I hope spring is here, finally.

I sure hope spring has sprung here. I got my seedlings started earlier this year. Had them all growing under flourescent lights in the summer kitchen till this past Saturday. We decided that instead of the added expense of covering our little greenhouse with some type of plastic we would just opt to use a cold frame for the seedlings as I am not starting near as many as I normally do. But still a plenty. So Rodger and Jason took off Friday evening after work and went to Lowes to pick up 1 sheet of the clear poly carbonate panels to cover the cold frame. Less chance of hail damage in the event we have that. And hoping we dont for sure.  So they got my cold frame built and put inside the fence in my herb garden to keep the dog out of it. She likes to carry off things she finds with our smell on it. She gave the guys a fit stealing their building material and tools Saturday. Poor Sasha had many new not so nice names that day. But they got er done. Then I got all the seed trays moved in and watered with compost tea. I do have some nice sturdy seedlings this year. yay me.

 Monday we had rain off and on all day so I spent my day going in and out of the house to take the top off, put the top on, repeat. This lil cold frame can heat up really quick with very little sunshine. This is so much easier to heat than trying to keep my little greenhouse warm enough for healthy plants. Tomatoes and peppers need warmer soil to sprout and grow than some other seeds. I did invest in a couple heat mats that are made just for the seed trays I use to supply some heat from the bottom to warm the soil and speed up the sprouting process of peppers and tomatoes. They worked just great. I had misplaced some of my bell pepper seeds and could only find the orange heirloom variety when I was starting the seeds. The next day I located the other pepper seeds and decided to start some of those as well. I used a deeper, about 6 inch deep, crate that I had to line with a feed bag, add soil and sow the seeds. The soil being deeper I could not use the heat mats under this crate. So needless to say I have tomatoes and peppers started one day using the heat mats that are several inches tall and a crate with pepper and some Amish paste tomato seeds that are just starting to sprout and come up where I wasn't able to use the heat mats. Heat made all the difference in how quickly the seeds came up. Also this year I have been using all natural fertilizer on my seedlings. I procured some composted goat manure from some friends and am making compost tea to use on the plants. In this compost tea I added some Lactobacilli serum to the bucket in which I have the manure for the tea. I have had no problem what so ever with damping off disease this year starting seeds. That in itself is a big plus for me trying to start seeds really early. Normally I just start my seeds in the greenhouse in early April no later than the second week. When we get cooler nights the soil cools even with the warmth of the sun during the day and I usually end up losing a lot of seedlings from damping off. In the greenhouse I could use about 3 tablespoons of hydrogen peroxide to about 1 and half cups water in spray bottle and mist the soil where the seedling are and this will sometimes stop the damping off and save the plants. But dang who needs the extra hassle. Not had to use that this year at all. I am very thankful and happy with my little bit of success  with seed starts.

Saturday I got my herb garden weeded and all cleaned out of debris from last season and over the winter. Talk about hard on the damaged back and bad legs and knees. Oh mercy, Sunday was tough. Anyway, that bed is all ready to add more herbs seedlings to when danger of frost is past. Maybe late April or early May will be safe enough to plant them without protection. I still have the strawberry bed to weed and get mulched. I planted 25 new strawberry plants this year to replace some that were spent. I intend to use straw to mulch them in with from now on. I learned the hard way that wood mulch was just too coarse a material to allow the runners to reach the soil and make roots and renew the bed.  Some of us just have to learn things the hard way. Was nice to not have to spend much time at all weeding but dang in the long run cost me in having to replace some plants. Chalk that one up to a well learned lesson at the school of hard knocks. I seem to learn a lot of things at that school.

Last week on one of the warmer days I got the fruit trees sprayed for the second time. Most of the stone fruits and pears had already lost their blooms. Not sure if they were lost from the light snow and cold or just that they were done. But the other trees, apples and nut trees are in 1/4 inch green tip stage and time for a spray. Got the neem apray mixed and Jason put the spray tank in the bucket of the little tractor and hooked the pump to the battery and off we went to spray. We had to use the tractor as my 4 wheeler is out of commission for a bit till the guys get a chance to work on it. Got er done tho.. At this point it is just wait and see how much damage the cold snap did to the trees that had already bloomed. Seems most of them were in the "process" of blooming and not in full bloom. I have noticed the pears are still making blooms so I might get a bit of fruit after all. God willing and we dont get any more serious freezes. We will take what we can get and be thankful.

We have been looking around for an "estate rake" to use in the big section of yard and orchard. An estate rake is used to rake up grass clippings to take off the yard. Usually pulled behind a 4 wheeler or mower. My intention is to use the clippings to compost for organic matter to add to the garden and orchard.  In reading and researching holistic orchard maintenance a lot of focus is on soil microbes and helping keep healthy soil. One way to do this is using the grass clippings to mulch trees and then encouraging the clippings to decompose to supply nutrients to the trees. Lactobacilli is one culture that aids in this process. I found online a method for making the lactobacilli serum to treat the soil and compost with to speed up the process.  A very simple process all in all. It is started rather simply. I will post this info in another post very soon. This serum can also be used to spray chicken and livestock buildings to eliminate odor from manure. It helps to decompose the same manure when put in compost as well. Anyway I have a science lab in my kitchen most days. One of these days I will have a mess when an experiment goes amiss. Till then I keep trying stuff.

In the house I learned to make a new bread that we are now addicted to. It is focaccia bread. Its an artisan Mediterranean bread. The authentic version has olives in it but none of us like olives so I dont use those. It was odd to me at first to make a yeast bread and not use bread flour but recipe uses plain all purpose flour. I will share the version I make for us. I use my Kitchenaid mixer to make this as I cant use my hands long enough to knead bread anymore.

Focaccia Bread

2 cups plus 2 tablespoons of hot water in Kitchenaid bowl
2 tablespoons sugar
3 1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 tablespoon salt
1/4 cup olive oil

In mixer bowl with hot water add in sugar, and 1 cup of bread flour, add yeast on top of this flour. Add remaining flour and then the salt. With dough hook attached mix ingredients a bit, maybe 1 minute. Pour in olive oil and mix well and continue kneading for about 5 minutes. When dough is smooth and elastic, turn off mixer and cover bowl and let dough rise till nearly double in size.
Prep 2 cookie sheets by oiling them with olive oil and sprinkle with cornmeal. When dough is ready turn on mixer and stir down dough. Divide in half. Press each half on the cookie sheets pressing with fingers till it is about 1/4 inch thick. Let sit for about 10 minutes. No need to try to be perfect, this is artisan style bread.
To prepare to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Using fingers make indentions all over dough and drizzle with a good olive oil. Sprinkle on about half teaspoon dried rosemary over each pan with dough. A good sprinkle of parmesan cheese, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and chopped sun dried tomatoes that have been preserved in oil. You can also drizzle a bit of the oil from the dried tomatoes over bread as well. Top with a light layer of shredded cheddar or mozzarella cheese.  You can add on some chopped olives if you enjoy those as well. Put in oven and bake till light brown. Tear into pieces at serving or cut like bread sticks and serve with a marinara sauce. Enjoy!!
We can make a meal on this and a bowl of marinara sauce.  This is a bread that you can top any way you like really . If you love garlic cloves by all means slice some onto dough. A thin layer of pizza sauce would be yummy with your choice of pizza toppings. An easy bread that can be used many ways. Limited only by the imagination.

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

stella

Yep, back again for another round

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

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

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

                                                       Before pruning sweet cherry trees.

                                       
                                                   After pruning sweet cherry trees.

                                 Northern side of our orchard after pruning and before clean up

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

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

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

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

stella

Short summer, early fall

I think our summer has been short, or did I just get busy and miss it? Or maybe a little of both. Even with a later than we liked start our garden did pretty well. As of now the only thing left in it is the sweet potatoes. They will be dug before the first frost. I did can a lot of green beans, the wonderful tasty Ky Wonder pole beans. We are now picking the dried ones to save for seed next season. Now God willing we will be able to always have pure seed to plant from year to year. Our tomatoes did marginally well. We did stake the largest portion of them BUT we didn't pull the suckers off thus the tomatoes were not large in size like they should be. Lesson learned for next year. Sweet corn did really well. I didn't get much of it as the damn crows wrecked havoc in there. We put deer netting over the top after it had tasseled and the crows flew under the net and ate the corn anyway. Evil things I tell ya. We had enough cukes to make enough pickles to last us. Okra went gang busters, got enough in the freezers to last any family for a few year. And I only use it in soup and gumbo. Although I did freeze some after I coated it with a cornmeal/flour, salt, pepper mixture for a quick snack to fry up. I am the only one that will eat it fried. I also froze some green tomato slices in the cornmeal mix as well. I did use a sharp knife to remove the thin green skin from the maters then rolled in the cornmeal mix, froze on cookie sheets then bagged them up for long term freezing. I love me some fried green maters when its cold as crap outside and snowy. Guess thas my hillbilly coming out.

Rodger dug a few sweet taters other evening to see how they were gonna do. Well, I think they did ok.

This bucket (5 gallon) was from about 4 plants. That is my foot and I wear a size 8. Thas a big dang tater. I truly hope there are not many that size to dig. Yeah of course they look cool, but you know how hard it would be to bake that thing and get it done or to peel it to make glazed sweet taters? There were several very large ones in what he dug but this one being the biggest. Impressive, huh? 

As it gets late in the year we always find ourselves in a time crunch to get all the things done and prepared for cold fall and winter weather. Rodger and Jason have been working their hinny off trying to get a new corn crib built before time to pick corn. We don't raise a lot of corn, just enough for cornmeal and to have enough to feed the laying flock thru the year. But it does no good to raise and pick it if the dang mice and squirrels are gonna get to it and eat more than us or the chickens get. So this new crib will be mouse and squirrel proof. Guaranteed. It is gonna be lined with rat wire so unless they have tin snips or a cutting torch, sorry about their luck. Get ya free meal else where.

I might get more work done if not for playing with Sasha. That lil girl is growing so fast. She is a big pup for just 5 months old. And she loves her family. Does NOT like strangers at all. My cousin and his wife came to visit for a bit on Monday and she was gonna go pet Sasha and I told her she could let her out of the kennel. Sasha would have no part of that. She was growling and showing her teeth. Needless to say they didn't open her kennel. Even tho I felt bad that they didn't get to pet her, they agreed that is what she should have done. A stock and guard dog should not take kindly to strangers. And sure seems she don't. If I had let her out and introduced them she would have been different I am sure. But her job is to look out for me and take care of the chickens. And she needs to do more growing before she gets to be responsible for the chickens. Just yesterday as I walked by our security camera monitor I saw a critter hop out of the woods into the driveway a lil bit from the house. Upon closer look it was a coyote. Within 75 ft of the house. In the middle of the day. I notice I have not seen as many rabbits as we usually see in the yard. Seems the coyotes may be a lil short on food and keep getting closer to the house looking for a meal. We keep Sasha in her kennel unless we can be outside or at least coming in and out all day. Don't like leaving her alone outside and her being young. It has really be tough cause I can not let my chickens run out at all. We are hoping to get a new chicken house built in a different location this fall so we can have a fenced in pen for the laying hens to be able to be outside and safe from stray dogs and coyotes. Just another chore to do before winter time gets here.

I was gone west to the hunting lodge for 2 weeks, had a good stay there and back home with lots to do and get caught up on. Then of all dang things my back and left hip we out. So I was in bed for nearly 4 days till I could walk. Still not doing the best, but ever so slowly getting better. Not sure what the problem is but hoping to find out results of my xrays tomorrow. But uncle had a pear tree that had lots of pears on them. I did pick some to bring home to can and make pear preserves. Oh my, the preserves are so very good. Beautiful amber color. I think the method I use to make mine is called "pear honey" and it tastes a lot like honey.

Yummy yummy, get in my tummy. So good with butter and a hot biscuit. There really is nothing like good home cooking. You cant get stuff this tasty in a store or restaurant. And I know what is in my home canned stuff.

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

Stella

You can tell summer is here!

It has been really hot and humid in our neck of the woods for the past few weeks. The humidity is killer as well. I know, I know, my southern friends are laughing about now with that complaint. Not to mention we have had plenty of rain this spring and early summer as well. For most of last week are temps were in the high 90's with at least 70% humidity daily. Miserable to be outside. So this ole girl stays in if and when possible.

As you well know, my memory is not the best. But with that in mind. Last week I had went out back to let the chickens out to roam. It has been so hot the hens head straight down from their building to the edge of the woods in the undergrowth where it tends to stay pretty cool. My young roosters (mean lil shits) follow me around back to the deck an hang out under there with Luna where its cool. I had taken all the plants out of the greenhouse due to the extreme heat in there and moved a large pot with my friend Mamie's started grape vines to the back near the sidewalk so I could keep them watered till she got time to come get them. On my way to the spigot to water I spied 2 short pieces of hose, nope wait damn it that's not a hose. Yep I was jumping up and down screaming so Luna comes bounding from under the deck to the rescue. Yep it was a snake lying beside the short black hose that connects the spigot to the hose reel. I keep a hoe beside the deck for just such occasions and quickly whacked his head all while Luna is trying to get at him to protect me. Once I mashed the snakes head I let her have at him. She finished him off and shook and dragged him to the far side of the drive way. Bless her heart she spent the rest of the day in the shade of my car watching the snake to make sure it didn't move anymore. I hate snakes of all kinds. I don't scream for just any reason, but a damn snake will make me scream every time. So far that is the only one we have seen near the house this year. Although I know they are around. We live near woods and our grass in the yard had gotten totally out of hand. Last week our yard was so pretty(unless you like grass in your yard) with all the short white clover blooming. It was super thick and with all the rain Rodger had just not been able to get time to mow. Not to mention a pretty well manicured lawn is not even on the list of priorities around here in summer. The garden is really ALL we really worry much about. Rodger has managed between rains to keep it looking good. He got it all hoed out last week and another evening he plowed. All of the garden so far is growing and looks great. I am so very thankful too.

I am hoping that maybe next weekend we can get the young roosters butchered off. They are fast becoming a nuisance especially to the 2 young pullets that are with them. Every time I go out to close them up or let them out one of the roosters wants to peck my feet, flog my pants legs and just make a spectacle of himself. If I pick him up and scold him when I let him down he follows me all over like a lil dog. Along with 2 of his brothers. But they are big enough to make good stock and that is what I need more than little feisty roosters. I have the incubator set with eggs again that will hatch in a couple weeks. I set it and them the power went off and stayed for too long, the eggs got cold and I knew those were dead. So I reloaded with more eggs. I am trying something a lil different this time tho. With still air incubators you have next to no air movement inside. In the past I had been placing my thermometer in the middle. Once the temp was set correctly I loaded the eggs in. With the heating element around the perimeter of the top of the incubator I am thinking most likely the eggs around the outside may get too hot thus lowering my hatch rate. So this time. I only put eggs in the turner around the perimeter and placed the thermometer on top of those eggs and try to keep the temp consistent. I will see if this increases my hatch rate. Will post more when this clutch hatches off. When my friend Mamie came to get her grape vines today she brought me about 18 turkey eggs to put in the incubator as soon as the chicks hatch. I am certainly hoping for a good hatch of them. Be nice to have some turkeys to butcher for the freezer this year. Not sure yet where I will house them but maybe by time they hatch off I will have figured that part out. Ain't that just like me. Get something with no idea where to put it. Rodger always loves when this happens. Not!! Usually ends up being a good deal of work for him and Jason. Another building?

We went out of town yesterday to Dalton's birthday part in Maysville Ky. Dalton is Josh and Dana's lil boy. They are like our adopted kids. Love them dearly. Jason and I had went deer hunting several years ago and we stayed with Josh's parents at their house. Just wonderful folks. At that time I was able to hunt and we spent lots of time in the woods and I didn't get to talk with his parents much that time. Always intended to go back and just hang out with them while Rodger, Josh and Jason hunted. Well that didn't happen as planned because I have been working at the hunting lodge in west KY for several years. So we were invited to Dalton's lil birthday party and we went. I got to spend some time with Larry and Sandy and talk with them. I thoroughly enjoyed that trip and visit with them. I can tell ya it wont be years before we go visit them again.

For me to be able to get much done around here I guess it means I am gonna have to start going to bed really early and getting up early if I need to do things outside. And heaven knows I got lots of things that need doing. For one I need to pull some weeds in the herb bed. Dang it I thought if I put down black plastic and with the heat of the sun it might kill most of the weed seeds. Well that didn't lat as long as I had hoped. I am guessing that some plants produce seeds that need light to sprout. I have lots of weeds but they seem to all be the same variety. I need to get up in the early mornings before the heat hits and spend a couple hours weeding. May take several mornings of work to get it all take care of but a little bit at a time will get the task done. I have several varieties of herbs that are big enough to cut for drying already. I think I still need to sow more parsley. I use lots and lots of that stuff. Both frozen and dried. I will for sure have to plant it where I can reach it with the hose. At least till it gets growing well.

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

Stella

Where is our spring?

What the heck happened to spring this year. Here it is mid March and our ice an snow just melted. It sure was nice out today. I even had the patio door open most of the day. So nice to air the house out an let fresh air in after being cooped up all winter. But by this time next week they are giving rain and snow showers again. Crap!! I am so ready for it to be warm and stay that way. Pretty sure things will do better in the greenhouse once it warms to a decent temperature. But I should not complain, my lil cabbages are coming up. I also had a huge flower pot that I filled with soil and sowed some lettuce, kale an spinach in. It has come up rather thick. Really pretty and green. I wanted to get an early start on tomatoes and peppers but I sure don't want to have to keep heat in the greenhouse for the weather we have had. That can get quite expensive after a while. Tomorrow I think I will go ahead an fill my seed starting trays and put them in the summer kitchen so the soil can warm up. Once it gets warm then seed to tomatoes, peppers and a few others things I need to get started early. Most likely those trays will stay in the summer kitchen till it warms a bit more outside and stays that way. Then they can be moved to the greenhouse. Peppers need really warm temps to sprout. My buddy Randy sent me some paprika pepper seeds and I hope to hell I can get them to come up and grow this season. No luck at all last year. 

This month has been abnormally cold I think for us. Normally I don't have a problem raising my Cornish cross meat birds in March and April. But dang it, this year has been different. I still have all of em, no losses yet. When our temps dropped down in the teens last week I was just afraid they would chill in their lil building so being the worrisome person I am I moved them into the summer kitchen. Yep you heard me right. I used an old quilt to put on the floor and up the cabinets on both sides of the kitchen, stapled it to the cabinets and pulled up the ends and tacked those down. Imagine a big 4 ft square basket made of a quilt. I put some stray on the quilt to help keep them dry and put them in their temporary home. The had their heat light, food an water and stayed toasty warm without me having to worry about them. Yesterday Rodger and I moved them back to their building where we used an old metal topless picnic table to suspend a quilt to help hold the heat in a smaller area to keep them warmer. All is well. You know chicks are warm enough when they don't huddle under the heat light. It was obvious from the droppings that they were warm enough to be able to move away from the heat. I won that round with mother nature. Depending on how cold it gets next week with the predicted rain and snow, they may be back in the summer kitchen. I don't care if I did spend a couple hours cleaning and sanitizing things in thee. I just cant afford to let those critters get sick or die.

I still don't have any hens setting this season so I finally gave up and loaded the incubator with eggs. So God willing, I should have baby chicks from the standard breeds about April 4th. I thought for a day or so that my incubator was dead. I could not for the life of me get the temperature up to where it needed to be. I kept turning the thermostat up, no luck. Then on closer inspection, being a dummy, I was turning the thermostat the wrong way. Aha! Once I figured that out and turned it up it warmed up to where it needed to be and I put the eggs in on the automatic egg turner. With the still air incubators the temp needs to be about 101 degrees. There are lil indention in the bottom of the incubator that need to always have water in them to keep the humidity up to mimic a setting hen. It is kinda tricky to add water and not pour it on the eggs. I have been using my plant water can that has a long skinny spout on it. Works like a charm. About 3 days before the eggs are due to hatch they get taken off the egg turner and placed directly on the mesh bottom. This is the incubation period where the chicks are turning in the shell and pressing outward with their beak to make a lid they can pop off and get out. Once they turn completely around in the egg they then break thru to the air pocket at the big end of the egg and start pushing till they are free. Once they are out of the shell you have an incubator full of lil critters that very much look like lil dinosaurs. Just another miracle of life.

This weather being first warm then getting cold has made my joints a miserable lot. I has been nice enough for a few days that I probably should have gotten out and finished pruning things in the yard. I got rose bushes that are going wild. Actually both the ones I have are old fashioned varieties and they have the best scent ever. But the smaller one near the cellar is crawling all over the place. I don't think it can be classified as a climbing rose at all. I crawls all over the place. Or maybe I should put up a taller stronger trellis for it. Maybe I can do that. Next nice day we have. I have 2 thornless blackberry plants that my friend Rosie had given me a few years back that are on the other side of the cellar door. They for sure need a trellis to climb on. One has a runner that is about 12 ft long or more. Just lots of lil things that make for a lot of work to care for around here. But I like my roses and blackberries. Thankful only one of em has thorns.

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

Stella

We went from winter to ......worse

Last time I looked it was still winter, at least till mid march in my mind. But this week our temps have been so nice. It has been 60's to almost 70 today. I have had the patio door open since before noon today. But as is promised with Kentucky weather, it changes often. Tonight we are forecast for thunderstorms and damaging winds. Not what I need about now. But I don't control the weather.

I have been busy for the past several days. Yep I am still painting, taking lots of breaks too. I did finally get my bedroom painted. It does look much nicer. Still working on getting the "stuff" put back on the walls. I like to move art work around just for change and am stuck, cant decide what I really want to hang on the walls. For one I do want my antique quilt back up behind the headboard of the bed. I just liked it there. I don't even really have curtains up yet. The windows are kinda covered but not with drapes like I want. At this point I am not sure I want to paint the closet/craft room at all. I still have the master bedroom to do and the living room yet. Both will be a big job. I had to take several days off because I exhausted my energy reserve big time. Almost sent myself into a fibro flare. And I sure don't need that.

Rodger got my greenhouse put up last weekend. We did find time to get out of town and picked up several bags of seed starting medium. It is time to get all things cabbage related in soil to get started. They need to be grown in the cooler spring weather before the summer heat hits. So this coming weekend the plan is to get my benches back in the greenhouse and hopefully get the cabbage family in some dirt. I think just being able to get my hands in dirt will go a long way toward making me feel better. I have totally cluttered up my summer kitchen this winter with empty canning jars. We certainly have used lots of our canned stuff this year. So a big garden is a must for us. So I have to knuckle down and get busy. I did finally make a decision to order meat chicks this spring. They will arrive about march 3rd. We are thinking of maybe adding on to the existing chicken house up here on the hill, a smaller addition, to accommodate the hens and just use the big chicken house to raise the meat birds closer to the house. It sure would save a lot of worry for me with them closer. I would have a power source and could run out to check on them more often. Just better all around for all of us I think. If we add an extension to the back of the building we use now for the hens and move them, we can build a door on the west end and it is level enough back there and lots of room to put the tractor an bucket up to the door to shovel manure straight into the bucket without having to finagle the tractor to "kinda" get close enough to pitch the manure in the bucket. Then if I have my way I will have another door cut between the rooms so the manure can be pushed into the add on and on out into the tractor bucket. Easy peasy! Or at least easier. Only problem we have a short time to build this add on before the baby chicks arrive. We shall see.

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

Stella

This weather is like winter time

Our weather has been somewhat of a roller coaster ride as of late. First we have temps below zero, then like tomorrow it is suppose to be near 60. No wonder we all are sick. A body just cant adjust to temperature swings like that as we get older. Not that I am old. Ahem! We all complain but in reality it is just winter time as usual. We are suppose to have nice weather tomorrow with some sunshine so I hope to talk Rodger into going with me to the orchard an trying to get our trees pruned. They are big enough now to need to start being shaped like we want them to be when they get mature. I just hope the deer have not damaged any more of them. It has been so wet it has been impossible to get in the field an hang the bags of soap scraps to deter the deer. It seemed to have worked last time we used it. I have a stash of Irish Spring soap that no one here likes so I cut the bars in quarters and put a piece in a piece of empty onion bag, tie the top, and suspend it from a nearby tree. The smell seems to keep deer at bay. At least as long as the soap last. I also have a lot of grapevines to get pruned as well. The ones in the big vineyard near our orchard will be big enough to require pruning this year. I also will take more cuttings to root for my friend Anna. I tried a few last year and they made roots and I got them re potted but overlooked them in watering during the hot dry part of summer and they died on me. Shame on me. I hope to get a bunch started this year so I can ship them off to her this fall to transplant in her garden. We try to get vines and trees pruned in February on a nice day when its not so cold we freeze to death but not so warm that the plants bleed. Although I did prune grape vines last year after they had leaves on them and it didn't even slow them down. Still had a huge grape harvest. I am going to be making another raspberry patch this spring too with shoot from the older plants I already have near the orchard. I just need to get the place plowed up and manure on it to set them in after they break dormancy this spring. They are very easy to propagate. All you need to do is dig up the small off shoots near the mother plant and simply replant it in a new location. Big plans I have. Now to see if the body can keep up.

I have sat here at the computer this evening pondering ordering chickens to get here around march 1st. Not sure what kind I will order just yet. I like all the hens I have now, just not sure how to go about ordering more like them. I surely don't want to buy 50 standard heavy breeds to raise and cull to keep a laying flock. Thas a lot of lil birds to feed an deal with. And did I mention how expensive they have gotten? Dang I got sticker shock. But that happens to me real often. Guess I lead a sheltered life or something. I have a young rooster with my hens now. I am thinking I might need to butcher off my old rooster and let the young guy take over the hens and see if I get more fertile eggs and just hatch some of my own. It for sure would be more economical AND I would get to pick the ones I wanted to keep for layers. AND I would still have what ever roosters I raise to butcher for making good stock to can. I am really low on canned chicken stock in the cellar. I guess because it has been a while since I raised standard breeds to use for stock. I have hens that I know will set this summer and I also have an incubator I can use to hatch some eggs. Surely from hens and incubator I can manage to get enough pullets to replace my laying flock by mid summer. So I can have new hens laying come early fall. It just don't seem right to not have laying hens on the farm for eggs and meat. Not to mention bug control in the yard. They will also keep snakes at bay too. Maybe between the chickens, Luna and the cats I wont have snakes come in the yard this year. I hate a damn snake. They always manage to scare the whiz out of me.

Not long now till time for the greenhouse to be put up. Time flys when ya try to take a break and hibernate in winter. I am just glad I can be home to keep things half azz going here. We surely are praying we have a good garden this coming summer. I still have a good bit of stuff canned from years past but I am not sure we can go another year without canning a lot. Last summer was a total bust on the garden. Its time for a good one this year. I am actually looking forward to being able to  work in the garden some this summer. Gosh the past few years my health was so bad I could not get out in the sun and heat to do much of anything. Thank God I could eliminate some meds and end up feeling much better. Still cant do the lifting like I once did but at least maybe I can adjust to the heat a lil better and be able to help Rodger some in the gardens. IF the weather is as good as they say it will be then maybe we can get a few things done here this weekend to keep us ahead of the game. Some crazy weather man is calling for some crazy amount of snow next week so I will be house bound again I reckon. Maybe that's a good time to plan the garden, where to plant what, what to plant, how much of each to plant. Just silly things like that so I don't end up with tons of one things I don't really need a lot of. For sure need to start and plant more herbs this spring too. I somehow let my tarragon get chocked out by weeds or other herbs. Need more parsley, more chives, marjoram and savory for sure. Love the smell of marjoram. But if it snow I can make snow cream and contemplate gardens.

Jennifer ask in comments for a recipe for snow cream. Jennifer like more of my recipes its more a method than really a recipe. It all depends on how much you need to make or how many hungry people who like snow cream you are feeding.  I usually just take maybe 2 cups of whole milk, add a lil sugar to taste, not too sweet, a lil vanilla to taste. Just mix it in and taste it till it is slightly sweet an you can taste the vanilla. Then stir in clean "white" snow" till it is the consistency of soft ice cream. And dish it up and enjoy. Just a nice treat for the kids or the kid in all of us. Like the saying, "we are all adults till someone brings out the bubble wrap". Or in this case snow cream.

If you are home, nice and warm and dry, thank God for your blessings. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Is it over yet?

I can only wish winter was over already. I do think I am tired of being cold now. So ready to get my lil paws in the dirt and be outside an not freeze my ass off. I just got home from west Ky today, actually this afternoon. When I left west Ky yesterday it was 22 degrees and sunny. Rodger had called to tell me the roads here were crappy and said I should stop and spend the night with my friend Rosie in central Ky. So I made my way from Murray to Rosie's house with no problem. But dang it was colder there. I really enjoyed my visit with Rosie an her family. Such nice folks. You can always count on good wholesome food and wonderful company. We didn't spend much time out side as it was bitter cold and I sure didn't think I needed to be out much in that kind of weather after just getting over being sick with flu and sinus infections. Rosie cooks on a wood cook stove in winter time. Talk about nice and toasty. Not many places you can go, feel at home, eat good home cooked food cooked on a wood cook stove, sleep under a real down comforter as snug as a bug in a rug. When I go visit there I usually make a trip to the Amish salvage store and pick up a few things that are a lil hard to find in our area. I can get coconut oil to cook with for around $10 a gallon. I usually stock up and get about 3 gallon a year from there. I guess maybe I don't fry much stuff anymore as that will last me well over a year. I like using coconut oil as it is healthier than even olive oil. Not to mention it does not add any flavor of its own to the food you cook. Anyway, I left there and headed on home this morning and hit snow about half way between E-town and Lexington and there was lots of snow all the way home. The roads were clear but a good deal of snow on the grass and road sides. Our lil county road here at home is snow covered an rather slick but I had no problem getting in. My H-3 hummer did a fine job. I like it!! Actually that is probably the first time I have driven in snow in a good many years. But damn, a feller has to get home. And I did. Ain't no place like home tho. I fixed some chili for supper so we had a hot meal and now to just relax and get back in home mode. Tomorrow will be a different day.

I really want to get my kitchen painted this week. I bought paint a couple months ago and still have not even started on the kitchen. I will feel better when the kitchen has a fresh coat of paint and might do some redecorating in there. Maybe, just maybe, if I can get the kitchen painted Rodger can get my laminate floors put in soon. Wouldn't that be nice? And I know it will look so much better too. Our flooring is looking pretty tired and worn at this point. Not that it was really expensive to start with but after all its about 15 years old. This is what my mind wants to do this week. Now if my body don't laugh at me tomorrow maybe I can get started. Everyone else I know paints in warm weather. But heck no not me, I want to do that stuff when I am stuck inside and cant get OUT side to do other things. Just makes more sense to me. But I usually do things ass backwards anyway.

I guess it is time to dig out garden seeds an double check to make sure we have everything we need to get the garden started this year. I already know I have my sweet corn seed and green beans ready. Just have to make sure I still have plenty of carrots, beets, cabbage, broccoli and the other small seeds we usually plant. I know its only about 3 weeks till it will be time to actually plant peas. We normally try to have those planted on Valentines day. I cant imagine it being dry enough to plant peas or even get in the garden for that matter in 3 weeks. But we shall see.

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

Stella

Can I just rant and fuss today

I will try not to cuss but just rant about the dang blogger site. As most of you know I do not have ads on my blog and never have. I don't get paid for the stinking ads that keep popping up at the top of the age when I log into to blogger to do a post. This just irritates the snot out of me. So if when you check my blog ignore the ads at the top which are mostly singles sites or just something that will take you to a pop up ad of some sort. Sorry, nothing I can do about them to get them off here. I might have to move my blog or create my own website. I will see what happens in the next little while.

Dang I cant remember what I told you last time I posted so will just update from memory. We are getting plenty of rain to make the gardens grow. It also makes the grass and weeds grow too. The garden is doing good. Rodger said he needed to trellis the cukes but after he told me they had started to vine already I suggested he not mess with them. We have had rain and with adequate rainfall plants will be brittle and break easily. So at this point I think it best to just left them crawl on the ground. Makes them a lil harder to pick but better than breaking the stems an killing them dead. I think we will have enough produce to restock our food supply for winter and lots to eat too. As matter of fact we had canned green beans with new taters last week.

We were so happy to have Aunt Ann and uncle Tripp to visit this past week. Ann is still battling cancer and is getting ready to take some stronger chemo treatments. She is very positive and upbeat and we are still praying an holding out for healing for her. Aunt Ann looks great, her hair is back after having the radiation and it looks good on her. Uncle is his usual jolly self. Love those 2 bunches. Looking forward to working the hunting lodge with them this fall. She brought me some June apples to make applesauce with and a gallon of blueberries for the freezer. Gosh the blueberries were huge an so good. I love to eat them just fresh or after freezing them take them out an let em partially thaw an then eat em. Blueberry banana smoothies are awesome too. Makes a quick easy breakfast for me. And its good for ya too.

Our lil grandson is growing like a weed out there in Nevada. I would so love to see him in person before Christmas. Dang plane tickets are so pricey. I do get pictures and videos from his momma and daddy often tho and we sure do love those. So being a grammy I have to share the pics with ya.

I really love this pic of him and his momma. So precious and you can only imagine what is going on in that lil mind.

Love this one too, he is in a big hurry to get out of that car seat and into something else.

I think I want this one printed off and enlarged, matted and framed. He is a happy lil boy here and if you see the clock in the background it says 1:35 and I just wonder if  he is keeping his momma up. But who would not want to stay up and see that sweet smile. Cant wait to see that lil boy in December. But in the mean time we will enjoy him thru pictures, videos and hopefully Skype once I get my new computer. The one I am on now is old, about 8 years old, and is not capable of video chat. Today I had a warning pop up telling me to shut the computer down to prevent damage due to over heating. I know the cooling fan is not working properly and soon or later I will be puter less. So Rodger told me to go ahead and order a new one. So I did and it will probably be here this week from Amazon. Until then I will keep my fingers crossed.

I did get out and empty out the greenhouse today and move the pots that had plants in them to the herb bed for the summer.So soon as we get time and its not hot as blue blazes outside we can take the greenhouse down and store it away till next spring. I got in the herb bed later and got some of the weeds pulled out of there. I really need to add a good deep layer of mulch in there so I don't have to spend all summer weeding that thing. That gets to be a big job to keep up with. Not so bad right now but when I get busy canning it will get far ahead of me and then I just have to wait till fall and make the best of it. Maybe I can pull the other stuff out tomorrow and get the black plastic laid down in there to kill the weeds and then plant some stuff that I need to replant in there. Sure will make it much easier to keep up with. I already have a pot with some parsley and chives started and just need to make a place for  them that wont get over run with grass and weeks. I still don't have the old bath tub set in the ground to start my fairy garden yet. I am collecting ideas on Pinterest right now for that. I saw a big dried gourd that had the side cut away in a fairy garden for a house. I do have gourds so maybe that is an idea for my fairy house. Yeah like I need something else to tinker with. In this weeding process this evening I did find a lil Mexican cuke plant that had come up volunteer tho. So I will let it be and hopefully get a lil trellis put up for it to grow on.

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

Stella

And we keep moving along, slowly

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

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

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

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

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

My holly hocks are blooming and lookin good.

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

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

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

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

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

Stella

Finally got the garden in

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stella

Uhoh!! Yep I am still alive

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

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

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

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

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

Soft caramels

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stella

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

The garden has officially started

I guess it is safe to say we have officially started to get our garden out. Rodger got peas planted back around Valentines day and they are up and look really good. We think maybe the birds found the first carrot seeds he planted at the same time. So this evening we re-planted the carrots and got our potatoes planted as well as 400 onion sets. I had taken my Hummer to the shop to have a mirror fixed on it and get the computer cleared from the low tired pressure alert that it kept showing. Stopped at the local feed store and picked up the fertilizer to use when we planted the taters. Came on home and checked all the critters and birds. The dumb momma hens somehow drown both the lil chicks in a bowl with about 2 inches of water in it. I am guessing from the looks of it the hens were scratching and kicked the chicks in the water and then scratched till the bowl was filled with dirt and straw an manure till it suffocated the lil ones. I will not let those 2 hens set eggs again. My meat birds are doing great. Eatin good and growing fast. I came to the house and got the seed potatoes cut up and ready to plant. After supper Jason, Mary Kay and Miranda met us in the garden and we got all the taters and onions planted in a very short time. Miranda was so cute planting the onion sets. Jason had the bright idea to make a ridge in the row and I would put the fertilizer in and he would rake the other side up to complete the ridge. Then plant the onion sets on the ridge. Rodger showed her how to set them with the root end down. She did great. She also helped Rodger cover the taters with a garden rake as we planted them.  Once you show her how to do something she does it right. This year Jason dropped the taters about 1 ft apart and I put the fertilizer in between the taters. We can hope for big taters and no bugs.

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

Stella

No more for us

No more store bought burger that is. OR fresh produce either. Not sure which one made us both sick but either one could be the culprit. We rarely buy store bought meat or fresh produce of any kind. I guess I am gonna have to figure out a way to grow a small amount of lettuce for a sandwich on the window sill in the summer kitchen or just not have any. Dang that is really bad. After reading things online and researching how foods get to your local store it is no wonder people get sick. And die. Not to mention the detrimental effects they have on our bodies out side of food poisoning that makes you sick quickly. It really boggles the mind if you think about it. Anyone knows that a fresh garden ripe picked tomato would not make the trip for Florida or California, much less Mexico to us at our local store in any kind of decent shape. It is all transported by truck and imagine the thousands of lbs of produce on that truck a "real" tomato would be pulp on the trip. What do they really do to them to make them keep longer? I know, they pick em green and ship em and they get ripe on the way. But we all know it takes a week or more for a tomato to fully ripen on the counter, so the red store tomatoes are more than 1 week old.  Now how about that big juicy burger you just ate. How did that beef get from the mid-west to your store.? For it to stay nice and pink it has to be treated with something to preserve the color. Most times that is ammonia or formaldehyde. Google "pink slime" and read about what all goes in your store bought burger. Or not! You may not ever eat another one. I know I wont no more. And dumb ass me knew all this when I ask Rodger to pick up burger for supper Friday night. Prolly would have been safer just eatin the dang wrapper it came in. If you are interested in what your family eats and research and read about our food supplies, you are trying to figure out how to eat better. Find a farmer in your area, make a deal with a good ethical farmer that is honest, ask around, and buy from them. This will help your own local economy AND put better food on your table. If you really think about it, it is really cheaper. Hey offer to help process your food you buy locally. Most people who know how are more than willing to share their knowledge with you as to how to take care of fresh meat and produce and canning or freezing. I wont lie, its a lil harder when you do more of the work yourself but so worth it.

Rodger didn't work today either as he still was not feeling up to snuff. He did feel better after I got him to drink some kefir water today. He actually felt really bad yesterday but still got out on the tractor and plowed up our garden spot. It was ready to plant peas and stuff. He went over there this afternoon and planted our peas and carrots. It is supposed to rain and snow tomorrow so they are in the ground. I am hoping for a good pea crop again this year. We have used a lot of our canned and frozen stuff from last season. I am almost out of corn in the freezer. Or at least I think I am. I may have to dig deeper to find some. If not I still have home canned corn from the year before. Our potatoes are not keeping well at all. Well they are keeping, they just have foot long sprouts on em. It has been a warm winter and the cellar is not cold enough to prevent or at least delay the sprouting. I will use them for a while and as soon as we get back from Nevada I will try to get Rodger to help me plant a couple rows for early taters to use on this summer and buy some new seed potatoes to raise to store. I think we may have a fungus in the ones we have now. I am gonna try the trick my friend Rosie told me about. She says if you put cornmeal in the bottom of the potato row it will encourage microbes to grow that will destroy the fungus. I got homegrown cornmeal so I can try. Will never know if it works for us if we don't try. We will be putting the plastic on the greenhouse when we get back also. Then it will be about time to start seeds in there. I have to find some other odd thing or 2 to grow this year. Not sure what that will be yet tho. I was looking at my pitiful egg gourds that I use for nest eggs when I gathered eggs a bit ago and I do need to raise more of those to dry. They really work to teach the hens where they need to lay. The gourd eggs I have now are ones I picked up several years ago in an antique shop in Nicholasville when Jason and I went plundering one mothers day weekend.

Well my quilt sewing project is coming along nicely. I got the batting in and double batted the bear squares. Now it is pinned together and ready to tack. I just have to by the thread to tack it with. Not gonna find that in our town tho. Maybe I can talk Rodger into an out of town trip this weekend. And then I can get the lil quilt finished to take with us to Nevada. I would take a pic, but that someone who borrowed my camera has not returned it yet. Soon I hope.

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

Stella