Spring and gardening season again

I think we have finally arrived at spring and left winter behind. We have had our fair share of rain along with the warmer temps too. Last week Rodger did manage to get the garden worked up and sowed our carrots, beets and some parsnips. The parsnips are new for us this year. I thought we might like a little change from carrots in soups and stews. Not to mention the parsnips are suppose to keep better than carrots. He planted the beets and parsnips in the same row so the beets can mark the row for the parsnips. They do take a good bit longer to sprout and grow. I think it is also possible to leave them in the ground till after frost to make them sweeter. I guess we shall see as we learn about this old fashioned staple.

We went to a nursery a couple weeks ago and got 6 more apple trees and planted them. The deer had killed several of my young trees. It really makes me mad that with all the trees and woods around the deer go to the middle of the field and scrape on the young trees. Once the bark is damaged it will kill the tree. So now we do have some bigger ones planted now. Also got the muscadine grape vine and mulberry tree planted that my friend Deb got for me. I had kept them in the cellar since we got them home in January so as to not kill the roots on them. They are getting leaves now and look promising.

The green house is up and going well. So far my seedlings are doing good. So now we just baby those till time to transplant to the garden when they are big enough. I have got the herb bed cleaned out and more mulch put down. It is ready for some new plants when they are big enough as well. I still need to work on the fence enclosure around the herb bed. It don't have to be super tough, just a barrier to keep the chickens and cat out. I put up a temporary fence several years ago and it is still there. The stakes need replaced with something a lil more sturdy. Its lil jobs that take the most time when all added together.

Rodger and Jason made a trip out of town last weekend to get a load of mulch so I can mulch around the apple trees in the orchard. That should cut down on the risk of them getting damaged with a weed eater. That has happened before. That is how I lost one of my apricot trees after it was a couple years old. So now we have the wagon sitting with about 30 bags of mulch waiting till it is dry enough in the field so we don't get bogged down with the wagon. And it is supposed to rain all week, roughly a 60% chance of rain every day till next week. Hope we don't get as much as we had late last week. It rained so much so fast that the water was over the road in 3 different place on our lil road. No danger of houses or anything getting flooded but the river was very big and came up really quick. Typical spring tho.

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

Stella

A few nice days outside

I tell you what, these past few days, 3 or 4 I think, of nice weather to be outside has sure been good for my soul. Not to mention the body an the yard. I have about had my fill of snow and winter this year. I had high hopes of getting to hibernate this winter an get some things done inside that needed to be done. but dang life happened. Time escaped me and here it is near spring. The weather has been beautiful this weekend and we managed to get a few things done around the place. The old greenhouse/hoop house that we built for near nothing that I no longer use, we finally got it taken down. Most all the materials can be reused somewhere else in time. When we get an evening free with no wind we do have a burn pile to burn. Other than that it is mostly done. It has dried well with the sunshine an breeze in the field so we got in there in the orchard and pruned fruit trees today. A perfect day for doing that too. Ya know you read stuff on how to plant trees, how to take care of em. Well even if you do it all just right you still hit snag. In our orchard the wind blows from west to east, the soil was softer than up here at the house. The breezes down there over the past few years have made most of the trees lean toward the east. IF we had staked them that would not have happened. But it did so ya make the best of it. The deer have done a good bit of damage to some of the trees as well. That meant some of them had to be pruned rather severely to say the least. But I have to say they all do look much nicer and healthier. In a few weeks when the temps stay above freezing we will spray with dormant oil spray to kill any bug eggs that may be hiding in the bark. It has to be warm so the oil disperses well and covers all the tree surfaces. This is done likely 3 times before the trees bud out this spring. The trees also need a good top dressing with compost or organic fertilizer at the same time. I know they get plenty of nutrients from the field but need a boost. At least I think they do. Pruning trees is not hard to do, just knowing how to prune different types of fruit and nut trees is the part to know. Trees that bear soft fruit like peaches, apricots and such need to be pruned so the middle of the tree is open to allow sunlight and air to circulate well and freely. This prevents disease and increases yield. Apple and nut trees, pears, cherries benefit from single or multiple leader system pruning. This is where you leave one main limb straight up or multiple limbs upward. Either way is suitable. I am so glad someone else took the time to figure all this stuff out so all I had to do was search online to find the info. It was interesting that they all said essentially the same thing too. Thas a first. No matter what you always take out damaged, diseased or crossing branches as you go. I think it best to take these out first in case these branches happen to be what you would like to leave as leaders.

Back at the house it was mostly piddling in the ornamental stuff to get it trimmed up and so the yard don't look so shaggy and out of sorts. My body didn't last long enough to get a lot done but at least some things. I got my monkey grass trimmed back, all the dead dried stuff cut off so it can come back nice, new and green in a few weeks. The herb bed will be my next project. I am hoping to get to that in the next 2 days. Dang they are giving a chance of snow for us on Wednesday this coming week. What the.......well its still March and it happens in Kentucky. I guess if it snows again I will be house bound again for a few days. Dang the snow and ice just melted off our deck Friday from the last snow and ice storm we had. I know Rodger is sure wanting it to warm up so we can shut the heat down and get it out of his pocket so to speak. We are thinking of trying to have a different and hopefully less expensive way to heat next winter. These electric bills will have a fellow going hungry in a short time.  But very thankful to be able to pay the bills and stay warm, dry and well fed.

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

Stella

Farm work is hard work

I knew this all along but dang the older I get the more I become aware of this fact. Anything you do on a farm is hard work. We have been busy all day as usual playing catch-up. I needed to dig some horseradish for a friend so I could ship it out in the mail tomorrow and as I normally do I walk around the house with fork in hand to dig for roots. I passed by my wisteria that has been sitting in a pot for 2 years now. I stopped and dug a hole to put the plant in near the pole that runs up to our cell phone booster at the end of the house. Damn who knew there were that many rocks out there. I should have after all the holes we have dug to plant things over time. But I got'er done! Now I wont have to baby my plant and worry about the roots freezing and killing it this winter. One task down, many to go. I decided to fore go canning more mustard and turnip greens as I have more than enough for me and the kids to use. But I did dig some horseradish roots for my good friend Anna and those are in the box with the sage, homemade lotion and home grown cornmeal that I promised to ship to her. So off that will go tomorrow on my way out of town.

Rodger hauled water for us this morning and finally finished that up about noon. He had the yucky job of cleaning out our corn crib to get ready to put the new corn in when it gets a lil drier and he has time to pick it. I needed to help him with that and had to put off the job of cleaning the chicken house out for now. Maybe next nice day when I am home again. We had a good bit of corn left from last year and the year before in the lil crib here at the house. We use the corn elevator and wagon to load it to take to the field and dump for the wild critters to feed on till its gone. That should attract a few deer and many turkeys. Not to mention it will feed lots of lil birds for quite some time too. Lots of corn shells off when it gets run thru the elevator so the chickens will have lots to pick up and eat when they are out roaming about. This project involved lots of raking and fork work not to mention having to push the elevator to fill the wagon level and not spill over the top in some spots. Talk about hard on this ole gal. I already slept wrong night before last and had a pulled muscle in my neck and using the rake sure did not do it any good. Needless to say my neck is very sore and stiff about now.
Maybe I will sleep good tonight an feel much better tomorrow. Maybe......

But I do love fall. I think it is one of my favorite seasons of the year. The trees with all their beautiful color, cooler air, no humidity, just perfect weather. To me fall is like the last hour at work. You know its not long till you can get off work and rest up for the next round. That's kinda how it is here for me. We work out butts off all spring and summer with gardens and such, then in fall we wind down the work with the harvest and then you can rest for a while till its time to start over. Poor Rodger has to do stuff here and then STILL go to a job. I guess I enjoy it more because I can kinda hibernate after all the harvesting and butchering is done and the gardens put to bed for the season. I get to stay in and just do things I really enjoy for a few months. After a few months of that stuff tho I am so ready to get my hands in the dirt again and start planting things. This year I will be cooking for the deer hunters at the Drake Lodge in west Ky and for Snipe creek outfitters. I love doing this but it will be a little different this your without Aunt Ann. I have some really big shoes to walk in there. I helped her for about the past 4 years with the cooking and the lodge so its nothing new. Its just that this year she is not with us. Lots of hunters have been coming there for several years, some already know she passed away, some don't and that will be the hard part when they ask about her. The repeat hunters knew she was sick last year but some I had not phone numbers for to be able to contact them. I just hope I can do as well as she would have and do my best to make the hunters comfortable and make sure they are well fed. This I can do in her memory. I am looking forward to all this and the final hunting season in December. Then I get to be home for a while hopefully. I know I will be home for a good bit around Christmas cause Rob, Amoy and my lil Liam will be home for a week or so. Cant wait to see that lil man again. He got to go trick or treating for halloween. His momma got him a lil monkey suit for his costume. So cute don't ya think?

That lil fellow is such a beautiful combination of his momma and daddy. There really is nothing in this world like your grand babies. They are a whole nuther level of love ya didn't know existed.
And look at those 2 lil teeth he has. I can not believe he is old enough to be getting teeth already. Such a precious age.

And they got him a high chair and he looks like he is ready to put those lil teeth to good use here.

After he and Amoy were home for a visit they said he really didn't want his bottle much because he found out there is more tasty things than his bottle. Amoy had got him started eating baby food and for such a lil fellow he did really well at feeding time. UNLESS that was something that got his attention and he was totally distracted and it got a lil challenging to get food in his mouth and not somewhere else on his face. Cant wait till they get home so we can kiss those lil fat cheeks.

OK enough bragging but I earned the right like all grandmothers I think. Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

It looked like spring, and felt like spring

I just have to wonder if it was really spring or a false alarm again. We worked out in the yard today. That was my plan for yesterday too but we made a run out of town to see if we could get plastic for our greenhouse as finding it in our town is impossible. We had been to Lowe's last time we were out of town and they didn't have the width we needed so this time we stopped at Tractor Supply. And we didn't make it to the plastic till we spotted some 6 ft by 8 ft prefab greenhouses. The price looked good so we checked it out. They didn't have the one we wanted in stock but will have it this coming week. So we will go get it when they give us a call. So the project for today was to make a place for the smaller greenhouse closer to the power source and water source. The best place would be in the back yard. I had already decided that I was taking the pyramid bed out that was in the back and with doing that it made a perfect place for the greenhouse base.

I had strawberry plants in the pyramid for several years and every time we turned around out back this thing was in the way of some equipment. So out it went and Rodger and Jason used railroad ties for the base of the soon to be greenhouse so we had something too anchor too and it would be level.

This took some leveling and using the tractor to haul rocks and dirt to fill it in so I don't have to trudge in mud when I water. So this is where the new lil greenhouse will do. Much more convenient and it will serve my needs well. Much easier to put up and when I am finished for the season I can take it down, put it in the box and take care of it till next season.

While the fellers were doing this I got all happy with the pruning shears and started on the grapevines here at the house. They did sure look scraggly.

These things sure look ratty before I got in them with the shears. It is a lil late in the season to prune grapevines but they did not bleed at all so all is well. Not as many limbs after I finished.

Now there, don't they look all better now. They say ya cant over prune grape vines so I guess we will see. But I think I helped em some.
I got those done as Rodger and Jason were workin on the base for the greenhouse and I made my way around the house intending to prune the kiwi vines, Too bad I didn't make it that far.
I stopped at the shrubs on the east end of the house and just started clippin the limbs off to trim them up a bit, and after workin my way thru all of em, i had the bright idea to just cut em down and take em out. They are a pain to work in as they make me itch so dang bad. I had Rodger take the chainsaw to the main truck of them and I pulled the rest of the roots out. I should not be pulling on stuff like that. Now I am so dang sore I can hardly walk.But we went from a nice row of big spreading junipers to this.............

Now that I have mud, what to do, oh what to do. Not sure just yet how I will finish this off. The main reason for taking out the shrubs was they grow branches toward the base of the house and they push the under skirting material off. So now I got that fixed and had to hose the house off cause I left muddy glove and hand prints all over the siding. I may just get a load of gravel for the drive way and put it all the way up to the siding. And if want plants there they will be in containers. After all this mess dried out. The shrubs also kept a lot of moisture at this end of the house too. SO they is all goney gone. Rodger used the tractor bucket and he helped get all the mess hauled away in the middle of finishing up the greenhouse base. When I went back around back of the house this is what I have.

I guess now its dig out the grass send in the building and plant some grass in the areas where the pyramid use to be and around the edges of the base before the chickens excavate all the dirt over the hill.

We finally got all the tools picked up and put up and I had to use the hose to spray off the under skirting on the end of the house where I got mud on it so I got the brainy idea to hose off the front porch. I had to get the dirt off the porch that Luna had brought in this winter so we can sit outside and enjoy the nice spring weather that is coming soon. I had too many chairs so I had Jason come get 2 more to take to his house to use so they can sit on the porch in nice weather if they want too. Now to find  a couple smallish tables to sit drinks and such on would be nice. Wonder what I have around here that I can re purpose into small side tables. I will have to look around tomorrow and see what I can come up with.

On Saturday we planted the fruit trees that arrived that I had ordered a month or so ago. I got a replacement for my apricot tree that met  its fate with the weed whacker last year. And we added 7 more apple trees to the orchard too. Most of the new ones are old fashioned standard varieties. We now have Wolf River, Moyers spice,Keepsake, Gold Rush, Smoke House, Stayman Winesap and Granny Smith apples. Just so have it I had my hand pruners with me in the orchard and got most of the trees pruned there. Somehow I got in this pruning and whackin off limbs mood lately. No people limbs tho.
And who knew pear trees had these huge thorns on em?

And trust me these big damn things hurt when ya get poked. I ain't too sure about this tree and how long its gonna live. It is supposed to be a Keifer Pear. My other big pear tree don't have thorns. The deer mangled a couple of my apple trees. I am pretty sure one of em is dead but I paid good money for it an will give it a chance. The deer broke the top off of the tree during the rut when the bucks rubbed their antlers on the tree, Kinda made me mad with all the dang trees and they kill my lil young apple tree in the middle of the field.
Our grape vines we planted last year look pretty good. They will get pruned a lil bit and staked up so they will grow upright as soon as we have time and weather permitting. I still have to tend to the raspberries too. Rodger will mow them off for me and I can spread compost over the area and thas about all they need. Not sure how the strawberries are gonna do over there this spring. But I have plenty planted here at the house if I never see those plants again.

I think that is about all we have accomplished this past week. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

We are still alive here

I thought I might should post and let my regular readers know that we are still kicking here. All is well on the home front, feeling like we might be getting somewhat caught up with stuff for now. For a few days anyway.
I think the strawberries are done with their major crop for spring and will give me a lil rest. I am so thankful for the bountiful harvest tho. Got about 10 gallon in the freezer and 20 pints of strawberry jam made so that should do us till the next season of berries. Friday night we picked the first of the English peas. I sure hope to have enough of those to can some. I cooked the ones we picked on Saturday and they were so dang good. Put some taters in with em and made fried corn bread and I had green onions. I am convinced heaven is right here. A country meal fit for a king. Or queen.
Mothers day weekend we finally got the rest of our garden in. The sweet corn, green beans, maters, peppers (3 types), sweet taters , cukes, eggplant, and squash are all planted. Rodger was in the field mowing earlier today and said the sweet corn is starting to come up. This weekend Rodger hoed and plowed out all the stuff that was planted earlier in spring to keep the weeds at bay. It all looks real nice now. I still might plant 2 more rows of green beans in our garden. We use lots of green beans here. That is the only green veggie Jason will eat so we have them a couple times a week. I noticed other day when I was in the garden that the tater bugs are not so bad on the taters. If they don't get any worse than they are now I don't think I need to worry much. I am happy about that. I did end up planting about 200 tomato plants again this year tho. And about 100 peppers total. I didn't have enough peppers last year so maybe I will this time around. We are supposed to get rain tonight or tomorrow so that will help things spring up faster. I did get my herb out of the green house and planted into the herb bed this evening too. I have about 15 nice sage plants now that hopefully will provide enough sage for our use. It takes a lot when ya start making homemade sausage in fall. I kept a few tomatoes here to put in the herb bed too for quick slicing tomatoes and to save the seed from. I am pleasantly surprised that I don't have more weeds in the herb bed than I do. I know I weed it a few times a year but seems like last year there were far more weed problems. But then again the herbs are bigger and can shade some of the weeds out. I need to get my lil Mexican cukes planted in the bed too. They are fast maturing and will do fine starting later. Maybe tomorrow if it don't rain too much.
A couple weeks ago on one of our strawberry picking trips to the field, Rodger with a lil help from me got the raspberries weeded. They have lots of lil berries setting on them now. Am hoping for a good crop. I love the flavor of fresh raspberries.
As of now my greenhouse is empty. I got all the pots out this evening and set them on the borders of the herb bed near the house so I can water them without having to leave the hose lay out in the sun all the time all the way to the end of the yard. The grapevine cutting that I attempted to root did great. I got 34 out of 40 and they sure look healthy and hearty. I took cutting off the kiwi vines when I pruned them too this spring and most of them have roots now. I am not sure if the rooting hormone that I used to dip them in made a difference or the fact that the sap had already risen when they were pruned. But seems I had more take root this year than last. I really have had a good season starting odd stuff this year. I planted some asparagus seeds that I gathered last fall and had in the fridge all winter and most of them have come up too. I just took them out of the greenhouse and set them out so I can keep them watered till they get bigger. I think maybe my next task will be to weed the asparagus bed and strawberry bed again and maybe get mulch put down. Once the garden comes in I just don't have time not ability to keep all the beds weeded. My knees and back just don't allow that anymore. So I am gonna have to think of ways to cut the work back because Rodger and Jason don't have time to do it either. Jason will have his own things to care for soon. He and Rodger took the lil tractor and bucket and built raised beds near the rock wall at his house and a bed in front of the front porch. I gave him some maters, peppers, herbs and flowers to plant there. I will be much easier to keep neat and he wont have to go near the top of the rock wall to mow now. Much safer too.
I had a brain storm last night and decided today that I would start picking flowers and stuff to dry to make homemade potpourri. I love the smell of potpourri. Not to mention it can look pretty too. Up the road from our house near an old house site that are lil tiny old fashioned roses blooming now and they smell heavenly. With Rodgers help I picked about 2 gallon of those roses to dry and some lavender from my yard, lemon mint, and fever few blooms. It does look pretty right now but will fade as it dries. I do need to get the fixative oil to put in it after it all gets real dry and store it away for later. I have stayed kinda busy today but nothing strenuous hopefully that will make me hurt tomorrow. Guess we shall see in the morning.
Not much else happening here, 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

It sure looks like summer here

And its only the end of March. All the fruit trees here have bloomed out and now starting to lose their bloom. We have had frost advisories the past couple nights but we didn't get any here at the house. I have peas, carrots, onions, and lettuce coming up in the garden. Our forsythia and Spirea bushes have bloomed out and look so pretty. AND the dandelions in the yard popped up after  Rodger mowed Sunday night. The weather has been nice the past couple days tho, not too hot, just right like baby bears porridge.

This spirea bush is one my aunt gave me last spring and this is the first year it has bloomed here. It is also called Bridal vail.

 

The forsythia is planted in a row at the end of the driveway and I hope in a few years it will block the view from the road to the house.

 

 

 My zinnias that my friend Deb sent me seed for are coming up in the pots. Oh my, I sure think I put far too many seeds in there. Not sure where the heck I will plant those.

 

I have one whole flat of cabbage started and they are up already too. It takes the tomatoes a lil longer to sprout and get going.

 

 

Now tell me this ain't redneck? I think everyone needs a big azz bath tub in the middle of their herb garden. Well this is the one we took out of our master bath room. Soon as I get time it will get buried in the herb bed about where it is sitting and I intend to make a water feature with it. I think it is deep enough to maybe have a few gold fish in as well. It wont be so unsightly after it gets buried in the ground and trimmed out with rocks. But for now, I am just content to be redneck. As you can see in the picture above, some of my chamomile has jumped the fence and is growing on the edge of the driveway now.

We got our hams trimmed and sliced an put in the freezer last evening. I had a good deal of fat and skin that was trimmed off. Rodger and I rendered it down this evening to make lard. I think the lard is good enough to use for soap making. I will wash it again tomorrow to get all the bits of meat out tho. When we get our beef I have ask the butchers to save all the fat for me to render for tallow for soap also. Should have a good bit of soap making material that is mostly free. And nothing beats free, right?

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

Stella

Love or hate the weather

I think most people across the country have had a love/hate relationship with the weather this year. We didn't have much of a winter here at all, very little snow, now its warm outside and we have lots of rain and thunderstorms. All the trees are starting to get leaves. I even have a lil small cherry tree in the orchard that is blooming out already. So with it being this early I am guessing we probably wont have much in the line of fruit this season. I suspect it will get frost bit for blooming this early. It was so warm here in February that we kept postponing pruning the grape vines till we got a nice cold snap that never happened. So we are going to definitely prune them this weekend and hope to hell it don't kill em all. This is the year we need to also prune the kiwi vines. I simply must do something to make them produce kiwi's this year so Josh and Jason will stop fussing about all the work of setting post for kiwi vines to never get a kiwi off em. Just kidding, they give me a hard time but they are alas willing to help out with what ever projects I need help with when they here. Although it takes 5 years for them to produce, and I think this is the 5th year we have had them planted. We shall see. I do hope we have some. Will sure be a nice treat in summer to be able to pick fresh kiwi from my own vines.
I took out the flower bed near the drive way last year and covered the soil with black plastic all last late summer till now in hopes of killing any weeds and left over seeds in there. Now I need to think of what I can plant in there that looks nice and will be edible. Maybe a trellis and plant the Mexican cukes in there with a couple cherry or grape tomato plants, some lettuce and what ever other goodies I can think of. Or maybe I can just fill the whole bed with strawberry plants. Now that would be convenient for me. Still thinking on the project for now.
I had a doc appointment yesterday with the ortho doc for follow up on my arm surgery. All is well with it. I did ask him about the bad pain in the elbow and he tole me he guessed 6 to 8 weeks post surgery before that pain eased up due to the fact it was tendon repair and those take a while to heal and quit hurting. So I told Rodger I have minimum 3 more weeks to whine. Not sure that made him too happy but such is life. OMG we made the mistake of eating at long john silvers for a late lunch too and all the oil tore both our bellies up. I have felt like crap all dang day. Didn't wake up till 11am this morning and had went to bed fairly early too. Then I have been nauseated all day. I really did myself in when we got home and I was having some leg and foot cramps. I drank a lil small glass of orange juice and gosh that did not sit well on the tummy. Then on top of all that being really sore this morning from riding in the truck yesterday while we were out and about. Long story short it has been a rotten day. At least I have felt rotten all day. The weather was nice enough and warm, but we got thunderstorms this evening with lots of rain. Not really storms tho which I am very thankful for.
Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I got the blah's

This winter has been kinda funky to say the least and I have the blahs. Not motivated enough to do much. Too early to start plants here, too wet to plow so here I am. All I do is putter in the house and care for the chickens and Luna and her cats. Gosh yesterday I thought I had lost my Luna. A cousin of mine stopped by to see me and was driving up the driveway. Luna hates strange vehicles pulling in the drive so she was biting at the tires and barking. Somehow she got under the front wheel of the jeep and my cousin ran over her muzzle. Scared the pee out of both of us as she ran off yelping. I called her back to me and she ran up and put her head between my knees as if to say "help me mom". I checked her jaw and head just sure something had to be broke but thankfully she was OK, just scuffed up a lil on her nose. She is a lil sore but otherwise fine. I have been feeding her soft bones that I had froze when I made chicken stock in the fall. I will keep that up for a week or so till she can chew better and is not sore. Sure hate to see my baby and body guard hurt. I was on the front porch when all this happened and she is very protective and probably the reason she was so aggressive with the vehicle.

I went to my ortho doc today and will be going in tomorrow for surgery on my left shoulder and elbow. I am sure it will be a long day. I have to take prophylactic antibiotics due to a suppressed immune system from my arthritis meds. After tomorrow I will be a one arm bandit for a couple weeks till I am able to move the arm. Not looking forward to the pain from surgery but in the long run the pain will be much diminished. But I will only have one hand and may not post for a couple weeks but will do my best to post something soon the let my lovely readers know I am alive.

Needless to say we did not get our peas planted on Valentines day as we usually try to do, just too wet to fix the ground. But soon I am sure that will get done. Not my me of course but Rodger and Jason will get that chore. Rodger is in the process of remodeling the master bathroom. We took out the huge garden tub in there and are gonna build another walk in closet. We need more storage more than we need that big tub. I bet it hasn't had water in it other than to clean and dust in 10 times since we have lived in this house. We were trying to think of a use for the tub and I hit on the idea of a gold fish pond in the herb bed. So we will dig a hole and bury the tub, add a pump to aerate the water and fill'er up. I have alas wanted a water feature in the yard somewhere so I think this is a good chance to have one. That project will get done after mid march after we get the plastic on the green house and get it going and seeds started. Not sure how much of that I will actually do. Most likely I will just supervise that event.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Home on the homestead again

I am back home at last on the farm. I had a wonderful week visiting with my son Rob and daughter-in-law Amoy last week in Nevada. When I got there the weather was really nice and warm, then by mid week it got cold and snowed a bit. There weather changes more than Kentucky weather I do think. Good thing I had taken my long johns with me.
They picked me up on Friday night in Salt Lake City, we had a late dinner and then drove on the Elko and finally got the their house about 3 AM on Saturday morning. I think we all slept in on Saturday and then they took me for a drive to the mountains. It is hard to believe there was still snow on some of the higher mountains in Nevada after all the hot weather we all had this past summer. But here is proof.

 

You can still see the white snow on top of the mountains in the distance. And it was warm enough at this distance up the canyon for short sleeves. When we got to the end it was cold enough for a sweat shirt.

Somebody is pregnant! Guess who? Yes we are expecting our first grandchild in April. Cant wait to be a Grammy. But that don't mean the lil grand dog will get replaced tho.

 

It was a really nice drive and the weather was good that day. Later in the week, well not so much. This is the view from Rob and Amoy's back door. I was not ready for snow and winter weather on my vacation.

I am sure the yard will look different in spring after they get the landscaping done and have actual grass instead of tumble weeds. In the mean time its a nice sandbox for the dog. 

When I got home to the farm it was short sleeve weather here but we are to get some rain later in the week along with cooler temps. While I was away Rodger got our garden turned under and its ready to seed down. Jason had bought some hard red winter wheat to sow for a cover crop. The plan is to only plow under part of the wheat next spring for a garden spot and let the rest of the wheat mature and harvest it for grinding. Rodger also picked the last of the bell peppers before he plowed and I got those all sliced up and in the freezer today. They also got all our potatoes put in crates and in the cellar. The sweet potatoes are still in the barn curing before they get put away.Rodger also stored my butternut squash and cushaws in the cellar for me too.  Tomorrow I really need to spend some time cleaning up my herb bed and getting it ready for winter. And its time to sow onion seeds too. So that will be on my list for tomorrow as well before the rain comes on Wednesday or Thursday. 

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

Stella

Another day on the homestead

Another hot day here on the farm. I got an early start on working up the tomatoes that we picked last night. I decided to make juice with the really ripe ones and then turn that into veggie soup to can. I ended up canning 10 quarts and 1 pint of wonderful vegetable soup. Rodger likes to have veggie soup if I'm gone so he don't have to cook much. And if I am home in winter we usually heat up a jar of soup on Saturday and eat on it all weekend. At least we get our veggies in that way. I think now I have enough canned to last till next season. Dang it is hard to believe we are this far along in summer and headed into fall. Seems like only yesterday I started getting stuff from the garden to can. We went thru the sweet corn last night and picked off the last of it and Rodger mowed it down. That will make it easier to get in and pick tomatoes too. My green beans are almost done producing now and I did get lots canned to do us. The tomatoes are just starting to ripen in large numbers. We picked 3 - 5 gallon buckets last night. We gave some to the fellow that came to get the rest of the sweet corn. I made several phone calls while I was waiting on Rodger to get back with the tractor trying to find someone who could come get corn and finally after about half hour an lots of calls found a taker. So he got a bonus bucket of tomatoes too.  Sad when you cant give garden produce away. But its all done now.
This evening after work we got a chance to finish the landscaping stuff I had started over the weekend. We got the weed barrier down where the flower bed in back of the house was and got the gravel put on it. It does look neater back there but I know I will miss my flowers blooming in summer. We got plastic put over the soil in the bed near the drive that I am gonna use for fall garden stuff. It is black plastic and should produce enough heat to kill out most of the flower roots and weed seeds left behind. It might make it a lil easier to keep weeded. I guess my next project will be to dead-head the herb beds. The different mints have bloomed and fallen over and look pretty shabby right now. I should have some free time tomorrow and get more herbs cut and dried for later use. Probably next tomatoes will be turned into pasta sauce and canned and I will need the basil and some others from the bed. Will cut herbs if it don't rain, but they are predicting rain for tomorrow. We shall see.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

If I build it, you can bet I will tear it out later

Several years ago when we got out moved into our house I had the big idea to build several flower beds up here. One was near the driveway, one on the west end and a small one near the front sidewalk. I had planted all perennial plants in them. They actually looked pretty good till maybe 2 years ago. With my physical limitations I could not keep all the weeds out of em. So needless to say they looked kinda shabby at best. I had got out a couple weeks ago and pulled the weeds to no avail. They still looked crappy. So I tole Rodger I was gonna pull all the plants out and move em to a place near the end of the driveway and re-do the bed areas. So that is what I have done this weekend. The one small one by the front sidewalk I replanted with a row of Lariope (monkey grass) that wont take over the sidewalk. So now when the monkey grass gets taken off at least it wont cover the sidewalk lights at night. So that one is done for now. The bed near the drive I took all the plants out except the one tomato plant that I had in there to save seed from. I am gonna put down a layer of black plastic and let it sit for a couple weeks and that is where I will plant some fall garden crops. It is narrow enough I could make a tunnel with pipe and plastic and maybe have a couple tomato plants in there most of the winter. I will plant some late cabbage, maybe rutabagas, and lettuce in there as well. So that one is planned. The biggest bed on the west end of the house is all out and dirt put back to fill in the low spots where we used the tractor to scoop out the plants and soil. This left low spots that would not drain well so we filled em in and leveled the area off. Now a layer of weed barrier goes down and then landscape gravel or maybe, just maybe pavers to make a patio like area. After all it is near the summer kitchen and we could make a shaded area to do green beans and other veggies that make a mess if done on the porch. But am sure gravel will go in tomorrow, then maybe later pavers of some sort.
After we finish the landscaping stuff tomorrow evening we must pick beans and tomatoes again as well as cukes and zucchini. Later in the week I am planning on getting my carrots pulled out and canned up. We had a lil break in the garden produce this weekend is the only reason I had time to tackle the landscaping projects. Gosh it seems like this has been a really short summer for some reason. Maybe its cause we went from winter to hot summer and now its is August already and it will start to cool down in the evenings now. That will be such a nice change. I love summer and all its busy-ness but the heat is hard on me now days. Love the gardening and canning and growing things. I did finally get my late cabbage seed sown today. So I know they will be late and thas OK cause I will have them in the former flower bed and can cover them if need be to protect them from hard freezes. I think maybe tomorrow I will clone some tomato plants to plant in that bed as well and see just how long I can keep fresh maters into fall and winter. Be fun just to try. Never know, I might succeed.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

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

Trying to see the pretty things

Dang with all this rain and storms we have had since I don't remember when, I guess I am blessed to have anything left to bloom and look pretty. We have had several pretty good rain showers today and after it stopped I got out and took a few pics here around the house. The big plus with the pretty stuff is I can see it and think of the wonderful friends who have shared seeds and plants with me.

This is the beautiful hollyhocks that Rosie gave me the seed for and they were planted last year. They are just starting to bloom. In the foreground is fever few that she also shared with me. Later on in summer it has beautiful white daisy like lil flowers on it.

The flower border at the back of the house is filled in with plants from my friend Madeline. The old porch rocker is one I sat in as a lil child on the porch of the old home place. It is more for sentimental value than sitting as it is about rotted down. Maybe a few more years left in its life.

The grapevines are loaded with lil grape clusters again this year. They got pruned heavily this spring and are still sprawling.

The border to the left is Lariope (monkey grass) that my aunt Ann had given me last spring. It will thrive almost anywhere and makes a nice edging for drives and such. The herb bed has a lil fence around it now to keep some animals from walking thru it. The new herbs in there are starting to take off now and grow. Still have more young ones to plant in there too.

This is the new bed extension in back of the house. It is planted with leeks and the new strawberry plants from my friends Gretchen and Carl. I am still short 1 bag of mulch to even this one out and eliminate the bare dirt spot.

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This is the banana pup that my friend Deb sent me from Mississippi last week. This is the musa basjoo variety. This banana tree is grown for fiber and not the fruit. It has gotten 2 new leaves on it just since I got it. I think they are capable of growing up to 2 ft per week in the warmer summer months. It will also flower when it has 35 leaves or reaches 10 ft tall. I am thinking in a few years it can be moved to a place where I can put a hammock chair under it and have shade.
Anyway not much going on here today will the rain. All I have succeeded in doing is getting my hair cut and just stayed inside. The cool rainy weather does a number on my joints.
So 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

It's dry enough to get in the garden!

Its hard to believe that with as much rain as we have had with only an intermittent day of sunshine that the garden would be dry enough to plow. We went to check on the strawberries and raspberries that I had transplanted a few weeks ago and be damn the strawberries are blooming and some have berries on them. They look great. I do have the fertilizer now so I will try to get that on there tomorrow to boost them along. The stuff we have planted in the big garden is looking good and growing in spite of all the rain. It will get fertilized tomorrow as well. The plan is to plant the white heirloom corn that we use for cornmeal and stock feed tomorrow and get the garden planted as well. It is pose to rain again on Sunday evening. Rodger got the corn ground disc up this evening so it should be ready to go for tomorrow. That will be the first chore on the list. Then the garden.
I have not got a lot done today and to beat all it was a nice day too. All I managed to accomplish was extending the side walk that leads to the back of the house to make it look a lil more finished. The guys had put a big rock step in front of the summer kitchen for me.  I put landscaping timbers cut to fit on each side to finish it out and filled the spaces in with gravel. My lil chainsaw sure came in handy fer cutting the timbers to size. I really don't want to plant directly in the soil in that area as it would never survive the foot traffic and gettin stepped on daily. But with the gravel in place I can set planters there if I do want flowers or maybe herbs. I think herbs would be a good idea as it is in front of the kitchen back there.
The plants in the greenhouse are big enough to transplant now. Likely those will not go in the garden till next weekend to be sure to miss any possible frost. As crazy as our weather has been tho who knows. The only thing that will get transplanted tomorrow, time permitting, will be cabbages and broccoli. Tomatoes wait till next weekend.
Maybe if they don't work me to death tomorrow I can get some pics of the happenings here. 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

A nice day and rain later

Today started out being rather nice, warm partly sunny, really a good day to work in the yard. And that is just what I did. I had brought a few ornamental bushes from west Kentucky last week and was really wanting to get them in their permanent place. So one of them was planted near the bird feeder in front and the other burning bush was planted at the back of the house on the south corner. The burning bush was really big and believe me that took some digging to get a hole big enough to plant that thing in. Then I looked around and got another idea to extend the sidewalk on out past the new bush to the strawberry bed to make mowing easier and make the whole thing look neater. That included digging up some sod and extended the row of Lariope or as some call it "monkey grass" on to the bed. That wasn't enough as usual, it needed to have landscape gravel and the sidewalk extended. So I located some huge pieces of cardboard to use for a weed barrier under the gravel. Well my body jus don't hold out like it used to so that lil project is not complete. Still need to put down more weed barrier and finish hauling the landscape gravel to finish. I had to come in for a snack and rest a bit then start supper. The guys got home and as we were eating supper a really heavy thunderstorm moved in. We had some serious wind here. When I say we had wind "here" I mean it hits the top of the mountain behind us and the river area in front of us. We do get some minor wind right here at the house but not even enough to toss the cushions out of the patio furniture. We are blessed that our house sits back in an indention in the side of the mountain. When the wind kicked up we turned on the news and weather all to find we were under a tornado warning. We didn't even lose our power here but others in the county are without power as I write this. Listening to the news, there were reports of several tornado's and straight line wind damage in Kentucky this evening. We did get some heavy rain tho. That means no planting the raspberries or strawberries this week and the yard wont get mowed for several more days. May have to resort to the bush hog if we cant mow in short order. The yard looks kinda silly right now where I got the weed eating done yesterday and didn't get it mowed. But OH well, there will be another day I'm sure.
And with all the things I did remember to do this weekend, getting the brooder house ready was not one of em. Dang, I will have baby chicks in a box in the house if they show up tomorrow. Talk about a brain fart. Story of my life.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella