The garden is nice

I have to admit it is more like Rodger's garden this year. He has done all the hoe work and plowing and keeping weeds out this year. It sure does look good so far. Our potatoes are dead so its time to dig those. I told him this evening when we were in the garden I think it best if we just dig maybe a 5 gallon bucket at a time so I can can up the smaller ones so we don't lose them from shriveling over the storage. We picked enough cucumbers to make 8 pints of dill pickles while we were in the garden. And I found 4 small ripe tomatoes.

The green beans are trellised on fence panels. They are full of bloom and beans. Next week will be picking beans.

The sweet corn has tasseled and has ears formed. It should be ready in a week or so. Yummy!!!

I think we planted enough sweet taters to supply a few counties. They look really nice and healthy if the deer will stop eating the leaves. They haven't done a lot of damage but ya know they been in there.

My tomatoes did not get staked and I guess you can say we do them the lazy way. Just them fall over and run all over the ground. They have lots and lots of green tomatoes on the vines. I did find 4 small ripe ones this evening.

We have about 30 ft of cucumber plants trellised on fence wire. This is where we picked enough to make pickles this evening.

If ya look close enough in the vines you can see the green beans hanging in there. At least the bean picking can take place in the shade this year. Either of us can walk under the trellis so at least on hot sunny days it might make life a lil more bearable.

More onions to get sliced and dried tomorrow, and herbs to pick and dry. Another busy day for me.
Not much else happening here on the farm. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I learn something new almost every day

Ya know I think we get busy with life and don't pay attention to things in our life. Not quite sure how this happens but I am convinced it does. But its little things that amaze me. But I am easily entertained. I have played with my sewing machine for the past couple days to learn how to use it for all the things it is good for. No the machine is not new. I bought it probably in 1981 or 82 when I was a young newly wed. Every home needs a sewing machine of some sort and you should have the ability to use it to do what ever repairs or sewing you need or want to do in your home. I have used my sewing machine a lot over the past 30 plus years. It is still in perfect shape. It does embroidery, yep I knew that. What I did not know is just how many different things it can do. My machine has 30 cams with it. Each cam will do 3 different designs. Who knew? I sure didn't. I knew I had cams, just had no clue how to use em. SO I started looking online to see if I could find a users manual to it and located one. So I downloaded it and had Rodger print it off and put it in a book for me. (Nice book to by the way) I was reading in the book about the different presser feet the machine has. Hell to me up to that point they were just lil odd shaped pieces of metal. I find that 1 attachment can do rolled hems, another can do a blind stitch used for hemming garments. One of the attachments will hold a button in place while you sew it on with the machine. Who knew? Well long story short, I have a sewing machine that is top of the line and I didn't even know. Good thing I have kept it and taken care of it all these years. I am guessing that a new sewing machine that will do all the things that mine will would run about $400 or more. I cant remember what I paid many years ago but I know I would not have paid much for it. So I decided today to get out the cams and see what they would do. What fun, really neat tools. I had some fabric and got some out and proceeded to make myself an apron to suit my personal needs. I wanted an apron that would cover the upper front part of my shirts and the front of my clothes. So when I am cooking or frying especially I don't end up with grease stains on my tops that are impossible to get out. Most aprons I have seen have a really narrow top section and if something pops about the only thing covered is the center part of your shirt. I made my apron wider at the top to cover more (can we say no more grease stains on my boobs) an long enough that I don't spill stuff down the front of my clothes. I just had fun making it and kinda custom designed it to suit me. I like being able to do that. I am happy with my new apron. I will get some pics tomorrow, my camera is charging right now. I was thinking as I worked on the apron that I might like to have some new sweat pants to wear around the house. I have a pair of jammies already cut out somewhere in this house so I need to locate those and finish them. Then I can use the same pattern to make me some sweats in the style that I like. Most sweat pants you see now are low cut or Capri length and I don't like either of those. About the only ones that are to my liking are in the men's department. I think I might make another trip to Hobby Lobby this weekend and get some fabric to sew up a couple pairs. The ones I have right now are just beyond pitiful. I am sure I will think of other cool things to do with my new learned tricks and sewing machine.

I am tickled pink to be able to go get my lil greenhouse this weekend. I have to get our seeds started right away or we are gonna be far behind. Its time to get tomatoes, cabbage and other things started that we usually transplant to the garden. Hard to imagine it being time to start thinking seriously about gardens when we got a good half inch of snow this morning. But it melted by this afternoon tho. Sure didn't hurt my feelings a bit. We surely have had typical March weather here this month. Almost hot one day and snow the next. I worked in the yard on Sunday and today, snow. We have some of our young fruit trees starting to bud, and several of my ornamental things have swollen buds on them. Hope we don't get frost or a hard freeze. Might put an end to the possibility of fruit again this year.

I "thought" I had ordered my baby chicks back in February before we went to Las Vegas and when I called today they said it was obvious that my Internet order had not gone thru. But the nice lady at Cackle hatchery said she could ship some chicks out to me today if I wanted. How nice is that? Good customer service is so hard to find but very much appreciated these days. So I have chicks ordered that will be here next week. About Wednesday. Yippee!!!! So I guess I added another task to our ever growing  list for this weekend. Have to get the building ready for babies.Not a lot to do other than get the old bedding out and put in fresh straw and get feeders and waterers set in place for them. Rodger said we have to run a new extension cord for the heat light cause he hit the other one last year with the lawn mower. Guess I need to remember to pick up some high protein feed when we go out of town to get the greenhouse this weekend.

I had to call the vet today about my Luna. She has some sore spots on her that she keeps scratching at and a couple of them are really raw looking sores now. We are so lucky to have a nice vet that will come out to your house for a dog. Most of em wont. They tell you to being the dog into the clinic when its open. Well if you have a lil small dog you can put in the car or truck and tote off the see the doc thas great. I can not see me getting Luna into the truck at no price. Not no way, not no how. For one thing she weighs far more than I can lift and another is she does not like riding in a vehicle. But I called the vet and tole him what was happening and he said most likely mange. Oh my goodness. I thought only neglected malnourished dogs got mange. But I find that mange is caused by a tiny lil mite that buries under the skin and then the dog scratches till they dig the hair off and get sores. Not sure where she got this crap but I don't like it. He said he has seen more cases of mange this year so far than is normal. But any way he gave me some medicine that she has to take twice a week for a month and it will kill the mites on her body that are causing the intense itching and she will be fine. I was so afraid he was gonna tell me I had to bath her in some kind of solution for every but he said he knows that is not alas possible with big dogs. She does not like even a water hose much less being put in water and soaked. Can you imagine how would get the most dip on them in this process? Pretty sure I would be flea free for a long time. Anyway while he was here he gave her the rabies vaccine and got her up to date on all her other shots. I was very surprised that he only charged $60 for a house call, meds and shots. I was happy with that. He did say that in just a few days she will be much more comfortable when the medicine starts working but it might take a good bit longer before her hair grows back on her leg and ear. She don't look bad but I just hate to see her so miserable constantly scratching. I know what its like to have chiggers and the vet said these mites on dogs that cause the mange are comparable to chiggers on a person.
This is the same vet that fixed lil Abby's leg when she was just a baby and jumped out of Robs hand and hit the floor and broke her lil leg. The vets in Richmond wanted $1000 to fix Abby and do surgery and Rob brought her up here to Joey and he put a cast on her leg an tole Rob to take it off in 6 or 8 weeks and she would be fine. You cant tell she ever had anything wrong with her now. So living in a small town does have some advantages.

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

Stella

Its March already

Where the heck does time go? Seems like just a few days ago I finished up canning the last of the  garden stuff. And here it is almost time to start more seeds for another crop. Or maybe its just that I have gotten older and times just seems to go by faster. Not sure, but this new year has took off to a running start. And just when I thought winter might be behind us, we get snow. It is snowing here as I write this. Big ole flakes too!! It most likely wont amount to much but we have a lil on the ground from it. It is cold out and with the snow I guess we can say March is coming in like a lion. So we can hope it goes out like a lamb. Not much gets done around here when the weather is cold and nasty. I have stayed in and puttered in the house. I did finally get started on the lil cocoon I was telling you about in earlier post. I guess you could say I cheated. I used a knitting loom. I makes really pretty stitches and a nice pattern. This is what it looks like.

 The loom has 2 rows of 18 pegs. I made the back panel of the cocoon using all 18 pegs for the correct width. Then made 2 more panels using only 9 pegs and the same length as the back. You can use a crochet hook to finish off the piece once you have the panels made. I wanted the front to be open a lil bit at the top. So here is what it looks like finished. (sorry I didn't take pics as I progressed) You know how well I remember to do that stuff.

With wrong sides together you crochet stitch the sides and bottom and up the front leaving about 1/4 open at the top center. I just put it on the floor to get a pic so I had dark contrast. I really did not follow a pattern for this. I looked online for ideas of cocoons that I liked and would not be hard to use  with a wiggling wee one and started knitting on the loom. I think I would like to have a round loom to make the lil hat to go with this cocoon. This cocoon measure about 18 inches long and 12 inches wide. Just right for a wee one. I made a "tool" to cast on the knitting loom with. I am sure you can use prettier ones but this did the job for me. It is hard to weave the yarn around those lil pegs with your fingers. This makes it much faster.

Yes I took apart an ink pen, fed the yarn thru the pen barrel and it was much easier to cast stitches on the loom. Made for faster work too. Thas called hillbilly ingenuity right there. Or skin flint for not buying the "tool". So my lil grandson will at least have his cocoon.

I checked on my vinegar start today and it had got invaded with some strange mold. So I had to toss it. I did save the mother and placed it in some apple juice for now. I am really just toying with this vinegar making idea as I have no clue what I am doing. All I know is I inoculated the first batch of apple cider with raw apple cider vinegar and that is where I got the mother to develop. That part is pretty easy. I think maybe it needs to be warmer to work better. It is warm enough in the house for us but not for making vinegar. Any who, we got the mother in juice for now till I get some apple cider.

I also strained my Kefir grains and put them in new sugar/molasses water to brew. I have Kefir grains all over. I have 1 quart jar stored in the fridge for if and when I manage to kill the ones that I am using. The jar on the left is extra grains headed for the fridge, the jar on the right is kefir with added strawberries for flavor and added nutrition. This will probably be my saving grace this summer as I usually lose all my potassium if I sweat the least lil bit. Hopefully the kefir water will add back the minerals that I lose.

This is the kefir grains that will go back in fresh water with sugar, molasses and a piece of clean egg shell (for added calcium) and allowed to ferment for a couple days. This is how much the grains have multiplied since I received them from Ivie.

I started out with grains about to the line on a quart jar and compare to above photos to know how they have multiplied. They seem to grow by leaps and bounds if you give them extra calcium such as egg shell. Fun to grow and good to the body. Me thinks me kitchen has become a science lab of sorts. Next I want to try to start sour dough starter. Don't laugh, I will do it just to see if I can.

I went to close up the chickens this evening and to gather the eggs. They are such pretty colors.

A whole range of color from white to beige to brown to light green and occasionally some that look light blue. I love getting colored eggs. I also have 2 lil hens setting on nest. They had been having problems with other hens laying in the nest box with them. So last evening I out a "fence" of sorts around the 2 nest boxes they are setting in so they can still get off the nest to eat, drink and do their business and not have other hens hopping on the nest to lay. And the others still have 4 other boxes to lay in. I should have babies in about 3 weeks.

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

Stella

Our first snow of the winter

Our weather took a turn for the colder yesterday evening and over night. The high today was less than 30 degrees with snow flurries early. It has snow showered off and on most of the day. We had enough wind yesterday evening to dry the ground a good deal so Rodger got the bright idea he would disc the sod ground where we are gonna plant corn this spring. It is just a 5 acre plot but it does take a while to disc. He stayed out in the cold on the tractor and got about half of it disc up. Thas a good start. But now we probably have about a half inch of snow on the ground here and its still snowing a lil bit. It supposed to clear off later in the week and if it does Rodger is gonna take a couple days off work to do some plowing. We really like to have our ground prepped in late fall but we had such a wet fall that didn't work out for us. So here we are in what seems to be winter season plowing. Oh well!
I don't do well when it gets really cold. My bones and joints hurt too much to stay our long. As matter of fact with the cold and wind today Rodger did some outside chores for me, Feeding the hens, gathering eggs and toting some stuff from the house to the summer kitchen and finally got the chicken stock I had canned last weekend in the cellar for storage. Seems so petty to leave all the toting chores for him to do but he fusses if I start carrying things and making my arms hurt more. So I guess my job for now is to stay inside and do what needs doing in here. So I am in the house doin lots of thinking.. I am debating starting an Etsy shop to market crafts, decorative items and antique or vintage items. I really want to make some things such as sachets with vintage fabric and homemade potpourri. Would also like to tinker with making scented candles and wax fragrance tarts for sale. I will be researching that a lil bit for a while to see what kinda plan I can come up with.
I have been looking at some other blogs and decor sites online for a few days and getting some ideas. In winter is the only time of year my creative mind works well enough to craft and decorate. A good place to start my decorating would probably be in my own living room right here. We shall see and I promise I will post pics when I get things in order.
I was reading some local news online a bit ago and in a neighboring county about 25 mile from here there has been a natural gas line explosion and officials are evacuating people within at least a 5 mile radius. I have to wonder if those folks were prepared to bug out on a moments notice. Do they have a bag packed with emergency clothes, meds, things that are essential to each persons well being? The weather being bad does not help those folks either. I think prayers are in order for those displaced and safety of the rescue workers out there.
Not much else happening here on a cold winter night. So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

A true statement

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

Stella

So much for nice weather, winter is back

We had a couple nice days over the weekend and got a few tings done around the place. On Monday I had a doctor appointment out of town. Rodger took off work to go with me. Long story short, I am diagnosed with rheumatoid and osteoarthritis. One meds and hope to heck they work well. It rained on us most of the day out of town and we did some shopping around for a few things we needed here on the farm so it was something positive accomplished. From hearing some folks talk it had snowed really hard in the next large town north west of where we were and we got on home to have just rain. Then after dark it started to snow here, big ole flakes, an covered quickly. This morning it had mostly melted off even tho the temps were in the mid 20's. This time of year I don't mind the snow we get cause you can be pretty sure it wont last the next day. But it has been cold today so I did not go out there in it messing around.
I decided to have tacos for supper tonight and am convinced ya never get too old to see something new. Well as I was slicing up a store bought tomato I did see something I have never seen in my life. A tomato that had seeds on the inside that had sprouted. Never in my life have I seen this in normal garden tomatoes.

On the second photo you can see the lil sprout that I took out of the tomato when I sliced it. The dang thing already has some green to it. But the tomato was whole and looked fine outside. What can promote this kind of sprouting and growth inside a tomato? Kinda makes ya wonder what kind of genetics are involved in our food these days. All I know is this is not normal and I wont eat this kind of food. Not to mention the fact that tomatoes are in the nightshade family and can be toxic if the plant is eaten. So am thinkin again this is not good.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella