have accomplished much this weekend other than house cleaning and getting the laundry caught up. The usual water stuff in the greenhouse and care for the chickens. My meat birds are growing good. Not sure if they will get butchered on schedule or not. That all depends on when our lil grand son chooses to make his appearance. My plants in the greenhouse are coming up and lookin nice and healthy. My Rutger tomato seeds all sprouted and came up really well. Peppers are a lil slower than I would like so not sure if I want to just go ahead and reseed those yet or not. IF I do reseed I intend to put them on a heat pad for a while to get them sprouted an started faster. Peppers must be warm to sprout or they just rot in the soil.

Last week they were giving some bad storms for our area but thankfully we only got a nice thunderstorm. No damage. But it did bring out the lil frogs in herds or droves, hmm what to ya call a "bunch" of frogs? It was raining and I was in the kitchen and could hear the frogs croaking, sounded like they were in the house. I had 6 stuck on the patio door.

There were more at the top of the door. I don't touch frogs but they were kinda cute. I am pretty sure they ate well that night as we leave the light out side the door on and there were lots of night bugs for them to catch. Neat lil creatures with the suction cups on their toes.

I worked some on the beds I have out back today. The bed has 2 sections one of which has strawberries in it and the other had asparagus in it. For what ever reason the asparagus has not made me happy at all. I think it may be in a bad spot and the soil is likely a lil too acidic. That bed get filtered sun during the day too which I am sure don't help at all. So I dug up the asparagus and am shipping it to a friend in  Virginia to plant in her beds. Otherwise I am gonna use black plastic and burn the bed to kill out all the weeds in there and that would have killed the asparagus too. I hope her soil makes the plants happier than mine did. In that area strawberries do great so I will move more plants from the field to the beds  and just have a huge strawberry bed here near the house. SO the asparagus crowns are safely packed in a box to ship to my friend Anna. What does a hillbilly use when they don't have clear packing tape? Camo duct tape of course!!

Just hope that tapes stays put for a few days that the box will travel. I got the plastic in place and hope a big wind dont send it sailing off the never never land. We did get some rain this evening just at dark. I guess that will make the yard grow more. Rodger got the mower ready and mowed our yard this afternoon and it looks so much better. My chickens were out and they had a good time catching what ever bugs Rodger scared up mowing.

Speaking of travel, we will be traveling soon we think. Traveling to Nevada that is. After this Thursday we are pretty sure it wont be long till Amoy goes into labor. She has had to have medication a couple times to stop her contractions but when she sees the doc Thursday they prolly wont stop the contractions again. She thinks she will go soon. So we wait till we get a call that she is for sure in labor and we drive off into the sunset........well sort of. Its almost game time and we are all gettin excited to see that lil fellow we have waited 9 months to meet. I think I am gonna like being a Grammy. I will let ya know how it works out for me.

Not much else happening around here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella