Yep, back again for another round

I started my lil blog several years ago to more or less document our successes and failures here and to share a little bit of knowledge from things we learned along the way. Then somehow I started slacking on keeping my blog updated. Now seems like I am about 5 months behind. And a lot can happen in 5 months around here. After my last post we got to drive to Arizona and see our kids and the grandbabies out there. I tell ya, nothing like 2 little boys to make a feller drive for days no matter how much it hurts the body. They are worth every pain tho just to see those happy little faces. Then November was hunting season and spent most of the month in west Ky at the lodge helping out there. Back home and then flew to Arizona to spend 3 weeks or so with the kids and those precious lil boys again thru the Christmas holiday and the littlest one, Zach's 2nd birthday. Got back to my homestead shortly after new years and here it is March already. Dang where did the time go?

We have decided that we want to get all our garden planted by mid April this year like we use to do several years ago. It was just what my dad always insisted on doing. He said if you plant early things sprout and start to come up and you get them in ahead of the spring rains and just do so much better. Never knew of a year when dad failed to have a productive garden. Last fall Rodger did manage to get our garden plot turned so it can be worked a bit earlier this year. So this gives me hope we will be able to plant earlier this season than in the past few years. I did start my transplant seeds early also. I already have cabbage up, although they are lil ones yet. I did suck it up and invest in 2 seed tray heat mats to use for the peppers and tomatoes this year. Both of those need a bit of heat to sprout well and come up. I have herbs started as well as the tomatoes, peppers and cabbage. In my herb garden it is just easier to transplant small clumps of herb plants than to try to keep ahead of the tiny weeds that tend to come up with them. As far as my experience I have less lost of seedlings and plants this way. Not to mention I know where I planted things so less chance of them being trampled when I am in there doing weeding and harvesting.

I have done a lot of research on orchards and fruit tree care this winter when it was too cold to get out and do projects outside. Well at least for me. I want to be a snow bird and go south in winter as I get older. Just no place like home tho. Anyway, we strive to use very little to no spray on things here. I am well aware that it kills the soil and depletes it over time to use pesticides. We use No weed or grass killer, herbicides, on or near any of our crops. We decided to try to go organic as far as how we care for the orchard. I did a great deal of research on Neem as a tree spray. On researching it I found that most places, big box stores and even local farm stores just sell "chemical" sprays, not really organic. But they do sell neem oil spray. Only problem with this is the neem they sell is only 1 or 2 components of true whole neem oil. So I found an online source for whole neem oil. I thought with shipping it was kinda pricey but after checking the price of the partial stuff sold at farm stores it was actually cheaper over all. If interested in any of this info visit the site www.groworganicapples.com on growing organic and www.neemresource.com for the pure neem oil. Finally this past weekend I did get the first round of neem on my fruit trees and grape vines. I sprayed with the neen and fish emulsion to give the trees a nutrient boost for leaf production. We had put fertilizer on the trees and grape vines prior to the spraying. I did find a few small branches on my peach and cherry trees with bloom. Not totally bloomed out so that was a plus. I am sure we will have some frost and cold weather before we actually get to spring so hopefully they will bloom and produce some fruit this year. The apple and nut trees are not even in green tip stage yet so they should do ok. It is strange in east Ky to have 70 plus degree weather in February so this was the problem with some early blooms. I had read a news article saying that lots of commercial orchards are having an issue with trees blooming too early and will likely suffer frost and freeze kills this year. Cant imagine the price of fruit this fall if you can purchase it at all. If news is saying lots of killed fruit it might be wise for all of us that use a lot of canned fruit, homegrown or otherwise, to stock up on canned fruit early ahead of the price increases. 

                                                       Before pruning sweet cherry trees.

                                       
                                                   After pruning sweet cherry trees.

                                 Northern side of our orchard after pruning and before clean up

Last spring I ordered some baby chicks to raise a new laying flock. I being the dummy ordered 25 Buff Orphington pullets. Love this breed. Very docile sweet hens. I had hopes of getting at least one rooster albeit by mistake but that didnt happen. So I had 25 hens. Gosh they all started laying and I was over run with eggs. It is near impossible to sell country eggs here when people can go to the store and use their food stamps and get them cheaper. So I ended up giving a friend half my young laying pullets. I kept 12 and still get too many eggs. Not that that is a bad thing. I do appreciate the effort the girls put in, but just how many chicken fruit can a house of 2 or 3 eat? Well not as many as they provide. But I have a couple people who do get eggs from us so that helps a lot. We plan to build a new run this spring for them so they can be outside a bit but as for now they have to stay inside. Too many predators and our lil girl Sasha is not old enough to know to protect them. She thinks they are for her entertainment right now. She is just a puppy at 10 months old but will outgrow that stage soon we hope.

Last spring a friend in Virginia sent me some thornless blackberry starts. Most people say blackberry shoots, I call these things trees. This is gonna be a learning curve for me for sure. She had told me to tie them upright to a stake or fence. So this I did to the side of the garden fence. Oh geez, I was tying plants all summer. Once you have them growing upright then clip the top to a manageable height. Then they send out limbs off that stem, clip those limbs to about 1 to 2 feet in length. Those limbs will make more lil limbs, clip them to about 1 to 2 feet. All the growth I got from the plants last summer will bloom and produce berries this season. God willing. But am thinking now I sure dont need 25 of those "blackberry trees" I will be picking berries till the cows come home. But thas ok, I will be thankful and consider my self very blessed. Not to mention the fact I ordered some thornless raspberry starts this spring from Starks. Speaking of which, we decided if we are gonna plant trees, and perirrenial plants we are best served to just pay a bit more and get good quality healthy starts. So I will be probably taking our a few of the blackberry plants that are smaller and putting in some raspberry plants on the end of the row on the same fence as the blackberries are now. I am pretty excited to have berries that dont leave me bleeding when I pick them. I also had to purchase some new strawberry plants. I had a good idea once but it didnt work as I planned. I had planted strawberry plants in holes in landscape fabric then mulched them. It worked great for keeping weeds down. BUT the strawberry runners were not able to take root thru the layer of mulch thus they did not live once the plant reproduced. So my strawberry bed was not able to renew itself and now it has scarcely any plants. So last fall I took out the landscape fabric and mulch, tilled the soil, added organic fertilizer and am ready to plant new plants. I am gonna attempt to find some saw dust to use as mulch this year or maybe collect pine needles. It should be much easier for the new runners to take root and keep the strawberry bed renewed very year or so.  You live and learn I reckon.

These are the blackberry bushes tied back to the garden fence. Not to mention this is November.
These things were still growing into December. When we pruned the fruit trees in early February I went by the outside of the garden fence and clipped off some blackberry limbs that were hanging way over the outside. I am sure the deer will help themselves to any plant material or berry that is hanging out of the garden. Or the crows will help themselves. I do have netting to put over small trees and fruiting berries to prevent crow lose this year I hope. They ate all the grapes on the grapevines that are to the left of the blackberries outside the fence. They are going to be trellised this spring with a T-top trellis for ease of covering with netting when the grapes start to ripen.

So now you have a little bit of a catch up post. I am certain I am missing filling you in on something important so maybe I will remember it next time. Till then, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

stella

Fall is slowly sneaking up on us

Fall is actually sneaking up faster than I would like. But dang I guess it is past the middle of August already and not long till cooler nights and days. I guess I really didnt pay much attention to the calendar till I noticed the spent sweet corn stalks turning yellow last week. Geez, we just planted that stuff other day. At least it sure seems that way. The damn crows finally finished off the remainder of the sweet corn that was not even ready to harvest. Those things are the most aggressive feeders I think I have ever known. If you shoot to scare them off, in just a few minutes they are back in larger numbers. And it sure dont take long for them to destroy a patch of corn. Not to mention they have eat on some of the tomatoes, peppers and pecked at some of the unripe pumpkins. Mean lil devils they are.

Our peppers are in full productions right now, with lots that are getting red and ripe. We use a lot of bell peppers during the year in cooking. I only planted a few jalapenos this year as I am the only one that eats them and sure dont need that many taking up freezer space. My big freezer is mostly full now with the carrots, corn, okra, peppers among other things I cant think of right now. The tomatoes in the garden are starting to slack off producing now and some of the plants are spent. The Money Maker variety I planted have produced tons of small tomatoes that are mostly used for juice but are small enough to be a total pain in the arse to wash and get the seeds out of to juice. I take the seed pockets out to reduce the amount of water or clear liquid that comes to the top on the jars of juice. It actually makes better tasting thicker juice. Also when I peel tomatoes to make my salsa I peel and squeeze out the seed pockets and it makes the salsa nice and thick. Yummy!!

The mustard and turnips I sowed a couple weeks ago are up. Oh my, and did I forever get them thick enough on the ground. I didnt use the seeder I just sprinkled the seeds on by hand cause it was a small space. The poor little seeds just laid there on top of the soil for well over a week till we got some nice rain showers. And they ALL came up. So soon or later I will have enough mustard and turnip greens to can. And I do love a nice sweet raw turnip in late fall after they have grown in cooler fall weather.

Tomorrow will be a grape harvesting day here. About 90% of the grapes on each cluster are ripe so its time to cut them and make jelly, juice and wine. If allowed to all ripen they will start to fall off the vine. Then its on to the peaches. I have a few left that the crows didnt get after I put aluminum pans in the branches to keep them scared off. Lots to do here as fall fast approaches.

I got a comment and question from an older blog post on gumbo. The sweet reader ask if it was possible to half the recipe to can. I would think certainly you could half or double or what ever suits the needs of your family or canner size. If I make the mess to make a batch of gumbo I just go whole hog and make a lot. Takes no longer to clean up from a huge batch as it does a small one. Good luck and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

stella

Another day, a few more jars..........

It has been a busy day because for some reason I felt like I was behind canning. Our tomatoes are getting ripe but not a large amount at one time. So I make juice a few quarts at a time. I have a good amount of larger tomatoes that I am letting get a little riper to use for salsa. My Rob likes the homemade salsa so I guess I have to make some for him when I have extra tomatoes. The smaller tomatoes get turned into juice.

 We are getting several cucumbers now and make pickles every other evening. The okra has just went wild. I am freezing about a gallon of sliced okra every other evening as well. I use a lot of okra when I make and can gumbo and it never fails if I use store bought okra no matter the brand it always has a lot of tough fibrous pieces in it. That makes for a nasty texture when you take a big bite. Yuck, so I know if I grow it and cut it and freeze it that it wont be tough. Problem solved. Just another one of those things you can always do better yourself than depend on the store for.
After getting all the carrots pulled out of our small bed in the back yard Rodger got it all tilled up this evening and I got my mustard and turnip seeds sown. I am hoping I can get a good amount of greens to can this year. My canned greens are getting pretty low. I am the only one here that eats them but dang it when I want em, I want em. And that is another thing I dont like to buy. The store bought ones are usually chopped and have a lot of large stems chopped up in the mix and I take the stems mostly out of mine when  I can them. And I only rough chop or tear into bite size pieces not really fine.

We got our sweet corn taken care of a week or so ago and damn, the crows for sure got more than we did. I had a second planting that would have been ready probably by the end of this week. As my luck would have it, the crows feel too threatened but nothing stops the damn squirrels. They have pretty well obliterated the patch before it was even in the blister stage. So next project is the cut down the stalks and plant cover crop on the ground. That will likely be purple hull peas. I might even get some peas off the plants before frost. They will be inside the fence so the deer and turkeys cant get at them. Heaven help a turkey if it gets in the fence and cant get out. It for sure has been a battle of the wills to save things from the critters this year. We are plotting now how to deter them next year and just our luck it will be a different pest next season. I already know I am planting less cabbage and when they are planted they will be covered completely with some kind of cheese cloth material to keep the worms off. Damn those things destroyed all my cabbage this year. No kraut for me. Always something new to keep a gardener on their toes I guess. But am thankful we are able to restock our cellar this season so really should not complain at all.

I was in the summer kitchen today which is near the hen house and heard the hens raising a fuss cackling. I went out to see what was their issue. And lo and behold I got my first eggs, all 2 of em, from my 4 month old Buff Orphington pullets today. I was very pleased. So they should be laying full swing in another couple weeks or so. Needless to say this chicken momma is a happy camper.

I guess maybe these hens will at least earn their feed. Unlike the last ones I had that were really a dead expense.

I did a practice run last week on something I had wondered about for a while. I like fried green tomatoes but really dont care for the texture of them canned then fried. So I had a few that were green with just a blush of starting to turn color. I brought them in, and with a sharp knife peeled the skin off and dredged them while they were still damp in a mix of corn meal with about half the amount of flour added, a good dash of salt and pepper. Rolled the tomatoes in that mixture and put them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and froze them.  I think I left them in the freezer for a couple days. I took em out and fried them up. Oh my, they were perfect. Just the same as if done straight from the garden. So now I gots to get me busy or in my spare time (hahaha) slice more and coat them and get them frozen. Then I can bag em up to enjoy when the snow flys this winter and I can only dream of a fresh fried green mater. So if you like fried green tomatoes this method works like a charm. When I coated them in the corn meal mixture I did press it on each slice really well so they had a good coat on the outside before freezing. I guess we can say this ole gal learned a new trick.

Every year I try to grow something I have never tried before. This year I was blessed to get some plum granny seeds from Rita, a friend I went to school with. They are loaded with lil plum grannies. I picked 3 ripe ones this afternoon and brought them in the house. You can smell them all over in here. They are an interesting "thing" to learn about. They are also called pocket melons. In victorian times when a bath was a real luxury ladies would carry the pocket melons in their reticule (purse) or in their pocket to mask body odor. I have also heard or read that if they are cut and let around inside the house they will deter spiders and other unwelcome flying annoyances. The jury is still out on that one here. But in all fairness I did just bring them in this afternoon so maybe we give em time.

Certainly pretty to look at, but to my knowledge most people dont eat them. They are more for fragrance and looks and if you choose, to cover body odor. But in my humble opinion soap and water is a much better alternative. As for the insect repelling properties, I will let ya know.

So now its the end of a long day and appears tomorrow wont be any shorter. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

stella

If you plant, they will come

Bugs that is. They will come in droves to eat what ever you plant for you to eat. This week this fact is especially true of Japanese beetles. Oh my, they are having a field day eating my thornless blackberries and grape vines. So I had to get out the heavy artillery last evening and give them the old one, two punch. I sprayed with Liquid Sevin pesticide. I dont relish the idea of spraying anything but dang, we gotta eat too. I do always spray late evenings when bees are not active. So I solved the problem of Japanese beetles, hopefully for the remainder of the season.

I made myself a list of small task that I needed to get done yesterday and did manage to accomplish all of them. Amazing!! eh? But geez, little task can take all day when you let so many build up before you tackle one of em. I had lavendar that I had started from seed that needed to be put in the ground in the herb bed to live permanently. Got that done. Got the dill cut and in the freezer so it keeps fresh to make dill pickles later when the cukes come on. I have a shrub near the front porch sidewalk that was covering half the steps and sidewalk. Got it pruned back so you can walk by without getting your legs wet when it rains or in the early morning dew is hanging on.  I want to plant some fall cabbage also and finally got the soil in the peat pots and seeds in so now its cross my fingers and hope they come up and grow fast. Its hard to find fall cabbage and broccoli plants in our area. Most people just plant a garden in spring and once its gone they are done. I just happen to know the sweetest cabbage is grown in the cooler fall weather. After having Sasha to the vet for a minor skin infection she had to have a bath in medicated shampoo, so I got that done last evening as well. Jason had just mowed the yard and you know how fresh cut grass can cling and stain anything it comes in contact with. Well I didnt dry Sasha and just bathed her, rubbed her down and let her got. She too off running and would hit her belly and slide thru the grass clippings. Oh did she look awful when I put her back in her pen right before dark. Just glad she looks better today after she got dry and the loose grass fell off her coat.

Rodger got the field mowed yesterday around the garden and in the orchard, around the corn, pea and sunflower field. It looks so much better. Good thing the mowing got finished yesterday cause we got a pretty good little rain this afternoon. It didnt rain long but got things nice and wet. IF I can get my butt in gear in the morning and get the mulch put around the lavendar plants before the ground dries it will do them a lot of good. They do like water.

I didnt have too big a day planned today. Just catching up laundry, house cleaning, general every day stuff. Cook, clean, do laundry, dry, fold, repeat. Seems I have to drag out the vacuum every day now to clean up bird seed hulls out of the floor. I got 2 lil parakeets. My friend Jackie that I have known for many years has breeding pairs and had raised a few. I have had a few parakeets in my life so I do enjoy them. Jackie gave me a young one that she hatched (well her female bird hatched it) and another female that the others were being mean to. They hull their seeds out when they eat them and they when they flap their wings inside the cage all the hulls fly out in the floor. (self cleaning birds) So clean em up, repeat later in the day. But they are relaxing to watch. Me and my various birds.

A friend ask me the other day if I had any new pictures of the grandbabies. Well of course I do. So here you go Sissy. Enjoy the babies. Sissy dont get on facebook so she dont get to see the pics Amoy or Rob post of the kids. And yes I am a very proud grammy.

Love these 2 lil boys so very much. And their parents. Cant wait to see them this fall and steal hugs and kisses.

Not much else happening here on the homestead. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

stella

As the garden grows...........

.....so does the weeds. Geez, and seems like the weeds out grow anything you plant and want to grow. Rodger has spent evenings this week doing all the hoe work getting the weeds out from between the plants then when all that is done he runs the tiller. But we can be very thankful this year that he has been able to mostly stay ahead of weeds and bugs. He did inform me that we have several bean bugs and good golly, I cant afford to lose these dang beans. They are the old heirloom variety Ky Wonder Pole Bean from a friend in central Ky. Not to mention I for sure need lots to can. We have had several good showers of rain the past week or so. That fact did delay me getting to spray the tomatoes with a fungicide (copper and wettable sulfur) to prevent blight. I need to can many tomatoes this year as well. Well lets just say the cellar is gettin kinda bare. We still eatin regular but ya know, I just feel better with a fully stocked cellar and pantry. We just pray for the blessing of a good garden this year. I did manage to get the fungicide spray on the fruit trees and all the grape vines last week and it had several days before the rain. I just hope that helped to head off some of the cedar apple rust on a few of the apple trees. The peach trees are just loaded with little peaches this year too. I am just drooling in wait for fresh peaches. And from our own trees. I might have to buy a few bushels of apples for the freezer this year because my apple trees are still a bit too young to produce enough for our needs.

I braved the 95 degree temps Monday and pulled my beets from the bed in the back yard. I had enough to make 10 pints of beet pickles so I was a happy little camper. That will be enough to last me another 2 or 3 years. No one here will eat pickled beets but me and if I eat them I want a whole pint jar and eat em all at once. The carrots that are in the same bed as the beets were look great. The tops are still nice and green on them so that says the carrots are still growing under ground. They have been planted since mid-March the same as the beets were. Some of the beets were the Cylindra beets, more long than big around and dang did they get big.

This is before I pulled the beets, you can see the tops of the carrots on the back side. In front of the beets are leeks and some little tiny celery plants. I am about to give up on raising celery. Just dont grow well here.

The Cylindra beets. This is 3 of em and one Detroit dark red on a standard width counter for size comparison. They did well.

I had a small dish pan full not including the long ones that are on the counter. Total 10 pints canned. I do have some more that will be ready later in the season.

This little girl is growing like a bad weed. Her first visit to the vet at 6 weeks old she weighed a big 6 lb 2 oz. At her 9 week visit she weighed 13 lb 7 oz. I sure hope she is getting enough to eat. She was a lil befuddled here when she wanted to smell of one of my young Buff Orphington pullet and it pecked her nose. I bet she is thinkin, "one day I will grow up and bite you on the nose". She is a good little girl. It amazes me at the natural instinct animals have at a young age. I was giving the chickens some left over bread that was stale and just gave her a roll to see if she might like it. She ate part of it and it broke in 2 pieces. She then proceeded to bury the remaining 2 pieces. In our back year we have a lot of small holes from moles and such. During all the rainy weather one of the holes caved in (not real deep) and she found it. Now every time she is out with me she will go to that hole and sniff and dig it a little deeper. One day she is gonna dig something very unhappy out of there I am sure. Depends on what critter she digs out, she might be on her own. Especially if its a snake of some sort hiding in there. Cause momma dont do snakes.

Always something to keep busy with around here. And time will get away from ya in a hurry. It is long past time to clean out the freezers and get ready to put new stuff in. Not to mention organizing the cellar, taking inventory and emptying out things that are far past their prime. I know I will be emptying out a lot of green beans if we have a good crop this year. I have green beans canned that we just dont care for the taste or texture of. I sure hate doing that due to the waste of lids, time and effort but dang it if they dont taste good they dont do us any good anyway. Maybe I can work on that tomorrow. On second thought, No I cant. I need to tie the tomatoes up again that we got staked a couple weeks ago. They have already out grown the first tie on them. Then maybe while I am at it I can spray the fungicide. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan for tomorrow.

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

stella

Another lesson learned

I have always thought that everyday you should try to learn at least one new thing, no matter how trivial it seems. Then there are days when we learn big things. I learned something new this past week since my last post. I had my incubator running to try and hatch off more baby chicks with the intention of replacing my laying flock with their off spring. I use one of the square Styrofoam still-air incubators with the automatic egg turner. It is tricky to keep the temp adjusted in those things when the air is not moving to keep it even all around. With this in mind, I decided to set the temp for eggs that would be directly under the heating element. So I put the turner in, placed my thermometer on the egg turner under the element and turned it on. With a few trys I got the temp right at 99.5 degrees for chickens. Then I proceeded to load the incubator by putting eggs just in the holders around the perimeter under the heating element. With water in the lil tray area in the bottom I counted the days till hatch time. This time around I got a 50% hatch rate. The best I have ever had I think. After a couple weeks I did candle the eggs and several were not fertile and some the shell was dark and dense and I could not tell if they were living or not so I left them all in the incubator. Now if I can just get better control of the humidity I think even that rate will increase. In the past I had been placing the thermometer in the center of the machine and set the temp for that area. Looking back I think the eggs near the element was getting too hot and killing the chicks early in the game. So if you are using one of the still air incubators to hatch chicks, only place eggs under the element once you have the temp set for that area of the incubator and you should have a better hatch rate. Or maybe you already knew that. But dummy me did not think about it.

Our weather has been really nice today. The forecast was for storms and rain today but so far we have seen none. I got out early, well early for me, today and weeded most of my herb bed. Then in passing I noticed I had several big weeds in the strawberry bed and got it weeded too. I actually feel like I earned my keep today. Now to deal with the sore legs from squatting down weeding. I also got fertilizer on the strawberries and herbs and some of my ornamental things here in the yard. So far this summer everything is growing really well. Our garden is really nice, the best one we have had in several years even if we did plant later than we wanted to. Although I have had to spray several times for potato beetles. They have really done some damage to the plants but still we do have some nice taters under there. Rodger dug a hill last weekend to see if they had made anything and we were both pleasantly surprised to find some nice ones. Another couple weeks and we will be up to our arm pits in stuff to pick and can. I still need to catch a not so hot day and clean out the cellar and empty things that our long past their prime and search out jars that may be unsealed. We pulled our onions last evening and they didn't do anything. They just did not grow much beyond the size of the sets we planted. I was kinda upset with that. So I guess I will try to buy a 50 lb bag a lil later and dry most of them for onion flakes. I seem to use more of those than fresh onions anyway.

Now provided we don't get too much heavy rain or too hot I plan to try to clean out chicken houses tomorrow. I really need to get the 16 lil babies put in a building. For now they are in a tote in the dining room. I really don't mind cause for now they don't smell and they are so cute and fluffy. I like playing with them during the day.

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

Stella

And we keep moving along, slowly

Slowly is the key here, at least in my world. I did get my injection of OrthoVisc in my left knee last Thursday. Well it was no piece of cake goin in, the medicine is very thick which makes it rather uncomfortable in the joint. Not that much pain tho, I have had worse. It was rather sore for a couple days. The doc said it may take a month or more after the injections are finished to see any noticeable difference in the pain level. So we continue and pray they help some.

We have been having a good deal of rain lately. Enough to keep things growing well I suppose. The garden looks good from here. It is also very hot and I cant do hot no more so I have been grounded to the house by Rodger. I am tryin really hard to be good an not cause undue worry for him. But crap! its tough when ya want to get out an do things in the plants and beds and cant. This stinks!! Not sure if its just me or if I am really falling apart lately. I was making supper tonight an used my big big bowl that my sweet friend Blanche Waterbury had gotten me many years ago when I made bread by hand. It will hold enough dough for about 4 loaves. Ironstone is the material its made of. I made a chicken casserole for supper and mixed it in the big bowl. Well I had to hold it up to pour the last bit of casserole into the baking pan and pulled my left shoulder. And no I did not tell Rodger. Am afraid he might take my big bowls away next. I think I may have to trade them in for some light weight mixing bowls from the boys in the near future if this happens again.

Our garden bed we have out back looks pretty good considering it was just planted a couple weeks ago.

In the picture nearest is Lima beans, the thick row is leaf lettuce and greens for salads, then broccoli. It is a lil late to be planting broccoli in our area but I had plants in the greenhouse an ya know ya cant just toss em. So ya plant em an hope they do OK.

The next bed over has tomato plants in it. They are Gypsy tomatoes that I got as a freebie from Baker creek seeds with my order this year. They originated in Russia. So we shall see if they are good an if so will be able to save the seeds for next year. The far bed has my strawberry plants in it with one lone Egyptian walking onion in with em. They seem to be compatible neighbors so I leave em be.

My holly hocks are blooming and lookin good.

They have just gotten started blooming here and with the last heavy rain we had it knocked a few of them over on the sidewalk to the cellar. Also the momma cat has 3 kittens that love to climb the stalks and pull them over too. My old fashioned rose bush that is planted in this bed was blooming too when we had rain and I think I missed being able to cut the roses for potpourri. Once they get wet with rain fall they tend to rot before they will dry. I learned this last year when I cut some tryin to salvage them after they had been rained on. But these lil roses smell heavenly.

Not sure how long I will leave an flower beds if I keep encountering snakes. I walked past this area on the way to close the greenhouse out back and Luna started barking behind me and she had found a snake. I killed it with a shovel and she was having no part of the snake. Then just a few days ago I was inside an heard her barking an recognized the tone of her bark. I went out the front door an she came around the corner from the driveway end of the house then went back as if to say " mom come here". I went to see what she wanted and she had found another snake. I hit this one on the head with a piece of pipe and she grabbed it an shook it to death.  And every time I tried to get close enough to get the piece of pipe under it to toss it out of the yard she would grab it an take it farther from me an shake it some more. I guess she didn't want it near me. She is very protective of me but she hates snakes too. Most dogs will kill snakes but when she had the snake cornered and was barking at it, she backed up an touched a tall plant behind her and jumped out of her skin. So this year that is 2 snakes we have killed here in the yard. Both of them after the heavy rain so probably they got flooded out of their hiding spots. We live so close to the woods its a wonder we don't see more than we do. I just don't like snakes of any kind other than dead ones. Our mower had been out of commission for a couple weeks too an the grass had got pretty big and then we fixed the mower an Rodger had mowed the yard. Don't know where they came from but they need to stay away.

Remember my post a couple weeks back when I had trimmed the grapevines and decided to see if I could get some to start this late in the season? Well it didn't work out so well this time. It might have gotten too hot in the greenhouse for the starts. But even tho it has been hot I have maybe 3 or 4 that have lil green leaves on them. So I will keep them watered and see how they do. I might attempt some more in a few days, maybe this weekend, because I need to whack off some long leggy limbs on the vines again. I was surfing around the Internet last week and found something interesting. Aspirin could in a pinch be used as a rooting hormone. After all it is a derivative of the willow tree of which you can put twigs of in a jar of water to help root cutting. Just more of my useless knowledge to pass on. I also read that spiders don't like mint. So I have the brainy idea to cut some of my mint an toss it in the blender with some water and made a strong solution and trickle it around the house to keep them at bay. I know mice don't like mint either. This summer we have had lots of flys that just buzz around near the ceiling on our porch. They don't come down to pester us but its annoying to see them flying around up there. Lemon mint might do the trick on those. I will let you know. I have some growing all I need to do is cut some an hang it on the porch.

All kinds of things to do and not enough energy to do any of it. But I keep plugging along one day at a time. I get my injection tomorrow and will be off my feet an on my butt for 48 hours then see how much I can accomplish. I know I will have berries to take care of. Maybe get a few herbs harvested to dry to replenish my stock of dried herbs. I let my parsley go to seed again so it will come back up new again this fall and I will have plenty time to harvest lots before frost for our own use. I still need to move my plastic to the herb bed to kill out part of it so I can plant some new plants in there. Another project. And I think I have decided what I want to do with my big bath tub in the herb bed. I want to put in partially down in the ground so it is not so tall and fill it with dirt. I want to make a fairy garden in there and use herbs as the landscape plants in there. I want to plant creeping thyme around the edges to cascade over the sides. Not sure what else I will plant in it but want to do it just for something fun and useful. I have been looking on Pinterest for ideas of how to plant it. Maybe a lil water feature for the fairies. I need "fun".

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

Stella

Slow and steady as we go

That seems to be my way of life these days. Not sure what happened to my energy but it is long gone. I had to adjust some of my meds back down and it did seem to help some. I have felt a lil better the past few days. On those crappy days I just don't get a single thing done outside in the gardens. I have decided that if I don't feel like being out there in the heat I am best to just stay inside and do what ever needs doing and let it go at that. It is really exhausting to force my body to keep going when I feel so rotten. Any who, Rodger has got the garden all worked out and it looks pretty good. We sure do need rain tho. We planted a lil later than normal for us and missed all the early spring rains. The plants don't have deep enough roots yet to get water down deep as they would if we had gotten it planted earlier. So they do suffer some in the dry weather. But I am sure we will get rain when we are supposed to. I bet my dad is sittin up there sayin " I taught ya better than that".We are still having a lil trouble with the tater bugs, but not bad. But I did spray this evening to keep them at bay so they don't attack the tomatoes and beans. The peas are pretty much done and I was thinkin as I walked past the trellis spraying that maybe I need to just go ahead and pull up the plants and plow the ground leaving the fence in place an plant the length of fence trellis in White Half Runner beans. They do make the very best shuck beans. The Ky Wonders that we raise are OK for shuck beans but the half runners are much better.
I checked out the grape vines in the back yard and they Japanese beetles have attacked them again this year. So I caught a bunch of them and the chickens had a feast. Then sprayed with some Sevin to kill the ones I missed. They can destroy a grape vine in a matter of a couple days if left unattended.
Yesterday evening I went down the the old house and outbuilding to check on the Cornish cross and got to catch one of Luna's puppies. Gosh they are so fat and cute. The one I caught was a lil girl and she looked like her momma. As luck would be I didn't have my camera with me so no pics to post here yet but for those of ya that are on my friends list on facebook you can see the pics there. Sorry, I got a smart fone and it is for sure smarter than me and I have no clue how to get the pics from the fone to the puter.
But I did take a few pics in the garden when we were over there. So I at least can share those even tho it has taken me 3 days to find the cable to my camera so I could load them in the puter. Can ya tell I am technically challenged?

Well for some odd reason blogger is cooperating and I cant even upload the pics to the blog. I am done cussin now so we shall go on.

I have been harvesting and drying some herbs along the past few days. I am still researching and studying up on medicinal herbs and making my own natural salves, balms and meds. I did make a small trial batch of skin balm a couple days ago and it does sooth me skin after a shower and don't feel greasy. I love the way it feels and it actually smells nice. I added a small amount of lavender just for fragrance. It consists of coconut oil, round leaf plantain, lavender, comfrey leaf, a few drops of vitamin E oil. Melt the oil in a small pan and add the chopped herbs and stir to get as much of the essential oils from the leaves as possible then add vitamin E, stir and strain in a small container and let cool. The total time on the heat was about 30 minutes. So far I do think this works for me to sooth irritated skin after a shower and working outside.
I talked to my friend Rosie  and got a ton of ideas for different plants that can be used for many things. One thing that grows really well here is dandelion and the dandelion root teas is nearly a cure all for many aliments of the body. But this is still a learning process. I had an older fellow tell me one time that if you didn't learn at least one new thing everyday that you wasted the day. I think he might be right. But dang I don't think it will do me any good to learn things as I forget too quick. I reckon I will need to make an investment in a journal to keep notes.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Movin right along

We are still moving right along with the gardens and picking peas. Tonight I canned up 10 quarts of sugar snap peas. Not sure what the next thing will be to can, probably blackberries. They are looking good so far and I am sure the rain we had last night has helped them along a lot. The raspberries are starting to ripen too. When we picked the peas last evening we drove around the field looking at all the other plants and noticed the raspberries starting to turn in places so it wont be long on those either. I am really looking forward to raspberries this year. They wild blackberries here on the farm produce like crazy every year with no need to do anything special to them. I may ask Rodger to mowed near the blackberries in the field so I can avoid a few chiggers and ticks. I love picking blackberries but I alas get bit by every bug known to mankind. I read somewhere if you increase your intake of zinc in summer it will deter skeeters and other biting bugs. I do have some zinc supplement here so maybe I will give that a try.
While I was in the summer kitchen canning peas I walked down to the strawberry bed that is out back and picked a bunch of strawberries to eat. Those things are still producing and blooming again. I did manage to find the energy to weed the old onion bed so maybe tomorrow I can weed the asparagus bed and get some mulch in there to keep the weeds at bay. I really don't have the gumption to go out there and weed like I have in the past and if I don't fix it now they might be a loss. I walked back to the grape arbor out back and noticed the young chickens chasing bugs near the grapes. I got to looking closer and they were catching Japanese beetles. So I caught all the jap beetles off the grape vines and toss em in the chicken house for the smaller chickens. Now if I could teach them where the bugs live and they could help themselves without eating grapes it would be a good day.
Our temps have cooled a great deal the past couple days. It is actually cool outside this evening. So maybe tomorrow I will feel like getting out in the herb bed and doing some more weeding and get the plants fertilized so they can get well rooted before it gets really hot weather here. Even tho the rain was wonderful for the gardens it was sure rough on my arthritis. Got up this morning with my knee swollen again. Don't know what its problem is. Probably just arthritis flaring up. Dang it sure makes life on the farm rough.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

The canning season has begun

The canning season has begun for us finally. Went to the garden today and pulled the beets. I had about a bushel an a half of em to work up. Got those all washed and if ya ever washed beets you know they need many washings to get all the sand off. Finally got them in the 2 big water bath canners to cook. It really don't take lone to get them done but my body just don't hold up like it used to. Got those 2 cookers done an had to clean one canner of em so I could re-load it with more beets to cook. I had raised 3 different varieties of beet this year, cylindrical, Detroit dark red and some golden beet seeds in the mix. And a few were totally white. Not even sure where those came from. I did learn the cylindrical beets are firmer and take longer to cook. IF and when I ever order beet seed again (got a 1/4 lb) I will be getting all Detroit dark red. They are not fibrous, easy to cook an dark in color. Any way I ended up with 12 quarts and 9 pints of beet pickles. So yummy. And my body knows I have been on my feet all day too.  Dang how do I get thru this canning season. I should have a ton of green beans in a couple weeks. The Ky wonders and the tobacco worm beans are both blooming really well. The tomatoes have green tomatoes setting on and they are getting big. Hard to believe the sweet corn is tasseling. We did dig a mess of new potatoes today after we pulled the beets. It is early yet but if the ones we got today were any indication we should have nice size potatoes when we dig them. I cut some of the broccoli that was ready and pulled a few carrots to have some fresh veggies and dip with my creamed new potatoes for supper. Rodger had green beans and new taters. My plan is to cut the cabbage tomorrow evening or Monday and get the kraut made. I have a lot of nice big heads that are ready. I am really wanting some good kraut, my belly just needs it. Crock made sauerkraut has lots of good probiotics in it that are very beneficial to the human body and aids in digestion. My kraut has all the good stuff in it because I do not heat treat the kraut at any point. So I am really looking forward to packing my German fermenting crock full of shredded cabbage.OK enough of the good food stuff.
Last evening I was outside for longer than expected cause Jason thought I was in the house taking a nap when he left an locked me out of the house. I sat out with the lil chickens and was entertained by them for a good while. I found a few earth worms for them to peck at and they were so funny. Once they decided they must be edible the chase was on. I picked the Japanese beetles off the grapevines and gave those to the chicks too. Those bugs will stick to anything and one bug got on one of the chicks wing feathers. Kinda reminded me of me when I see a snake. Lots of hollerin an dancin around. Guess it don't take much to keep me occupied.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Uhoh! Its been a while

Well if you are a faithful reader, ya know its been a while since I have posted. So I will try to give ya an update on what lil I have been doing. I will just have to use the terms "the other day" cause I sure cant remember what day I did what.
But for starters last weekend we got the garden worked out and hoed for probably the last time as the plants are really too big to plow thru again. Then we got rain an things really grew. I had lil tomatoes setting on and cabbage starting to head up. I sprayed the taters for those dang bugs last weekend and within 4 hours it poured rain and that was all gone. I went back a few days later when it wasnt raining and sprayed again with a different chemical as the first one did no good. I think the first spray was viagra cause next time there was an awful lot of lil bugs to contend with. Anyway as most intelligent people know, use caution with pesticides. I was using the garden pressure sprayer, the kind ya pump up and spray. Well I used 1 gallon of spray and was empty and ready to refill. To release the pressure and get all the pressure out of the tank you turn them upside down and hold the nozzel down till then stop hissing and nothing is coming out, right? I did and it stopped hissing. Little did I know that with some pressure in the tank the nozzle clogged. So I proceeded to unscrew the top to refill and the pressure sprayed the chemical on me, down my arm, and on the side of my face. I did have enough forethought to turn my head to the side. I am certain I absorbed a good deal of the chemical thru the skin cause next day and night I was too sick to die. If it made the bugs half as sick as it did me they are dead as much as they got. Anyway I finished spraying the taters that night and came to the house and got a shower. But for about 2 or 3 days I felt like I had been melted an poured out. The being sick dehydrated me really bad. As of today I do feel much better. Better enough to get out of the house and make a trip to town to get supplies. Ya know the cleaning stuff, soap, shampoo, that kinda shopping. Dang it took me  3 hours to get done so we are stocked back up on necessities. I like the dollar store for lil grocery items too. I picked up crackers, chunked ham for sandwiches for me, speghetti sauce (out of homecanned), dog treats, bleach, dish soap, paper towels and a few other things that we use that are kinda necessary. Then on to the grocery store. OMG things sure change when ya dont get out any more than I do. Prices have gone outa sight. Not to mention, for example, in frozen foods, I looked at salmon fillets, Packaged In CHINA for goodness sake.  Hamburger was runnin $2.99 a lb and looked like it was 50/50. Thas a tough one when you are use to having deer burger than is 99% lean. So a package of that will be mixed with deer burger for grilling later. Any way I got my 6 month dose of sticker shock and came home.
The last few days I have been working on getting my herbs cut and some dried and some frozen. My new herb bed is looking really good. The plants are growing really well. Even the Stevia that I started from seed is big enough to start harvesting. But the past few days I have also been researching the herbs that I raise and uses and that sort of thing. Stevia is best left till late fall to harvest as it gets sweeter with the cool days and nights of fall. So good thing I havent taken the scissors to it. So far I have cut sage, marjoram, summer savory and dried those. I cut a lot of borage and sliced it in julienne strips and froze that. Borage has a cucumber flavor and just adds "something" to soups. It is best added after the soup is cooked for a fresh flavor and the frozen will do better for that than dried. I do intend to dry some as well for medicinal tea. I still have a bunch of things to cut an dry as we go along.
This week the eggs in my incubator hatched. Not a good hatch rate, 13 out of 43, but the chicks were healthy and vigorous. They were eating within the first 24 hours. They have been in a container here in the house till they were strong enough to go live in the brooder house with their cousins. I have the impression cross-bred chicks just have better instincts than pure bred birds.

Aren't they cute? They were really quiet lil fellows too. Didnt make a lot of noise whern I had them in here. These lil birds hatched on Tuesday (aha, I remembered) and I just got the 50 others 2 weeks ago tomorrow. There is a good bit of size difference in them but the bigger chicks are terrified of the lil bitty ones. So funny, the big bullies ran off to the corner scared outa their wits. Well maybe to them they thought I had put a bunch of mice in there with em. 
I went to Jason's house this evening and got to see the lil kittens he has. His cat had babies this past weekend, 5 of em, all black too.
Not much else been happenin here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

A true statement

If there ever was a true statement this is it, if ya don't like Kentucky weather, jus hang around it will change in a lil bit. We got all the things done yesterday that we thought needed doin while the weather was nice. Well because we had more rain in the forecast for today. So kinda had my mind set on just hangin out here at the house knowing couldnt get anything done outside with rain. Well as life would have it, got up this morning and no rain. A nice sunny day, not too hot, just right for doing a few things outside. So out I go. Got my jars of chicken stock and canned chicken all washed off and ready to go to the cellar. Set those aside, an you know how scatterbrained I can be. I wondered off and decided it might be a good time to get the raspberries worked out and the rotted straw and compost put around them. I ran into Rodger on his way back from the orchard. He mowed the orchard yesterday and went to weed whack around all the trees this morning. All's well, cept he told me he chewed up one of my apricot trees. I knew it, he don't like apricots. But I know it was an accident. IF it don't make it I can get another one. So he says he will go help me with the berries. So hoes in hand we go to the field. He hoed out the raspberries while I picked the ripe strawberries off the new plants. And we hoed those out as well. On the drive back to the house I tole him to let me out so I could walk thru the garden to see if my beans I had to replant had popped up yet. They haven't yet and I'm a lil disappointed. But I do have some of em up which is better than none. Everything looks surprisingly good in the garden in spite of all the torrents of rain we have had this spring and summer. The tomatoes look good and healthy but I saw some of the Colorado potato beetles on them, I decided to go back to the end of the rows and start mashing bugs. Yeas I have come to the conclusion that is the best way to control them. Gosh I mashed a bunch of em and clusters of eggs too. Rodger suggested we do another walk thru the taters to see if the bugs were still bothering them. Yes they are but not bad. So down on m knees again mashin bugs. I really need a hobby. Here is a few things I have learned about the bugs. If you find just one bug on a plant, look for the egg clusters. That means they have already mated and one is still living to lay eggs. And 99% of the time there will be one bug already dead under the plant. Then if you find 2 bugs mating on a plant, you will not find an egg cluster. Just this lil bit of info helps speed the search along. This makes I think the 3rd time we have went thru the taters mashin bugs. AND this is the first time in years the plants have gotten this big without being stripped of their leaves. NONE of the medicine I have sprayed with in the past has worked. So as long as we can stand it I think this will be our best bet for tater bug control, mash em. So far, so good. Well after all this crap and now I can walk right cause my feet and hands keep getting tingly and feel funny. Not sure if its my blood pressure meds, sugar, just dunno. But we came to the house to get something to drink. We had planned on going back to the garden with the wagon and taking the rotted straw and compost for the raspberries. To beat all I was ordered to stay the heck in the house. Who do he think he is anyway? We got a snack and something to drink and were getting ready to head out to get the compost and straw and it started to rain. Just big drops at first, then heavy rain. Then slowed to only showers and I went to the summer kitchen to wash the strawberries and tote my chicken stock and chicken to the cellar. Then came the downpours of rain. We both were in the summer kitchen and ya would think someone had tossed a hand full of marbles on the tin roof. Made a bad racket for a while. We got HAIL! Not often we get hail for some reason, but today we did. Some of it small pea size and some the size of a good size marble. Not one of those quick lil bit of hails and over with. This went on for about 10 minutes or so. We were blessed it didn't destroy the greenhouse or hurt any plants here at the house. I doubt it hurt the garden either as the plants there are small enough to not be huge targets. So now we are walking on a sponge again. I guess the rain lasted an hour at most but it did soak everything. I finally got my canned stuff put away in the cellar and came in to fix supper.
I had soaked some shuck beans this morning and put those on to cook. It was just the 2 of us eatin, Jason is out somewhere. We had shuck beans with potatoes, fried cornbread, an hard boiled eggs for supper. So now am stuffed and am thinking serious about a nap.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Finally making progress

Well the railroad company finally got our crossing fixed so we could get to the garden last evening. We got about 300 tomato plants transplanted, 100 sweet potatoes, and about 50 or so peppers of various varieties. The corn and beans we planted a couple weeks ago are up and look really good. The potatoes are coming up as well. AND the Colorado potato beetles are eatin on them as they come out of the ground. I think the tater bugs are holding on to the plant and riding it out of the ground. Each plant that was emerging had no less than 4 bugs on it. It was pitiful, Rodger and I went up the rows mashing the bugs. So we killed round one of bugs.

The taters have barley emerged and the bugs have already attacked.

3 long rows of tomatoes and 1 row of sweet potatoes transplanted to the big garden.

Rodger has a good start clearing the hill in front of the house. We can actually see the garden from the front porch.

The front herb bed and the new extension that we finally got added on. Most of it is planted. Some are transplants and some places I have sown seeds.

Flowers on the front side walk are blooming.

My peonies bloomed for the first time this year and do they ever smell heavenly.

How the heck long does it take hollyhocks to bloom? These things are huge and have buds where the flowers will be but no blooms yet.

The onion bed extension to the right in the back yard. As you notice it is kinda nice to live near railroad tracks sometimes. They do leave ties around about ever 2 or 3 years.

I was hoping to get the small seeds planted in the garden this evening but we have Had a lil rain this afternoon with more expected. But this will sure help the tomatoes and things we set out last evening tho. Ah, all in a days work.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Storing homegrown foods

 First of all, my joints do feel better, none of the soreness that I had been having. So I do feel much better. Now if my body could get adjusted to this dreaded prednisone so I would not be eating everything in sight I would be good to go. But its only temporary. But at least I do feel more like getting things done for now. But I sure don't spend much time outside with temps in the 20's for highs in the day. My bones still don't like that. And probably wont like the snow we are posed to get all next week.
 Yeah I know, too much time on my hands. And yeah I been thinkin again. Don't ya love it when I have been thinkin. Well as ya know last weekend we got our corn meal ground and when Rodger got home we put it still in the bags into the freezers to kill any insect eggs that might be in there prior to storage. So was thinking it has been in there for a week so they should all be dead lil nasties and I decided to get busy sifting the meal. I normally do not sift our homegrown meal, but this year when the gentleman was grinding it he had ask Rodger if it was fine enough an he said yes. Well it wasn't fine enough an had far too many larger particles in it so it all had to be sifted. Talk about a slow go. I got 2 bags done today and brought it in the house where it is warm and dry to let the moisture equalize in it and come to room temp so I can vacuum seal it for LTS. I sifted out about a gallon an a half of milling's from 2 of the 3 bags. I still have 1 more bag to sift an get ready to bag up. Storing grains of any kind is easy and it keeps really well if you take a few precautions. Either freeze the grain for a couple weeks before grinding or freeze the flour or meal  after grinding to kill insect eggs that may have been laid in the grain while it was still in the fields. This method pretty much will guarantee no insects in your meal or flour. Unless it is left open and they get in later. After my corn meal comes to room temp and is vacuum sealed in bags it is then stored in a 35 gallon barrel with a air tight seal in the cellar. I use this method for all grains and products like this. I have 2 of those barrels in the cellar for storing goods that are sealed in bags. One barrel has sugar, salt, powdered milk and such in it, the other has grain an grain products. With the price of sugar on the rise I am thinkin I might see about getting another 50 to 100 lb to store., Sugar will keep for a long time and doesn't go rancid. The worse thing that can happen to sugar is to get moisture in it an get lumpy which is no biggie. May also be a good idea to get a bit more flour to store as well with all the wheat crop lose that is being talked about on the news. I don't think anyone can store enough to do them a life time at the price it is now, but when the price has went up drastically the flour an such that you buy now will be like buying it at a really good sale price later thus saving a good deal of money. We also buy macaroni in bulk at Sam's club if we need it, I don't use much but sure do like mac an tomatoes sometimes. The macaroni is also vacuum sealed in smaller bags an into the barrel it goes for LTS. That makes me think, growing up mom alas made macaroni an tomatoes or tomato juice and for the life of me I don't know how she arrived at the taste. It has take me years to fine tune this dish to taste like what I remember from childhood but I finely did. So I will share it with you if you remember macaroni an maters growing up.

First off there is really no measurements, its really just a method. Heat your water to boiling an add some salt and a good generous splash of oil or in my case a spoon full of bacon grease. Add the macaroni an let it cook till its still firm, not quite al dente. Drain off all but about a half inch of the water and pour in tomato juice or home canned tomatoes with juice to cover the macaroni and cook till tender. If you have about a quart of cooked macaroni add 1 to 1 /12 teaspoons of sugar, yeah sugar, to the macaroni and season to taste with salt. Stir well an serve. The sugar cuts the acid taste of the tomato and just makes em so good. Enjoy!
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Rambling around

Haven't done a lot here today. Had to take my buddy to therapy this morning and got back a little bit after noon. Checked the chickens as usual and made sure they had food and water. The weather was a bit cooler today and nicer to be out. Riding in a vehicle makes my back hurt much worse than usual so I came inside and rested this afternoon. After supper we went out to get the weed eater from Jason's house. I had taken my berry picking containers with me because I knew there were lots of ripe berries behind the old corn crib. I picked probably a gallon in a very short time, big plump sweet berries. Rodger was picking on the hill above me where I couldn't get to. He also picked almost a gallon.
We took the weed eater and headed for the garden to weed eat where the electric fence will be. The deer are making tracks in the garden and nibbling the tops off the beans and such. So we think we can put an end to this now before they do some real damage. Rodger got one side of the garden mowed for the fence and the rest they will do tomorrow evening. While he was doing that I did finally get my celery mulched. And with the celery near the tomatoes I spotted several ripe tomatoes and picked those. Cut a cabbage head and some broccoli and brought it to the house. I am going to cut several of the cabbage tomorrow and get more kraut started. I will be planting more cabbage and broccoli for a fall crop a little later. I may get more beans planted tomorrow evening as well if all works out. I cant put this off much longer or it will be too late in the year for them to mature. Hopefully I can go thru my garden seeds and see what else I can plant that will make it before frost.
I have to get back over there in the morning and spray for tater bugs yet again. They just simply don't give up. I checked on the cukes and I will prolly get to make some pickles this weekend or early next week. The first patch of corn should be ready in a couple weeks.
After we got back to the house I washed the blackberries and made about 10 pints of blackberry jam. I still have a big bowl full of berries that I might make syrup with. I am thinking blackberry syrup would be good on pancakes. But thas a project for tomorrow as well.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Canning beets, fussin in the garden

I finally got to moving around good today and got to the garden about noon and pulled my beets. I had almost 2 5 gallon buckets of them. Washed em good outside and got them on to cook so I could peel and slice em up to can. Well to make pickled beets from, I don't like beets just canned. I think I ended up with 14 pints and 2 quarts of beet pickles.

And all the jars have sealed. I still have the dehydrator running out in the summer kitchen. So those should be done in the morning.
Went to the garden after I finished with the beets to see how the tater bugs were doing. They seemed rather hungry, so I gave them another dose of nicotine spray. The beans look really good, some are blooming. The tomatoes are blooming and setting tomatoes now. I simply must get in there tomorrow evening and mulch the tomatoes to keep them off the ground.
The fellow that cuts our hay has most of it raked and some baled today. He is also gonna bale the hay that was cut in the orchard. The guys got in there this evening at nearly dark and put up metal fence post beside each of  the fruit trees so they don't get baled. So now we will have some good roll baled hay to feed goats and sheep if we have some this winter.
Tomorrow is a new day, and I start over. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

A nice day to be out

The weather was really nice today, not too hot, just right for working outside. The sun was shining this morning so I decided to get out and get some more herbs cut to dry. I got the oregano done, some bergamont, and the sage. There was far too much of the oregano and bergamont to put on screens. So I got out the drying boxes we use to do the final dry on our corn for making cornmeal. As it started out one box was about 1/3 full of oregano and the other about that full of bergamont. But once they were in the sun for a bit and wilted down, there was not near as much. Tomorrow I will try to get the chamomile and fever few harvested and put out to dry.
I trimmed my rose bush back that is on the corner of the house and raked the cuttings to the end of the yard. I noticed that the black berries are red right now. So they will be ready in a couple weeks to pick. I still have many quarts of berries canned for cobbler so I am thinking this year I might just make some wine with the berries. Nothing fancy, just the simple country stuff with berries, sugar and yeast. I think I have some wine bottles stored around here somewhere. That would be a nice treat to enjoy this winter. I always think of making dandelion wine when its too late in the season. Ah maybe next year.
When we were in the garden last night I noticed that I have some worm damage on my cabbage. I took some wood ashes over there this evening and sprinkled them. So I can only hope that stops the lil worms. I will go back and check on them tomorrow to see if the worms are still busy or dead.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

More chicks, harvesting broccoli

I got the little Cornish cross baby chicks this morning. The post office called about 6:30 to tell me they were there. I don't function well before my coffee. So I made a cup of coffee and headed out to the post office to get my babies. All arrived alive and active. I had to put them in a tote till we got the old chicken house cleaned out that we had used for storage and move the bigger dark Cornish down there till they are big enough to butcher.

The little Cornish cross are sharing the brooder house with some smaller ones that I hatched. I have another incubator that will hatch on Wednesday of next week. So they will get added to the mix.
We went to the garden this evening to check on the progress of the battle with tater bugs. I did spray the taters again and hopefully this time will get them under control. Everything else looks pretty good. The broccoli had nice heads so I harvested those while I was there. They did better than I thought for getting them in later than usual.

Note to self: always take a basket to the garden no matter what. I was not expecting to have the broccoli ready but cut it anyway and had to put it in my shirt tail till we got to the house. Could have used a half bushel basket about then. So all that is trimmed, blanched and in the freezer. I had 7 quart bags stuffed full of broccoli florets. I don't usually leave much stem on the broccoli as it don't taste as good as the lil florets.
I checked the beets and most of them are the size of an egg, so probably late next week I will be doing beet pickles. I did notice that the cabbage had a lot of little holes in the leaves, so tomorrow I go back to the garden with some dry wood ashes and treat the cabbage. And I guess at the same time I will pick peas again. If they don't have more bloom on them I think maybe they can be plowed under after this picking. It is supposed to be a little cooler tomorrow, around mid 80's. Today it was too hot to breathe outside. Our thermometer was stuck on 90 degrees. Sure made the AC feel good.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I'm winning the battle

I think I might be winning the battle against the Colorado potato beetles. Last evening I sprayed with pemethrin, malathion, liquid sevin and tobacco juice and today there are very few bugs to be found on the taters. As I was spraying last evening the bugs were falling off some of the plants and seem to not like the spray. They did not do this the last time when I used only the pemethrin. So I don't know if it was the combo or the nicotine that did the job. If it doesn't rain tomorrow I plan to give them another round of the medicine to see if I can eliminate them all together. I don't like using spray but I also don't like the idea of not having taters.
While we were in the field checking the garden I got some of the passion fruit vines dug up and put in pots to see if they will transplant well. It is hard to keep things watered in pots this time of year due to the heat. If the passion fruit vines live I might move them to the front of the cellar and give them something to climb on. The thorn less blackberry is doing great there and has grown alot since I planted it.
I weeded the herb bed again to get the grass out. I think a lot of the grass seed get blown in the bed when the yard gets mowed. My OCD keeps me busy trying to maintain a perfectly weedless bed. I really need to expand the herb bed, really double the size if I can locate enough old railroad ties to do that. And get my wagon fixed to haul dirt in. I really don't like hauling dirt in the back of my pick-up with a topper on it. Too hard to clean out when I'm done. Or maybe I'm just lazy. On to tomorrow and see what happens then. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I think I am behind

Some how I think I am behind with my garden this year. Not sure how it happened. Maybe the rain showers we have been having. I didn't get a good start to this day after being up till 4 AM canning sugar snap peas. But I do have 25 quarts done and in the cellar now. We picked those last evening and I got the harebrained idea to go ahead and get them canned last night so I didn't have to do that today. Not a good plan as getting in bed that late (or early) depending on how you see it, made me sleep in later this morning. But its done now.
I had to go into town today, which messes up the entire day. Got home and gathered up my spray medicine and headed for the garden to spray the potatoes again. The tater bugs are having a field day with them. I mixed some tobacco juice from the 2 packs of chewing tobacco that I had soaked several days ago in with the spray to see if that might kill the bugs. I will check them tomorrow to see if they are dead or just really sick. Large amounts of nicotine are toxic so I would think it might kill em.
We had passion fruit vines growing in the field last summer and Jason kept mowing it over with the bush hog. I pulled some of the small ones up this evening and got them in some water to see if they will make roots. If they do I will transplant them to somewhere bush hog safe. If not I plan to dig some of the bigger plants and move them.
There is an old house seat up the road from us that had some of the best smelling roses growing around. I had Rodger help me dig a couple of them up for transplanting. They have a small rose on them but it does have that wonderful rose smell. I put them in pots for now so they can get over the shock a little bit and then I can plant them where I want them. The guys are just gonna love something else to mow around.
Not much else happening around here other than the awful heat and humidity. IF its this hot now, I can not imagine July and August.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella