Giving account for my self....

I bet you are thinking, "about dang time", right? Well I am alive and well. I think every day that I need to post an update on my blog and them get busy and say, oh I can do that tomorrow. Then I look and its been over 2 months since last post. Shame on me again.

As of last post I had some roosters that needed to be butchered off, well they are still alive and doing well. I did not get time to take care of them when we had some half way nice days in late fall. I still am feeding them and guess now I will have to wait till we get a weekend of well above freezing weather to do the deed. They are going to be stock and canned chicken so it wont matter much, just more meat the bigger the bird. Although I did have to separate them into another building alone so they didn't hassle the young hens to death. They don't fight among themselves and get lots of food and drink so its all good. My young layers are laying well now. I get more than enough eggs to keep us in supply and a few to sell. Actually have a few dozen in the fridge as we speak.
I left in early November to go to west Ky to work at the hunting lodge again this year. Dang, talk about hard on the body. Sure made the ole arthritis flare up pretty bad. But it was fun to get to work and visit with Karly and Glenna out there. I really enjoy that time of year. I came home as soon as the season was over. I got home the Monday before Thanksgiving late in the evening.  I came home with lots to do and a short time to get it done. I had a doc appointment each day for the next 2 days to get ready to leave again. I ended up having a sinus infection and bronchitis. Not a good combination if you plan to fly anywhere. I got meds and a couple shots and was a tad bit better by time I had to leave for Arizona on Thanksgiving day. Yep I am off and gone again. We were expecting our second lil grandson in mid December. He was due the 19th. But if like his big brother Liam he made an early appearance someone needed to take care of Liam while momma and daddy had lil Zach. So I was more than happy to do that as any grandmother can imagine. I arrived in Phoenix the afternoon on Thanksgiving day. We waited and waited for Zach and waited some more. The plan was for Rodger to drive out as soon as Zach was born so he was constantly waiting for the phone call. The long and short is Amoy was induced on December 28th after going 8 days over her due date and lil Zachary Donovan was born that evening. Such a precious lil fellow. Hes just a lil fellow but his big brother was scared to death of him at first. He is starting to like him now so I hear. We think he is perfect just like Liam.

Nothing in this world compares to the love for grand babies. I am so thankful I lived long enough to learn this fact.
As the story goes Rodger left our house on Christmas day to drive to Arizona to see this lil boy and bring me home. He arrived late Friday night because we knew Zach would be coming on Sunday. At this point I had been away and not seen Rodger for a month. We got to enjoy Liam and cuddle Zach for a few days and then it was time for us to head for home. The weather went to crap as we planned to leave. We left on New Years day headed east. We knew of the freezing rain that was forecast ahead of us but was guessing it would be gone as well ahead of us. Not the case. We spent a few hours sleeping in a rest area in Texas because we were not able to find a hotel room. Then decided to just drive on after a rest. It was late night and we hit more rain and snow and ice on I-20 thru Texas. So Rodger decided we would pull into an abandoned weigh station and just sleep till daylight. So nice gas was cheap and we could leave the heat running in the car as it was about 25 degrees. We woke up about 6 am with the car covered in ice and the whole parking lot full of semis. Well we may as well move on and see how the roads were as some of the big trucks were pulling out. They were still ice covered and slick. SO many big trucks wiped out and 4 by 4 vehicles wiped out along the interstate. So at the next exit which was Sweetwater we decided it might be a good idea to stop and get some hot food and see if we could find a hotel there and try to just sleep and hope it melted. As we were blessed we did find a room and got a hot meal and slept most of the day and all that night. We left Sweetwater early Saturday morning and headed on east. Our plans were to go see our friends Deb and Danny in Mississippi on the way home. We made it to their house about 9 or so on Saturday night. As is custom of a good southern lady Deb had a hot supper waiting for us. Oh my, my very first crawfish stew and it was so very good. I even froze a bag and brought some home for my supper the next night. Jason is a picky eater and he loved it too. Maybe Deb will share her recipe with us and I will post it for ya here. We stayed up late visiting and then started out the next day on for home. We made it here late on Sunday night January 4th. So yep, that is what I been up to for the past 2 months. I loved every minute with my lil grandsons, I did get to spoil Liam longer as I waited for Zach and enjoyed getting to see our friends in MS but by golly there is not place like home. Since we got here the farthest I have been from the house is out back to take care of my chickens. No plans for going much farther any time soon either. We have had rain all day today and then tonight they are forecasting freezing rain after midnight. So that in itself will keep me on the farm. Not that I mind at all.

So back on the farm. All is well here with one exception. While I was gone in November to west Ky Rodger called to tell me that my Luna was gone. We had her 6 or 7 years and for some reason she made a bad decision crossing the railroad and got hit and killed. Needless to say it broke my heart. I miss my big girl so much. When I go out to feed I am totally on my own to make sure some critter is not out there to get the chickens or worse, me. She was for sure my security here. Not sure I will ever find another girl as sweet and loyal as she was. Hard as it is I do plan to get another Great Pyrenees in the spring. Am thinking this time maybe get 2 girls and have them fixed. I personally think females are just better guard dogs and protectors. We do have a problem here with people dropping off unwanted dogs that can be a problem with the chickens and there is no Luna here to protect them. But life goes on with that sad note.

While I was away my freezers got filled with deer meat. That was a nice thing to come home too.With one small problem, all the chicken is in the meat freezer under about 3oo lbs of deer meat. So if we want chicken I have to do some serious digging in the freezer and that is no fun at all in freezing weather. But it is doable. We are so blessed that the freezers are full and cellar is well stocked. But once in a while we like to get a box of ice cream and really cant do that right now for there is no room in the freezers. It is a good problem to have tho.

Not much else happening here on the farm. So till next time (not as long, I hope), blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Gathering building material

I am seriously thinking of gathering materials for the building of the ark, again. Well that is a lil stretch but if we have many more weeks of rain like this we may sure need an ark to keep afloat. And the weather forecast is for rain all this week into next week. It is mud in our garden. Although the garden stuff is growing, so are the weeds and grass. I am betting I have cukes to pick if and when I can get in the garden without getting stuck in the mud. Our yard looks like a jungle out there. My herb bed is pitiful. I can not seem to get ahead of the weeds in there much less keep them at bay. Geez!! where does it end.

I get my second in a series of 3 shot in my right knee. Both knees still give me fits and hurt like the devil but I am still hopeful the injections will help long term. The doc still says it will take a while to tell a noticeable difference. So wait I will. After all what else can I do?

I used the June apples that aunt Ann brought to me for making some apple sauce to can. I left the sauce a lil bit chunky. Now I really need to find the recipe I used when the boys were lil to make an applesauce cake. The cake had applesauce in it and on top as well. Very moist and for the most part rather healthy. As I remember it did not have too much sugar in it and contained nuts and raisins. A rather healthy snack if there is such a thing. But hey, if ya think about it most cake does contain things that are good for ya. This is what I had for breakfast this morning.

Yeas I had Italian coconut cream cake for breakfast with my coffee. I love this cake. Aunt Ann made one for me to bring home this past weekend. Rodger and I went to visit them and spend some time with them before she starts her chemo treatments in a couple weeks. She and I got to hang out and just have fun, going to an auction(my first live auction), hit some yard sales, picked up some flowers and other plants at the local Lowe's store. Just had a good day talking an visiting. Rodger went with uncle Tripp to fly his plane to another airport after having to land at a smaller one the night before. He also made a stop in Louisiana to get some fresh gulf shrimp. We had those for dinner that night grilled along with steaks and other assorted goodies. Ann made 2 of the coconut cakes, one for eating at the cookout and 1 for me to bring home. That was so sweet of her. And she really should have just been taking it easy but its just not in her nature to sit around. But we had a great weekend and Rodger enjoyed Tripp's company and getting to fly in his MU2 plane.

Two of my favorite people. And my doggie. Luna loves people and she took to Ann and Tripp when they were here. Ann's lil dog Jack was so jealous that they were paying attention to Luna. He is their lil travel companion. And very easy to travel with.

We have not had much going on here on the farm lately with the rain. But we can hope it dries up enough to at least go check on the garden stuff. It looks good from the house.
Not much else happening here, 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

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

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

All done, on to the next project

I worked on the baby quilt last night till the wee hours of this morning. I got it tacked and it looked pretty good. The extra padding behind the lil bear blocks sure made a difference.

This  is with the tacking done. Now the tricky part is getting the borders on and finishing the whole thing. I worked on that today and finally finished.

 

Here it is, all done and ready to take with me this week and give it to Rob and Amoy for the lil one. You know how they say you cant always see the forest for the trees. My friend Anna and I were talking on the phone last night and she brought some differences to my attention. The bears are all the same at first glance, but upon looking at the details they are all different. Really the only thing they have in common is that they are all in some shade of blue. Each bear has a different expression on its face, their bows are different colors, and some of them don't have hands. Hell I had not noticed the lil things. I didn't see the forest for the trees. Thanks sissy  for bringing this to my attention. My poor lil grandson will get my very first attempt at making a quilt. I sure learned a lot making this lil project.

 I still need to get busy and crochet  the lil cocoon  and hat for Liam. I will work on that and ship it later. Hope I have more time to sit still when we get back from the wedding.  Its a good thing that I don't sleep much at night I guess. Come spring I will be busy with the greenhouse and gardens and outdoor stuff so the only time I can tinker with crocheting and such is at night when its too dark to be outside plundering around. I still don't really have my craft room/closet organized well yet. I think I need some shelves to store boxes for crafting stuff and shoes and such. At least it would look a lil better. Thas not really on any list of priorities at this point. It works for me and there should not be anyone in my closet anyway. 

I guess I am the worst for procrastinating. I did finally get out of town yesterday and get my nails done. I had planned on attending a friends Pampered Chef party but that did not work out. I had to wait 2 hours before they got to me to do my nails. Gosh the stupid stuff us girls go thru to look like a lady. I actually like the acrylic nails. They work out well for me. Lower maintenance than real ones. They even look nice if I have to work in the garden with em. Thas my kind of product that can stand up to my abuse. 

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

Stella

Back from vacation and now we are getting caught up

Gosh hard to believe I have not posted since March 27th. As of last post the stuff was growing well in the greenhouse. I had 3 hens hatch out 8 baby chicks as we were leaving for Nevada on April 6th. Jason had the fun task of taking care of the chickens, cats, Luna and the greenhouse while we were gone. He obviously did a good job as everything is still alive and growing. The baby chicks are so cute. I let the big chickens out of the building today and the momma hens brought the lil ones out to scratch and explore. They walk funny cause their lil crop is so full it throws em off balance.
We got to Nevada to see Rob and Amoy on Friday night the 6th. They picked us up at the airport in Elko. We got to spend the week of Robs birthday with him and Amoy too. My lil boy turned 26 already. On Sunday we went to visit Robs job site and see the gold mine and the huge pits and the underground mines as well. We didn't go down into the underground mines tho. When I have that much dirt over me ya can say I am a goner.

Rodger got to see the drill rig up close that Rob had sent him a picture of earlier this year. That thing is huge.

This is a picture of the open pit mine where Rob works.

We also got to go see the remains of the old town of Cortez which the mine is named for.

 This is a picture of Rob and Amoy in front of their new house in Nevada. We got to help them put in some landscaping while we were there. I think it made the house look so nice.

Rodger and I standing on a balcony over looking the Hoover Dam on the Nevada/Arizona border.

Snow capped mountains in the distance on our drive to Las Vegas early last week. A long drive and a whole lot of nothing along the way. We had a good time tho, lots of good food, drinks and fun.

Before we went on vacation my friends Gretchen and Carl sent me this lil garden hopper. Dang this thing sure saves the back when planting. I am sure it will be great when we get started picking beans and garden stuff. I cant do a lot of standing and bending over to plant and this thing sure helps. And it has a place to hold my coke can. This is the new strawberry bed where I tore out flowers last fall and covered the ground all fall, winter and most of this spring with black plastic to kill weeds. Worked out great. We put down a weed barrier and then made holes to plant the plants. Tomorrow we will get the mulch put down and the hoops over the top with deer netting to keep the critters out. I got about 75 plants moved into this bed. And many more to go elsewhere.

As soon as we got back home Rodger mowed the yard and plowed the peas and onions out in the big garden. The peas and onions look great. The peas are vining and climbing the fence he put up before we left. Last evening we planted 2 rows of potatoes, 2 rows of carrots and some lettuce. After supper today we planted the cabbage that I had ready in the greenhouse. So we do have a good start on the garden. I hope I can move more strawberries tomorrow if it don't rain. There is rain and cooler weather in the forecast for several days. I have herbs that are ready to be cut and dried too and I must get started on that.

Before we left I did get my baby chicks ordered for meat birds. They wont be here till mid May tho which is OK. Sure don't think Jason would have appreciated them arriving while we were gone and him having to babysit them,  Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Up to date and now out of town

I think maybe over the weekend I finally got some things caught up on the homestead and ready for the winter. Well with exception of the things that have not been killed back by frost. In our area down on the river we have not had a good killing frost yet this fall. My strawberry plants are still green and making runners like crazy. Really don't want to put mulch on those till they get killed back or they will freeze out when it gets cold because they try to keep living under the mulch and don't go dormant. Same with the asparagus bed. I did get the herb bed dead-headed and all the junk raked off it last weekend. It does look better and not so much like a jungle in the yard. It will get a layer of mulch as soon as we get a good frost.
I had an eye doctor appointment this morning and then left town to come to west Ky to help Aunt Ann with her hunting lodge and cook for the deer hunters. I will likely be here till after Thanksgiving.. Most likely leave the Monday after Thanksgiving and head over to central Ky to visit my friend Rosie and spend the night then on home the next day. I will only get a couple days to rest up then we butcher hogs. Maybe I can take a long break after the second week of December. All that kinda depends on whether or not Rodger gets our corn picked this week. If it is dry enough he is going to get the corn in and if not that will get put off till later. Deer season for modern fire arms opens this coming weekend here in Ky and every male I know is heading out somewhere to hunt. Rodger will be hunting with Josh the first weekend of season and then Jason will hunt with Josh the second weekend. Hopefully they will get a few deer for meat for the freezer. It cost a small amount to travel to hunt but is cheap as compared to buying the same amount of meat from the grocery and much more healthy for you. If they get more than a couple I know I will have to can some of the meat as we wont have freezer space. It will be close with some hog meat that needs to be frozen and then a half a beef in early December. But we will be set for the year. With that in mind, I may not get to rest when I get back home from working out here. I may be busy as a cat covering it up canning venison. But that's a good thing.
Will up date as the week progresses here and try to keep you all abreast of what is happening on the homestead too.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead on the road.


Stella

Blogging from across the country

It has been a while since I last posted here. Gosh I am so slacking. But just to update a little bit. Last Friday September 30th I flew out of Lexington headed to Nevada to see Rob and Amoy and spend some time with my kids. Should be back on the farm about October 9th. They picked me up in SLC airport on Friday night and we had a late dinner and drove on to their home in Elko Nevada. Kinda made for a long night for them not to mention me jumping time zones. But we arrived home late and went to bed. I vaguely remember laying down. We have had really nice weather so far. On Saturday we drove up to Lamoile canyon just sight seeing. It was a nice drive. It always amazes me to see snow still on some of the mountain tops after the hot summer we have had. It is a nice change of pace to see different places of beauty that God has created.
I am happy to know the kids have bought a really nice home in what seems to be a good quiet neighborhood. It is good that they have bought a home because now there is to be a lil one in April of next year. Might not be hard to figure out that I am gonna be a Grammy. Oh my!! I have the lil granddog Abby and now a real lil baby. I do feel so blessed.
Not much happening out here this week, this gram will just relax and enjoy my vacation. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead on the road.

Stella

A close call, cleaning the cellar

I think I might have mentioned on here a few times about how I don't like snakes. Well yesterday evening I was weeding the flower bed near the cellar and dead-heading the hollyhocks that had finished blooming. I got in there with the pruning shears and cut the stalks down and tossed them to the other side of the side walk so I could dispose of them. I then proceeded to pull the weeds our of the bed, the few that there was. I had put a large section of a post in there to keep Luna from sleeping there when the plants were lil. Got to the last handful of weeds and started to reach for another weed and THERE it was . A copperhead, coiled an ready to strike. And my hand was about 6 inches away from the dang thing. I screamed, Rodger came running with the shovel and killed it. My guardian angel was working overtime last night. I had been walking around that dang thing for probably a half hour or more. So blessed that I didn't get bit. Doing some serious thinking about digging out all the flower beds when I have experiences like that.
The weather was nice here today, a lil hot but still you could work outside without burning up. I did get my outbuilding straightened up again before it got too hot to work in there. I thought it was about time to clean the cellar out and mop the floor and get it ready to put more canned stuff in there.I had a crate of fresh onions in there that I had got last fall and some of them had started to sprout. Took those to the summer kitchen and sliced those and they are now drying in the dehydrator. Should be done tomorrow so they can be crushed for onion flakes. I had a few jars of food to empty out that had changed color and a few had unsealed. Got all that out and the jars washed an ready to be re-filled. After supper I finished weeding the herb bed. The weeds sure grow fast in there where I didn't get mulch put down. But its clean now so maybe that will hold it for a week or so. My lil tiny Mexican sour gherkin vines are so pretty, but tiny and fragile looking. I guess they are supposed to look that way. I did see a few blooms on them too. Tomorrow I will need to check on the cukes in the big garden to see if I can make some pickles. Yuck! I still have 2 rows of strawberries over there to weed as well. Rodger has been trying to get the mowing done so he don't have to worry with that over the holiday weekend. We are hoping to have a family get-together on Sunday for Rodgers family so they can see Rob and Amoy. Yeas! my lil boy will be home this weekend. I cant wait to see them. Its been a long time since Thanksgiving. Rob called earlier this evening to say they were leaving Elko about 6 pm their time. They will arrive here in the wee hours Saturday. Please say a prayer for their safe travel. A 30 hour road trip can be kinda tiring.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I get scatterbrained this time of year

In spring and early summer I get so scatterbrained I could lose my head if it were not attached. We have had a lot of rainy weather this year so far and I wonder if that is one reason I can not seem to keep me on track. Kinda feel like a fish in a fish bowl, keep hitting walls till I just go to the middle and go belly up. Well maybe not that drastic but you get the idea. I really wanted to get some things planted this weekend while the guys were off work for a long holiday weekend but we got more rain. Really didn't think Rodger needed to be out doing much where he had minor surgery on his arm last week, Sure don't need stitches pulled out. About 2 days of being in the house with it wet and nasty out I think he was about stir crazy. On Saturday he ask if I wanted to just get out and go somewhere. We both really needed to purchase some work pants for summer and decided to head off to Richmond. We had dinner out and got both of us some new pants, I also found a juicer on sale for a price I was willing to pay and got that as well. Not much else shopping wise.
While we were out I had told Rodger about a local winery that was in the town we were in and we decided to go have a look see. I have alas loved learning about nice places here in our state. Really there is so much to see and do that a person could vacation every year for a lifetime an still not see it all. Anyway the winery is called Acres of Land Winery. It is small, with several young vineyards, they have a nice restaurant on site as well. We didn't get there in time for the tour of the whole facility but did get to do a wine tasting. We both tried 3 different wines each. All of them very good, but every palate prefers different things. My personal preference was the concord wine. Made from just concord grapes, with the very pronounced concord flavor. One of those kinds of wine you could get woobylegged on real quick cause it taste so good. Anyway we came away with 3 bottles of wine, all reasonably priced too. They also told us we were more than welcome to drive or walk thru the vineyards and look at the grapes. We were actually learning different ways of trellising grapes as we went along too. Their grapes are trellised very much like our here on the farm. Not to mention theirs were pruned like ours as well. That did give a lil boost to the confidence there.  So I guess our first try at pruning by reading a book paid off. We are thinking when Rob and Amoy come home in July from Nevada we will take the family to dinner at the restaurant there. Turned into a nice outing for a change.
Today it was still too wet to do much of anything here as far as gardening but I did get out back and dig up the strawberry pyramid. For some reason all the Ozark beauty strawberries in there have died out. Not sure what the deal is. Maybe 7 total plants left, but they have berries on them. My first thought was to go dig out the rest of the strays in the big field and move them here. But dang do I really need more strawberry plants to tend to? I really don't thing so.  I did have some herbs in the greenhouse that needed to be put in a permanent place, so I proceeded to move them to the pyramid. So now I have marjoram, savory, borage, parsley, chives, and thyme in there. The top layer of the pyramid now has lettuce sown in there along with spinach mixed in for quick salad and I will get some onion sets in there tomorrow if we don't have any more downpours over night.
While I was tinkerin in the plants Rodger ran the weed eater with the intention of mowing maybe tomorrow evening if we don't get more rain. Our yard looks like a jungle out there. Kinda scraggly with weeds here and there and all of it tall. It will get done all in good time I suppose.
On our way home Saturday, on our road, I had spotted a vine growing way far up in a tree, maybe 50 ft off the ground. I had wondered what it might be because it was near an old house site. We stopped to check it our and low and behold it is wisteria. I can imagine that plant is likely 50 years old or more. I know for fact that that area of woods have not been tended or logged as long as I have been around. And the houses have been gone for probably 40 years or more. I was amazed that I had not noticed that wisteria before. But maybe I had and just didn't know what it was. Then at another old house site there was a really pretty bush growing near where I remembered the house being. I had to trek down the hill to investigate. I was tickled pink to find that is was the same kind of yellow shrub that I had taken cutting from at my aunts place in western Ky a few weeks ago. A plant that Aunt Ann had given Jackie. What a blessing in disguise. I didn't pull up 2 sprouts of em to bring home to transplant and save. I am certain that if someone went in there to clean up the woods it would have been destroyed. The house site is within just a few hundred feet of my west property boundary. There are still probably 20 or so of the bushes left at the site. Really nice to see them bloom in early spring. As you can tell it sure don't take much to make me happy.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I'm back home now

I got several emails and messages from friends and readers of my blog saying how much they missed reading here and asking if I was OK. Well I'm fine, was just away working for a few days. Made me feel good knowing I was missed tho. I finally got back home yesterday evening late. I had been in western Ky for over a week helping my aunt and to attend my friend Jackie's memorial service. The service was really nice and one that I think Jackie would have approved of as well. I always enjoy time spent with Aunt Ann and got to spend some time with my second cousin Matt, a really nice young man. I picked him up on my way west on Sunday and he was going to spend a few weeks with my aunt which is his Gram. Any way we worked all week and got lots done. I left aunties house on Monday morning and headed back east and stopped off the spend the night with my friend Rosie an her family, then on to my house on Tuesday. I enjoy going to west Kentucky but I alas like home best. But I think that is pretty normal for most people.
Any way back at home all is going well. Rodger did really good taking care of the greenhouse while I was gone. He did have to turn the heat on in there a couple nights when it got really cold. I have lots of seedling coming up and they all look healthy an happy in there. I always come home with things to plant every time I go somewhere in spring time and it was no different this time. Rosie had picked up some apple trees for me from a nursery grower so I have those to plant soon. Not to mention the ornamental things from my aunts. I also took cutting from several different kinds of shrubs at aunties house and have those in soil to take root.  Before I left Rodger had said it was too wet to plow an plant anything here but after I got on the road he checked the ground an it was all good to plow so that is what he did. When I called home he tole me he got the peas planted an a 150 ft row of onions, about 50 ft of carrots an 75 ft of beets. Then of course it rained shortly after so that should help them sprout an come up pretty quick. I think it rained several times here and when I was on the way home he tole me he was going to have to dig the tractor out, he had been plowing an hit a soft sandy spot an the tractor sunk. Prolly not a pretty sight but it was out an he finished plowing as I was getting home. I was only gone for about 10 days buy my goodness how things greened up in that time even with it turning off so cold. We have lots to do when it is dry enough to work outside again. I have things that will need to be potted and put in the greenhouse for a while, more grapevines to get started, several bushes to get planted, raspberries to plant in the field. Still waiting on a tree order to get here so they can be planted in the orchard. Not to mention the brooder house needs to be readied for the baby chicks that will be here next week. Oh joy, I just hope the weather warms a bit before then. But I still will have a heat light for em. It has been rainy an cool all day today and that sure don't help the arthritis one bit. I did go out to town today to get some cleaning supplies that I needed an came home an cleaned house. May as well do something as I was gonna be in all day anyway. Still a lil tired from being away but maybe I will rest a lil more tomorrow and relax a bit as I do some more planting in the greenhouse. Really need to put more benches in there for all the plants. The benches that I have now are all full and still lots of things on the floor, but I can manage if I have more benches over the stuff that is in the floor. Have to see if I can talk these guys into building some for me. We will have to wait an see how that goes.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I got out today

I finally was allowed off the farm today. Just kidding. Actually we went out of town to pick up a few things for my mom for Christmas to take to her at the nursing home. We don't celebrate Christmas with all the gifts and spending money that most folks do. But with her being in the nursing home I at least like to take her a few gifts to brighten her days there. So today we went to Richmond. We had dinner at Red Lobster, my fav, and then on to wally world and to Lowe's. We did pick up some fresh fruit at walmart while we were there. Dang prices have went up since I was out last time. And I don't even want to talk about coffee prices. I was more than a lil perturbed to find that the cans have gotten smaller and the price went up. So has peanut butter. Near $5 for a small jar where as I was buying 2 of the same size for less money just a few months ago. I see some peanut growing in my future. As for the coffee, well I am thinking some really cranky people around here in mornings.
In the shopping today I noticed that a lot of people were buying mostly food and not the expensive gadgets and toys of the past few years. Not to mention not really that many people out either. The Red Lobster restaurant where we went to eat had plenty of vacant tables for a Friday evening as well. Not sure if this is good or bad. I am certain it is bad for the business but it could also mean more people are eating at home. Or that people just simply don't have the extra money to eat out with the economy like it is and few jobs. We actually had a gift card that Rodgers parents had given us for our anniversary in November or we likely would not have been eating out either. Home cooked is always better.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Life away from the homestead

Sometimes you have to be away from your own homestead to get a clear picture of how good you really have it. As I have posted before I have been across the state visiting and helping my aunt this past week. It has really been a lot of hard work cooking for a large group of hungry hunters. But it is also very satisfying to see them leave with a good hot meal and having had a good time hunting and visiting. I have had a chance to learn to prepare larger dishes than what even I normally do. My aunt and uncle, Ann and Lewis Drake have several businesses that they operate here in the area and online. The major business is their gun business which deals in antique and collectible fire arms. They also have some really nice hand made furniture that they sell on their website as well. You can see all that here at www.drake.net . Then Uncle Lewis' daughter who maintains the website also has her own jewelry business. Lissa makes beautiful custom silver jewelry. Her jewelry can be seen here on her website at www.HappyGoLickyJewelry.com . She has some really pretty jewelry that is reasonably priced just in time for the holidays. So if you have a hunting enthusiast or jewelry lover on your list, have a look at all the cool things both sites offer.
My aunt also runs a hunting lodge and does the cooking for the hunters during the deer hunting seasons here. A local guide service houses hunters in her lodge but if you are hunting in the area you can contact her directly and reserve a room here. I do know the food is great, not just because I helped this year but she is also a great cook and believes in making sure you leave with a full belly. You can email her at the www.drake.net and make your request known.
As for me, this chick will be heading off on Monday to my homestead and on the way picking up my youngest son Rob and his gal Amoy to have them home with us for the Thanksgiving holiday. I am really looking forward to seeing them for a while as they are still living in Nevada. I talked to Rodger yesterday and he said my Cornish cross were not ready to butcher yet so he was going hunting in Scott county with Josh this weekend and Jason was hunting on the farm. So I will be butchering chickens the weekend after Thanksgiving. And we will have our Thanksgiving dinner that weekend as well. So I still have lots to do when I go home before I can hibernate for the winter. Later in December we will be butchering Petunia. After that hopefully I can hole up at home and not have to go anywhere else. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead on the road.

Stella

Road trip to work

Yeah I know, I said I was staying home the rest of the year. But here I am all the way across the state again. My aunt Ann has a hunting lodge where a local guide service houses some of its deer hunters for modern gun season. She provides the housing and feeds the hunters the evening meal. She didn't have help cooking for all these guys so she had called and ask me to please come help for 2 weeks. Well I cant do 2 weeks but am here to help this week and I have to go home on Friday. I still have chickens at home to butcher and Rob and Amoy will be coming home on Saturday for a week. But anyway I left my house this morning around 9 am and got here around 3 this afternoon. It is a good 5 hour drive. We had 31 hungry hunters for dinner tonight and they cleaned out the food. We made meatloaf, mashed potatoes, green beans, buttered rolls, blackberry cobbler and chocolate cake. The guys had nice time visiting and left with full bellies. So all is well.
I hate jumping time zones, my body don't adjust well at all. I am in the central time zone and my body lives in the eastern time zone. So I never know when to go to bed or get up. But I am still so sore and hurty from all the things I had done before I left the house so I think I will sleep rather well no matter what.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Finally some pictures

Now that I got a bunch of pictures uploaded to photobucket I can post the link here for all of you to see. So here's the link, enjoy.

http://s718.photobucket.com/albums/ww190/sbemt456/Road%20trip%20to%20Nevada/

You will need to copy and paste the link in your address bar to view.
Now all I can do is hope it works.

Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Home at last

Just a quick note to let you all know we made it back home to Kentucky on Sunday night about midnight.
Our flight plan was to fly out of Salt Lake City to Denver to Minneapolis to Lexington. We FINAlly got checked in thru security at SLC and went to our gate. And waited and waited. It was well past time for our flight to leave. The announcer came on to tell us there was a mechanical issue with the plane we were to board. And ya know thas what ya alas want to hear. So we were directed to another gate to board another flight to what we thought was going to be Denver. They called our names and when we approached the deck the lil lady tole us we would be on a different but direct flight to Minneapolis so they could get us there to make our connecting flight. Thas all good. Then she said the down side is "your gate is at the other end of the terminals and ya have 30 minutes to get there." Well crap, down side is an understatement for that. We headed to the OTHER concourse. We did make our flight to Minneapolis but as we were boarding they ask us if we would mind checking our carry-on luggage due to the fact that there would not be enough room in the overhead storage compartments. Now I am thinking, "overloaded plane". OK so we did that. Rodger and I did not get to even sit close together on that flight. I was in like row 12 and he was in 33. Oh well. We made it to the connecting flight in Minneapolis and got on the flight to Kentucky. We still didnt get to sit together. And I was at the back of the bus this time. Last row, but the upside is we arrived in Lexington 30 minutes earlier than scheduled. Jason picked us up and we came on home. Gosh it is nice to be home again. I have been in 16 different states in the past 2 months and none of em I like more than Kentucky. It is nice to travel and see other places, but I sure dont want to live anywhere but here. Hopefully I can post some pics tomorrow evening of our trip.
Till then, blessing from the McGuire homestead at home.

stella

Finally.........

Gosh I have done a pitiful job blogging from the road on this trip. Kinda hard to stay up late to do a blog when your body knows you should have been sleeping 3 hours prior. But I will try to catch ya up a lil bit.
Rob and Amoy have had a really hard time finding the "right" place to live. So they decided to just put their stuff in storage and look till they find something that they will be comfortable in. Yesterday we went to the Uhaul place which as we understood was supposed to provide 30 days free storage unit with rental of the Uhaul truck. Well we find out that the Uhaul place where we were to go does not honor that benefit. I will never rent from Uhaul again. I think they could have told us prior to renting that the nearest storage facility would be 3 hours away. And I did let the customer service rep know that when I spoke with one on the phone yesterday as well. Not discount for turning the truck in early, nothing. Any way, they finally found a storage unit to store their stuff and we got the truck unloaded and returned. They are staying in an extended stay hotel till they find a place to rent. Really not any more expensive than a house. Rob starts his new job tomorrow and Amoy will have time to look for a rental place.
We had dinner last night at a local restaurant and gosh do they believe in serving a lot of food. It was really good, very close to home cooked. I was impressed and thas kinda hard to do with eating out. Later we decided to get out and visit one of the landmark casinos at Stockmans. We are not big gamblers by any means, we just play for fun. Had a nice time and a few drinks and back to the hotel. Today there is a huge liquidation sale at the convention center here and we are going there before we go on to Salt Lake City to spend the night. Then we fly out of SLC and head home tomorrow. So time to get this day started.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead on the road in Elko Nevada.

Stella

Finally a day to just relax

We made it to Elko Nevada and on Thursday finally got a chance to relax and check out the town. The kids were off looking for an apartment or house. Rodger and I went to check out the Northeastern Nevada Museum. It is a really nice collection of pieces of the history of the area. The whole town is mostly based on mining (gold). The area has several culturally diverse groups that actually settled the region. Have a look if ya like.

http://www.museumelko.org/

Elko is a small town with old west elements. Some newer hotels and casinos and some older ones. Tomorrow night we might hit the casino just because.
I am having trouble getting my pictures uploaded to blogger, so for now I cant share them with you. Maybe when I get home I can take time to actually put them all on Photobucket and just post the link for ya.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead on the road.

Stella

Moving right along

We are moving right along on this trip. So far, so good. We finally made it out of Missouri and into Iowa for a short piece, then into Nebraska. We are staying in Sidney Nebraska tonight. We were all kinda tired, but better driving today. The speed limit in Nebraska is 75 so we made good time. Well except for the construction. We have had dinner and are settled in for the night now. We are hoping to make it to Elko Nevada tomorrow night. I will post pics of the whole trip when I get home. It is kinda hard to get all them downloaded and then put on here and get rest too. So forgive me please.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.


Stella