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

Making progress

Dang this has been a long week. Stressful to say the least. Things went down hill end of last week when my mother had to be flown out to a hospital suffering a stroke. With great doctors of staff they gave her TPA clot buster drugs and she is still with us. She is stable but unable to talk or swallow. Not sure when or even if she will ever be able to eat on her own. In the meantime we opted to have a feeding tube placed so she can have nourishment till then. She had the procedure to get the feeding tube put in yesterday and they are able to feed her today. So far she is stable and may get to return to the nursing home Thursday or Friday this week. This has entailed lots of long trips for us out of town and that has been really hard on my body such as it is. But have been blessed that either Rodger or Jason was able to go with me and drive when needed. But keep mom in your prayers that she can continue to recover and be comfortable.

We did get taters planted last week. Our peas are up and look really good. Onions are up and carrots are starting to come thru the ground. My plants in the greenhouse look good and are finally growing well. Compost tea can make a big difference. I intend to water with the manure tea again tomorrow. It should be warm enough to get everything moved back to the greenhouse and out of the summer kitchen tomorrow as well.

 

 We had light snow, yeas snow, yesterday morning here and a heavy frost this morning. I knew it would be a lil too cold to leave tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse with no heat so we put all those trays in the summer kitchen. We have heat in there anyway as there is still a tote in there where the lil baby chicks are living till we butcher the meat birds this coming weekend. The lil ones are growing and healthy.

These lil guys are from the ones I hatched in the incubator. Was sure hoping to have mostly pullets but not sure as to what sex they are now.
The meat birds are really nice size. Some are almost too big to stand up so they do a lot of sitting.

Not too bad for 6 week old birds. Very nice meaty chickens. I see lots of fried chicken and lots of good chicken stock. Then this fall I will raise another batch for fall and winter meat supply hopefully.

My older hens are still laying pretty good right now and they are so friendly I really hate to butcher them off later this year but they are getting past their prime for egg laying. They also tolerate Possum the cat well as he thinks he is a chicken. Spent all his young life with them so why not.

Possum waits here or in the chicken house every night for me to close up the chickens and feed him. He knows its time to eat when I come in from closing the hens up and makes sure to remind me when he walks in front of me to the back deck to have his belly scratched at the top of the steps. Creatures of habit, much like humans. They like routine as well I guess.

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

Stella

Loving this weather...for now

Oh gosh our weather has been so dang nice the past few days. I am so glad to be able to get outside and putter around and get a few minor things accomplished. On Friday I did finally get my cabbage and Brussels sprouts in the seed flats. Now to just hope they sprout an grow well. I had a big old flower pot that holds a lot of soil that I also filled and sowed some lettuces in it for early green stuff. I need to get in there in about a week and start some onion sets to have green onions about the same time. Yep, you know where I am going with this. I want my spring fix of wilted lettuce an green onions with lots of crisp bacon on top. I did sow a lil bit of spinach and kale also. I might, key word being might, get in the mood to make smoothies or green drinks. I do know they are very healthy for your body. And my body needs all the help it can get. Rodger spent most of his day today getting all the equipment running and ready for gardening. The tiller was not a problem. The big Ford tractor is being contrary again. Every thing else is good to go. Now he is itching to start plowing. He does have a lot of that to do. He wants to plant 2 kinds of field corn this year. The Reid's yellow dent for stock feed and the Boone County white for corn meal. I think he really needs to get some corn shelled really soon to have ground into cornmeal or we are gonna be in a fix and run out. My stash is really low. I might have 2 more bags of cornmeal in storage.

I got my baby chicks in the mail last Wednesday right in the middle of all that super cold nasty weather we had. I was very concerned that they might be in pretty weak shape on arrival. But they were great. It was so neat to see the box they were shipped in and that is really what makes all the difference in how well they survived.

This box is not more than a 1 ft square with a round nest made inside. There were 25 lil chicks in here standing shoulder to shoulder. They were warm and toasty and ready to eat an drink as soon as the opportunity presented itself. The first water they got was warm sugar water. They all started eating and drinking within minutes. As of right now they are out in their new building all nice and toasty with plenty of space to run around. We set up 2 heat lights just in case one happens to go out in the middle of the night so they don't freeze. But so far, so good. God willing we should have 25 nice meat birds that will meet their demise the weekend of Good Friday in April.

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

Stella

Trying to get a jump on spring

And trust me that is a tough thing to do around here right now. Seems as tho winter is wanting to linger longer than we would like, but we don't control the weather. Rodger got my greenhouse set back up a couple weeks ago and I still have not been able to get my cabbage seeds started. Its not like I need a ton of things in the cabbage family but I need what I need. I was hoping our really cold weather would ease up a lil bit before I got the seeds started an they sprout. The cabbage family can do fine in cold weather the biggest problem is damping off in the greenhouse. And that is something you really have to stay on top of or chance losing all your seedlings. I have in the past just used a peroxide water spray to control the disease. I hope to get those seeds in this weekend. But with no more than I will be starting, maybe 3 flats, less than 100 plants of all things cabbage, I am thinkin I will just use my counter in the summer kitchen for those till the super cold weather spell is past. Then hopefully it will be safe to put them in the greenhouse for the remainder of the growing period. Fingers crossed. We are forecast to get snow, ice, rain, sleet and shit and stuff and things this weekend. We will see.

Well we did decide to go ahead and build a smaller addition onto the big chicken house up here on the hill to raise the meat birds. It should be big enough to accommodate the 25 birds I am starting the season with. Rodger and Jason got that task done last weekend. They went from this:

The floor on Saturday morning was the start, and time wise, 3 days later this is what we have:

This is a 6ft addition onto the west end of the hen house. It would be so nice if chickens were not such creatures of habit and the hens would just move in the new residence. But I am sure if I tried that it would mean going out at dark and carrying each bird to the new house. They would sit down at the door of their old house. So I will leave them be and put the new babies in the new building. Then once they are butchered off and the building is empty I can put new young pullets in this section. Hopefully as I hatch chicks this spring and save out the lil pullets I intend to raise them in this new section so it will be home to them. After the young bird get close to laying age we will be butchering off our old flock and that will leave the bigger building empty to raise the fall round of Cornish for our winter meat supply. I will let ya know how my plan works out. OK stop laughing, its not done yet. I got my heat lights, bedding, feed at the ready, vitamins and all set to get my babies first of the week. They will only live here about 6 , no more than 7 weeks till they are in the freezer. When we have several days of warm dry weather forecast I will paint the outside of this building to help protect it even tho it is built with exterior grade plywood. Yep, another paint project.

Speaking of painting, I am still not done on the inside of the house as of right now. I did finally get the closet section painted in the bedroom/walk-in closet off my bedroom. I has nice heavy shelves in there to hold all kinds of stuff that was sitting all over my closet/craft room. Much neater and at least I can safely walk in there and come out with all 10 toes intact. I have had to take it easy the past few days as I have had another round of mild bronchitis I guess. Have not felt good for a few days. I did feel some better today and managed to get another coat of paint on the walls in the master bath. The paint was not old enough to really need to be totally painted but needed touch up where the paint for some reason looked thin. So another project off my list. I actually think there is enough paint left in that can if it remains good to totally repaint the whole bathroom in a few years when it needs it again. I still need to buy the paint to paint the inside of the pantry in the kitchen. Sounds like a good lil project for a crappy weather weekend we are supposed to have this weekend. IF and thas a big IF I feel better. Have to wait till tomorrow to see how that goes. That will leave the living room and master bedroom to paint and I might be done. At least till I get another harebrained idea.

I have at last got my garden seeds out and all sorted to see what all we have and want to plant. Not sure how I did it, but I have managed to let us run out of cucumber seed. Panic time!! Well not really. I did find that Lowe's sells organic and heirloom seeds. So I guess my next trip out of town will include a trip to Lowe's to pick up some cucumber seeds so we have them on hand at planting time. It is still really wet in the garden right now but Rodger thinks he might be able to get in there tomorrow and at least plant our peas. No we did not get them planted on Valentines day like we wanted to. But I think it is still early enough that they will do fine before really hot weather hits. Peas do not do well in heat. The earlier you can plant them the better they will produce and the pods of the Sugar Snap peas will be super tender and crisp. It has been to wet and cold here for us to get in the orchard an prune the fruit trees. That needs to be done really soon before they start to bud. But you do what you can and the rest has to wait.

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

Stella

Need to get my ducks in a row

But these days seems like I am lucky to just get my ducks in the same pond. I feel lost in my own lil world. I lose track of time lapse. I have been thinkin for a week or more than I need to update my blog and let my readers know I am still kickin. Well finally , here it is. By the way, where the hell did summer go? Just the other day I was starting things in the greenhouse and wishing for summer to get things planted an now here it is mid-August nearly. Actually I have lost a lot of precious time and a lot of my life trying to get better health wise. NOW maybe I can be on the uphill swing. I have stopped a couple meds that I think were making me so fatigued and making me sicker. If I can just get me past the withdrawal of those it will be better. Making progress tho. Maybe in the near future I can do a whole post on what has happened an how I am making positive progress now. So many things to do an so little time before fall and frost, then the snow flys.
Our garden has not produced as much as we are used to but no panic here because when I do have an abundance I can like there is no tomorrow. So in leaner years we still have plenty of canned stuff. We finally got the first round of sweet corn put up late last week and weekend. Will be picking over it again probably mid week. Beans, well those are a whole nuther animal. Not going to be many if any of those this year. But we have enough already canned. Our tomatoes have lots of nice healthy green tomatoes on the vines but they will be a lil later getting ripe. No biggie tho.Our potatoes did really well this year. We got those dug a couple weeks ago and are in the building curing for later storage in the cellar. I plan, but we know how my planning goes, to can some of the smaller taters for quick meals. Not to mention the fact that the very best fried taters are ones that were boiled and left over. I got this idea from my friend Rosie who said in Germany her mother always had boiled potatoes in the kitchen to use in so many ways. And I love Rosie's fried taters. When I make garlicky herbed potatoes here I always make enough to have leftover fried taters the next day. So very good.
I did manage to get the sage cut an dried last week and ended up with a 2 gallon zip top bag nearly full of crushed leaves of sage. I still need to dry some oregano and mint from the herb garden. I should be planting some parsley to chop an freeze. Parsley an chives are much better frozen than dried. Parsley is OK-ish dried but better frozen. Chives definitely better frozen. A few weeks ago when I was making dill pickles I used some dill that I had chopped an frozen last summer. Good stuff.
I had a doctor appointment in Richmond last week an before we left town we had stopped at the local fruit stand an Rodger got me a box of peaches. I think the box holds 3/4 bushel. I ate a lot of em but did manage to can several jars too. This week I am looking to get nectarines. The fellow said he would have them last week and this week. Need to purchase those right now as my lil fruit trees are not big enough to produce yet.

Ended up with 11 pints an 2 quarts. Not bad considering I ate lots of fresh peaches. Love em!! My counters in the summer kitchen are pretty cluttered for it to be the middle of what should be canning season. At this moment I have lots of empty jars out there an a flower pot in which I had started some cabbage for fall cabbage. My cucumbers in the garden ate my cabbage. Covered them up and with all the rain the cabbage rotted from all the water. But not much can be done when ya have so much rain and don't  get the cukes trellised. Plan B, start an try to grow fall cabbage. Need to be thinking about gettin the fall crop of chickens growing too. If I order now they will be big enough to butcher off before the weather gets too cold and we will be done with our late season meat supply. Probably raise about 25 more for the freezer. I still have several from the spring "crop" to last till we get more raised.
The past couple weeks I have felt a bit better with some med changes and stopping some meds. A lil more energy I guess. I even had enough energy to clean the windows outside. I had found a recipe on Pinterest for window cleaner to use outside an you just need to hose off the cleaner, no drying needed an it drys spotless. Yippee!! So I tried it an be dang, it worked. So I will share the recipe with you so maybe it will make your window cleaning life a lil easier.

Outside window cleaner
1/4 cup ammonia
1/4 cup vinegar
1 tablespoon Jet dry(like used in the dishwasher)
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon dish soap

Mix well in spray bottle an take hose an rinse window to get the dust off so as to not scratch the glass. Spray the cleaner on the window and with a brush or sponge or even a mop wash the window. Rinse with the hose again and leave it be. The windows will dry spotless. This makes window cleaning so much easier for me. I don't have to climb on a chair or ladder to reach the taller ones, and no streaks from drying either. Now I really need to clean the siding with bleach to get the "green stuff" off. Maybe when I get another burst of energy that I am not forced out of necessity to use for something else I can clean the siding.
Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

The garden is finally in.......

Finally , dang it seems we have been all summer getting things finished up around here. We do have out tomatoes, peppers, cabbage and broccoli all transplanted to the big garden. the beans and sweet corn are up and look great. Rodger is going to the garden after work tomorrow to get the grass and weeds out of the corn an beans an get the tiller ran in those. Our potatoes looks really good but we do have several bugs now. I will spray those soon as weather permits. I used the black plastic weed kill method in some of the beds here at the house and have since got those planted as well. When I ordered my few seeds from Baker Creek this year they sent me a free packet of Gypsy tomatoes that originated in Russia. I planted those here near the house in one of the beds so IF they turn out to be good tomatoes I can keep the seeds and if not, no worries. But at least they wont be crossed with anything else. I also had a handful of Lima beans that a gentleman from Rodgers work gave us that his family has raised for many years here in Ky. I planted those along one side of the beds out back. Got some broccoli out there and a strip of lettuce sown.

The one bed outback that has the strawberries in it has out done them selves again this year. You know how scatter brained I am most days. I had forgot to check on them and had lots of berries rot before I remembered to pick them. But they are still producing and doing great. As well as the bed out by the driveway. I will need to pick those again tomorrow evening. Between the 2 beds here at the house we all picked right about 4 gallon of berries last Sunday. Those went home with Tammy (SIL) and Barbara (MIL). Yippee I didn't have to clean those. I still have a good supply of berries in the freezer from last summer. I took my friend Rosie's advice and had Rodger mow the raspberries down last fall so they can come back and produce one big crop this fall instead of working us to death all summer picking them every other day. They have come up and look just beautiful. They look even better since Rodger got the mowing done and you can actually see them now. I do need to get the big weeds out of the row and spread the rotted chicken manure down the sides of the row really soon so it can feed the plants.

You remember last post when I said I was going to give it a shot tryin to start grape vines in mid summer? Well right now they ain't lookin too good. The leaves fell off but that don't mean they are dead. I will leave them be and keep them watered and see what happens later in the season. And so help me I think the grape vines did double time puttin on more grape clusters after I fruit pruned them. May actually have to fruit prune them again to get bigger grapes. I might wait till the yard is mowed to be out there trampling around. The grass is gettin kinda high, not outlandish, but still thick and tall. Our mower needs new blades and we wont get those till we go out of town on Thursday. And needless to say our yard has bloomed again. We have lots of white clover in our yard. More clover and weeds than actual grass. We don't have a lawn, we got a yard. We thankfully don't have an HOA out here in the country or we might be in some trouble. I guess thas why we out here in the country.

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

Stella

I know, I know, leave it to me

I know, I have been MIA for a while, again. No I been right here, not gone, just at home tryin to keep my oars in the water. You already know that I don't play by the rules. I am in the process of trying to get my meds adjusted as far as times that I take them so they can work better for me and not make me a zombie during the day. Its OK to be sleepy at night but dang being in a brain fog all day. Makes for some real unproductive days. But I am making progress. So on to the next project.

We got the garden planted and all the stuff is up and looks good. We still need to plant tomatoes and peppers, cabbage and broccoli, melons and squash. We have been having some rather cold nights with temps in the 40's which is not normal for us and I didn't want to plant tender crops in the garden just yet and let them get frost bit. I do think now the danger of frost is past so we will try to get those in the ground in the next few days. We had to make a trip out of town today to the bigger city to pick up some supplies and we got a roll of 6 ft wide landscape fabric which we will put in the garden, bury the edges of it to keep it in place, make crosses in the fabric and set the cantaloupes and watermelons in the holes so they can grow without competing with the weeds later in the summer. Hopefully we can take the fabric up and use it again next year. If this new roll last as long as the stuff we used up here in the yard when we first moved it will probably last us a lifetime. Good sturdy stuff. The plants in the greenhouse look good. Now to get them in the garden.

My new lil greenhouse sure has been handy this year. I finally got enough energy get in the yard and do a few more chores this past week. Our grape vines were in bad need of fruit pruning. As you can tell from this picture.

You can click on the picture to enlarge it and better see the many lil grape clusters on the plants. I did fruit prune them and take about 50% of the lil clusters off to give the ones left a chance to get bigger. Then I got another idea. I know, I know, you should not prune plants in the middle of summer when the sap is up. But prune I did. The grapevines were pretty scraggly with limbs goin ever direction. Makes it really hard to mow when you are getting stabbed and scrapped by grape limbs. So I clipped them back.
Before:

After:  

 Mission accomplished:

 I got all the wild limbs clipped and you can actually mow under the vines and this should greatly improve air circulation and prevent fungus on the grapes. There are lots of nice young growth on the ground after I finished. So I have a friend who is wanting some grapevines. I know, I know, THEY say you cant take cutting and start plants in summer time. But dang it, you know I had to try. So I took the cutting to the picnic table, trimmed em up, fixed a pot of potting soil, got out the rooting hormone, a pan of water, dipped the cutting in the water and then the hormone and stuck em in the dirt. We shall see IF they makes roots or not. I will let you know on this one.

 So once they were in the pot I put them in the greenhouse so I could take care of them till (hopefully) they make roots.

OK I was all done playing in the dirt so I moved on to the strawberry bed out back. OH my!!!!!

 I did not know there were that many berries ripe out there. So this required a trip back to the summer kitchen to get a container to pick berries.

I know, I know, the bowl will not be big enough but it is what was handy. Ended up I picked about a gallon of berries off this lil 8ft by 8ft bed. Yeah I know, I know, there are berries in the field ripe and the bed beside the driveway has a lot of ripe berries in it too. Yeah I picked the ones here at the house. Still have not got to the field to pick those. Maybe tomorrow.

After I finished picking berries Rodger came out and I suggested we go to the field and drive the post to support the new grapevines we planted the past couple years. So off we went. We got the supports put up and Rodger is way far behind on the mowing with all the rain we have had. Can ya tell?

There are about 30 grapevines in this lil vineyard once they get big enough to make grapes. There is a grapevine at every metal rod that you see. This clover we planted creeps and mats on the ground and gets rather tall It is pretty tough stuff but we had hoped it would be shorter to cut down on mowing and help keeps weeds from growing. The orchard has grass that is almost as tall as some of the young trees we have planted this year. It will look pretty tho if Rodger ever gets it mowed.

A pretty heavy thunderstorm blew in just as we got finished driving stakes and it was getting dark so I did not get to pick the strawberries that are in the field near this vineyard. Just not enough hours in the day.

We went out of town to get a pressure switch for our water pump today and to pick up a few supplies and as I already told you we got landscape fabric to keep weeds out of the melons. We went to Lowe's and I picked up 3 - 8oz containers of Valspar paint for free. I had coupons that I had saved for a free 8oz sample of paint so I took advantage of that lil deal. Got a couple colors and 1 white. I wanted the white to re-paint the base of our dining table. We made a stop at Walmart for a few other things we needed and Rodger had some gift cards that he had gotten from cashing in his reward points from one of our credit cards. Needless to say it is not safe to allow him in Walmart "lil boys" clothing section. He picked out several lil outfits for Liam. Who am I kidding? I picked out a few myself for that lil man. I cant believe how much this lil fellow has grown in just the few weeks since we have been back home. Although his daddy did tell me he is a lil colicky. Bless his lil heart, I hate this so bad. Sure is hard to see those lil ones hurting and not be able to fix em. They tole me today they are gonna change his formula to a soy based one to see if that will help some. I know Rob was on soy formula when he was a baby. I just pray this don't last long for him. I know it is hard for Rob and Amoy being so far from family and not having anyone close to help out so they can rest a lil bit. But this sweet lil boy will be worth all this and I am sure they would tell you the same things. Just precious.

                                           He looks like he is just itchin to get hold of something.

                                               Lookin all gangsta!! and cute.

 And just look at that sweet lil smile. Not long till he will be able to interact with his mommy and daddy more. I know they cant wait for those days. This Grammy sure misses that lil fellow.

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

Hope you have a safe and happy memorial day weekend. Thanks to all our service men and women, past and present for your service to our country. God bless you all and keep you.

Stella

Our lil one is here....

Our first grandson, Liam Robert was born on April 27th. Is he beautiful or what?

                                                           Liam at 3 days old.

                                              Liam at 4 days old. And just look at all that hair!!

                                                      Liam checking out papaw Rodger.

                                                           Grammy's sweet lil boy at 1 week old. Liam is a beautiful combinations of his momma and daddy. A perfect lil angel in my eyes.

We got a call from Rob on Friday afternoon to let us know Amoy was having contractions. We packed up our car for the road trip to Nevada and headed out on Saturday morning. We made it to Missouri when I got a picture message of a precious lil boy on my cell phone. Rodger and I both were so happy that Liam was here and he and his momma were both doing fine. They got to come home on Sunday and we made it to Nevada on Monday before noon. We covered the total of 2000 miles in less than 30 hours total on the road. Then we spent the whole week with out lil man and it was really hard to not just hold him all the time but we didn't as it would have made it hard on him and his mom and dad when we left. I know newborns change daily and I had 2 babies but dang I don't remember seeing them change that fast. Maybe it was because back in the day you were kept in the hospital for 2 to 3 days before you were discharged home with the new baby. This lil fellow went from that wobbly newborn stage to trying to hold his head up by time we left this past Monday. The lil wrinkles had started filling out, he was eating good, sleeping good, just a perfect lil baby. Rob and I learned fast that Liam does not like to be touched with cold or even cool hands. He screams and has a lil fit. But he is really easy to sooth tho. Mine and papaws pride and joy. Grand babies are a whole different level of love. Get ready for it because I will post pictures of this lil fellow on here a lot now.

We finally got back here in KY to our house today, Wednesday around 2 in the afternoon. We got to see some new country the trip home too. Instead of traveling I-80 we took I-70 by turning south in Cheyenne Wyoming and driving thru Denver Colorado, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and finally ended up in Ky. Gosh after being on a road trip like that we were exhausted and glad to be back home. Miss the kids a bunch tho.

Now that we are home, it is back to the farm stuff. Jason and Mary Kay took care of things for us while we were gone and everything is good here. The plants in the greenhouse are fine and growing. The meat birds are HUGE!! Oh my, we must do some butchering this week and weekend. I am so very pleased with the results of the Cornish cross from Cackle hatchery. They have grown to my expectations. 

Our yard looks like a jungle, my herb bed is all grown up, the strawberry beds both need to be weeded. That will get done a lil at a time. I think it has rained several days here. The ground is really wet and it rained today. We will get started planting corn and the garden stuff as soon as the fields are dry enough to work. Jason got the big corn field worked while we were gone so it wont need much before it gets planted. We sure got lots of work ahead of us to get caught up. IF you ever really get caught up on a farm.

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

Stella

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

We are still alive here

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

Stella

Still working in strawberries

The strawberry plants have out done them selves this year. I do think this is the first time I can say I am tired of messing with berries. We have about 8 gallon in the freezer, plus what we keep ready for strawberry shortcake, and we made 20 pints of strawberry preserves yesterday. Today the guys picked another 2 gallon of nice berries. But they told me they are not producing as many now, so I think maybe they have come to the end of their big crop. The raspberries are starting to bloom now, so we should have plenty of those as well. Even after the grape vines got nipped with frost they do have some lil tiny grape clusters on them now. So maybe a few grapes this fall. I have baby chicks that should be here next week and still don't have my laying hens moved to the other house yet. Oh my!! I think I am behind again. I am sure you have heard that from me before and seems I never get caught up in summer time. I just today finally got around to cleaning out the freezers and tossing stuff that was probably not good. I think some bags of peppers had been in there for a couple years and they don't keep good that long. So the chickens had a feast this evening. I think I just work when I feel able to and not hurt so bad. The left shoulder is still causing some problems but the doc said most likely it would from now on. Oh joy!

We have had rain most every night for the past couple weeks. Sometimes not much but still enough to keep the ground too wet to work in. We don't have all our garden out yet. My tomatoes in the greenhouse are huge and need to be in the ground so they can get some growth before they bloom. Its not really late for the garden but we are usually done planting by May 4th or so. I am sure it will all work out, its just me that is anxious to get stuff planted so I can watch it grow. I am a lot like my dad in that respect I think. I sure do love to watch the miracles unfold every day in summer as beautiful things grow and bloom with every little shower of rain. My flowers that I moved last year are blooming where they were dropped in a new place and the rose bushes are starting to bloom too. Such beauty this time of year. Although our yard is covered with lil tiny white blooms from the clover that is growing there cause we cant mow and it wet. The chickens spend their days chasing bugs all over in the tall clover. My lil chickens that the 3 hens raised have been weaned and are hanging out together like a clan. Once in a while they will lose somebody and they will holler and go running to find they buddies. The hens that raised the babies are laying again. So they play momma sometimes and laying hen sometimes. They have all 3 been great mommas.

I have a doc appointment tomorrow out of town with the rheumatologist to see what he thinks of me and if he needs to make changes to my meds. I think we will be discussing a better plan for pain management. I just hate the long ride to see him. The next day I will be house bound with my back and joints killing me. Oh well just a thing I have to do.

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

Stella

It sure looks like summer here

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

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

 

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

 

 

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

 

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

 

 

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

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

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

Stella

It seems to be spring here

I have managed to stay busy this week and got a few spring chores done. On Tuesday I got all my seeds in potting soil to start plants for the big garden. This year I thought about tomatoes and peppers needing extra calcium to prevent blossom end rot. I had saved all my egg shells, rinsed an dried them and had them stored in the freezer. So when I started putting soil in the trays to start the tomatoes an peppers I put some crushed egg shells in the bottom of each tray. So when we transplant the plants to the garden later the egg shells will be in the soil and available to the plants for extra calcium. Guess I will see how well this works for me. I also got the kiwi vines pruned too. Not sure if they cuttings will propagate or not but I took some cutting and dipped them in rooting hormone and put them in soil to see if they make new plants.
My strawberry plants that my friend Gretchen and her hubby sent me last year are loaded with bloom. I should have lots of berries this year. I still need to transplant some of the ones from the field back over here to the old flower bed that has been prepped for them near the driveway here at the house. There is just no way to keep the grass and weeds out of them in the field where I have them now. I should think things thru a lil better before I plant stuff. Might save me a lot of work in the long run. Any who, story of my life.
We got a lil rain this afternoon after it staying cloudy most all day. Gosh the weeds and grass in the yard grew several inches with the lil rain tho. We need to mow like really soon. Our yard looks awful shabby an over grown. Guess that is a task for after the rain and it dries a lil.
Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Outside in the fresh air

We have both spent most of the day outside in the fresh air doing lil chores in the yard. Good grief somebody gonna have to mow soon or we gonna be living in knee deep weeds. Our yard is mostly lil weeds, if not for them I think it would be just dirt. We have some lil tuffs of grass here and there, just not your typical "lawn". But do we care,, hell now! The chickens like the weeds so we all good. I am sure the chickens are really happy tonight. Rodger got the chicken house cleaned out and the manure piled for compost. I scattered fresh straw in the building. When I went out to close the door after dark the chickens were sitting in the fresh straw for the night instead of sitting on the roost. After he finished that we did finally get the grape vines pruned today, and they did bleed a good deal. It is a lil late in the season but it had to be done.  So we can only hope it don't kill em. I did also take cutting to root for new vines. Got those in soil after dipping the tips in rooting hormone. Now they will sit in damp soil surrounded by a large trash bag till they get leaves and then for several weeks longer to establish good roots. After they have nice roots they will get transplanted into individual pots till this fall and then be moved to the field near the orchard where last years starts are planted. I started 45 cutting and out of those only about 10 or so of em will take root and grow.
I got a good start on weeding the big herb bed too. But I sure didn't make much progress seems to me. Maybe 1/4 of it is weed free. If weather permits(and it is supposed to b nice) tomorrow I will work on it some more. My body just cant take the bending and using my arm to keep at that task too long. But I am better than I was. I think I actually got a lil sun today too. I alas have a farmers tan in summer. Not the all over tan ya get from a tanning bed by any means. I fit the title of redneck farm girl.
It seems kinda early in the season to have the AC on but dang its hot for mid March. The forecast was for rain today but it didn't rain here at our place. And if we don't get rain tomorrow I will probably watch the fellers put the plastic on my greenhouse so I can play in dirt in there and get all my seedlings started so they be ready for the big garden. I should have already had the cabbage family started but such is life in my world. Had to let my arm get back to some sort of usefulness before tackling planting. So maybe tomorrow is the day.
Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

More rain sure makes weeds grow

We have had rain every day for the past week or so. The garden is mud and we did have some low areas of standing water in the sweet corn till today. After supper Rodger got the lil tractor cause its 4 wheel drive an took a plow and cut a trench from the low areas toward the river to help drain the standing water. So maybe my sweet corn wont need to swim now. Not much of it was waterlogged but I just hate to lose any at all once I work that hard to grow it. We had another rain shower this evening after he got done. I got more herbs cut an dried today. Now I have a good bit of oregano and tarragon dried. I cut some parsley also and chopped it an put it in the freezer. Sometimes I like to use fresh parsley in dishes but other times dried works just fine. Sometimes a dish just needs the freshness of raw parsley. Same with the borage. Both herbs just add a fresh flavor to many soups. I still have many more varieties to harvest an dry yet. I have had both dehydrators loaded today. So tomorrow I will do more. I am far behind on cutting the tea herbs this year. Not sure what the heck I been doin but it ain't been cuttin tea herbs.
My lil chickens are doing great. The oldest are barely 3 weeks old an already are looking for places to perch. There is a perch in their brooder house but they are not ready to fly the 18 inches or so it takes to get up on those. So they line up an perch on the board that sits across the doorway to keep bedding from falling out when ya open the door. Lazy lil critters they are. The lil fellows that I hatched in the incubator are growing like weeds. I love summer time and all the babies. I did get a couple pics of Jason's kittens the other night when we went to feed the hogs. They look like a den of lil tiny bears and already are opening their eyes.

Daisy and Delilah are growing and they are such sweet lil girls. Jason is going to work on leash training them soon. They are quite young and want no part of a leash right now, but they will learn. Right now they are only concerned with food and water an playing in the pool when its hot.
In the midst of all the harvesting herbs today I got around to saving a lot of seed from my hollyhocks. Those things were so pretty this year. See I plant stuff an it grows, does well and only then do I do some research on the plants to see the nature of them. I learned that if you plant them right now they will grow and make pretty plants this year and bloom early next summer. I started  mine last year, transplanted them in early summer and got the blooms this year. But the fact that they re-seed themselves is a big plus. But I surely do not want all those seedlings growing in that particular area. I pulled about a half gallon of seed pods off the spent plants today to share with friends who might want them. The hardest thing I find to start and grow is lavender. The germination rate on lavender seed is very low at best. If I am lucky I may end up with 2 or 3 new plants each year. I do love the scent of lavender when its in bloom. If I had a large bed of it I think I would plop a lounge chair right in the middle and just sit there inhaling the sweetness. But thas just me dreaming again.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

The hot weather is here to stay

I know, we were complaining a week ago about the cool damp weather with all the rain we have had. OK I am done with this hot stuff for a while now. It has been in the mid 90's today and pose to be all week with intermittent showers. The humidity is about too much and its just the end of May. I can not imagine how bad it will be in July and August. None the less I did get a few minor things accomplished today in spite of the heat. I went and got the truck load of straw to mulch the strawberries with. I used 1 bale in the brooder house to get it ready for the lil chicks that will be here this week. ALL 50 of em. Yeah I am a lil crazy at times. But the building is all set up waiting their arrival. When they get big enough to let out they will be allowed to free range some. Well most likely until they find my flower beds and then they will get confined to a pen. Anyway still have the straw on my truck. Rodger intends to till the area between the rows of berry plants before I mulch to loosen up the soil. So maybe we can do that tomorrow. He got kinda busy this evening helping Jason set post to build a pen for his puppies that will be here this weekend. My friend Rosie's Great Pyrenees had puppies and Jason is getting 2 of em. My aunt is taking 1 also and we will have all 3 here this weekend. I can only imagine how cute they are. They do make beautiful dogs. I will post pics for ya to see when we get them. Luna is gonna love this. She wont know what to do with 3 lil girls like her. Jason is building a pen for his so Luna don't go visit an dognap the puppies.
I finally got my greenhouse shut down for the spring season. I had a good deal of leftover plants, some I am planting and some giving away. A co-worker of Jason's is taking all the sweet potato plants, and probably most of the other stuff too. I keep hearing threats toward my greenhouse around here. I think I may have went a lil overboard planting this year. But dang by now they should know that's how I do things.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

The changes from day to day

It amazes me how the weather can change from one day to the next. Yesterday I had the heat on and couldnt seem to get warm and today I had to turn the A/C on for a bit. It is starting to warm up a bit and I am so thankful for that. Cold and wet weather does not do tender garden stuff one bit of good. The corn has a pale look to it from the cool and it also encourages flea beetles to eat on the new tender growth.  But today was rather nice even tho we did have some sprinkles earlier today it warmed up nicely. I am telling you I am a wimp. I didnt get out to do much till it was warmer this afternoon. I did transplant some of the stevia plants to the herb bed and kept 2 in a big pot in the greenhouse for safe keeping. Just to make sure some of them make it. I moved the thyme to the herb bed as well and planted some of the different varieties of tomatoes that I want to keep secluded for seed.  I had a few pots of flowers that I had started and now have those in pots to bring on the deck a lil later. The hyacinth peas are planted in 2 big pots that will sure need a trellis. Tomorrow I will need to get all my butchering stuff together to butcher on Saturday. I think this time I am cutting all the chicken up for frying and just canning the stock alone in jars. I made a rotisseri chicken for supper and decided to fine tune the chicken rice recipe that I had been using. We do like the rice a roni mix stuff and I can make it much cheaper. It is rather simple if you have your own good chicken stock. So I am sharing the recipe. This will make enough for 4 hearty appetites.

Rice O Roni My Way

1 cup long grain rice (long cooking)
1 cup angel hair pasta broken in 1/2 inch pieces
5 tablespoons butter
3 cups good chicken stock
3 bouillon cubes crushed
1/4 cup onion flakes
4 teaspoons parsley
1 teaspoon marjoram
salt to taste
1 teaspoon thyme
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
!/2 teaspoon garlic powder

In skillet or heavy cooker brown the rice and pasta pieces in the butter till lightly browned stirring often. Watch this because it can burn rather quickly. Add chicken stock and remaining ingredients and simmer till the rice is done. If it gets a lil too dry before the rice is done add more chicken stock or water.
Serve with your choice of chicken, fried,  baked, or roasted.

You can substitute chicken soup base for bouillon if so desired. Or even add a lil bit the the dish to enhance the flavor. Enjoy! (This is very very close to the box rice a roni mix stuff only with more flavor an less salt.)

Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Another day without rain

We had another day without rain here today. The ground is drying out nicely but dang it we cant get in the garden. The railroad company has taken out the crossing and it wont be put back till next week. This would have been a great time to get the rest of my garden planted and the plants transplanted that are in the greenhouse. But at least Rodger and Jason got started on my herb bed extension in the front yard this evening. We might get that done tomorrow and ready to plant. The extension is actually bigger than I had anticipated. But that is good too. Just more room to add plants. The bed started out about 22 ft long by 8 ft wide. It will be 8 ft longer on one end, and we added another 8 ft to the width on the side. So total space is about 30 by 16 ft. Rodger got started this evening moving the dirt into the new bed too. Its gonna take a lot of trips with the lil tractor bucket to fill all that area in. In the morning I need to round up more stuff to use for weed barrier. I used shredded paper this evening for what we got done. Guess I need to raid the building and dig out all the old card board that we have around. Last resort will be paper feed bags. But I really want to save those to mulch around the fruit trees in the orchard. Not sure how much we can get done this weekend beings we are forecast for 20% chance of rain till next Thursday. Maybe it will miss us. I can only hope. The wild blackberries are in full bloom now so as soon as they start losing their bloom we usually get several days of cool rainy weather.  We surely have to get all the planting done in the next week or so. We will be butchering chickens the weekend of May 21st. They will be 6 weeks old then and huge. On my to-do list for tomorrow is to get the brooder house cleaned out. The new herb bed will be a good place to put the fresh manure from there. It will have time to rot before the lil plants put roots down to get into it. And it means I wont have to move the compost twice.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Dang it rained again

At some point last night it rained. I know this cause all was wet and soggy this morning. Jason said it stormed really bad last night. By dang I was too tired to hear it. I slept right thru the storms. So needless to say there was no working in the berries today. Am pretty sure it was mud over in the garden. So we have not done much here today. I did clean up the house, took care of the chicks and started some more tomatoes. Yep, more maters. My friend Sheri from up in Missouri sent me some seeds for Tumbling tom (red and yellow) tomatoes that she says are best grown in a hanging pot. Also some Red House Free standing (heirloom) tomatoes that she said needs very lil staking, and some Juliet grape tomatoes. See I am alas up to trying new things. It should be warm enough now for the greenhouse to stay warm enough for the tomatoes to come up pretty quick and do well. I have a lot of tomatoes in the greenhouse that need to go to the garden and that will happen the next few dry days we get so we can work in there again.
Here at the house I finally got my sun shades made for the front porch. I had the burlap cut and had Rodger cut 2 strips of lumber for me to tack the burlap to. It is mounted under the ceiling on the west end of the porch. I am sure it will help keep the front porch much cooler this summer. Should keep the sun from beating in on the front of the house too. I love sitting on the front porch but when the sun shines in there in the evening it can get unbearably hot. Now it would be nice if I could get the stain and sealer put on the porch and railing out there to protect it better. Still am thinking of planting the 2 wisteria vines I bought on the south side of the porch and let them grow up the railing to shade the south side a bit in summer too. Plus they do smell pretty too.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella