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

Its spring, stuff is growing, time marches on

I think maybe, just maybe spring is here to stay. I be really ticked if it gets really cold again. But I am not in control of the weather. And God gives us just what we need, no more, no less. But here it is a week and a half into April already. Not long till vacation time and get to see that lil grandson. Well we gonna see his momma and daddy too, but thas a bonus. Cant wait to see Liam. He is growing so fast. I just wish we could let time stand still and be able to enjoy him at this young age for a while longer. It is so true, you never really know what love is until you have a grand child.

 

Hard to believe this lil fellow will be a year old the end of April. Seems like just the other day we were waiting for his to make his appearance. 

So far things are going rather well as far as gardening and getting plants started this year. Although it seems things that are started in the greenhouse are growing slower than I would like. Or maybe its just me. We have had a lot of rain which equates to little sunshine and slow growth of plants. But all in good time I am sure. If nothing else I should have lots and lots of tomato plants this year. My lil project for tomorrow is to get my azz in gear and get some composted chicken manure in a bucket and set it up so I can catch manure or compost tea to water the greenhouse plants with. I am convinced it makes them grow best. My friend Anna sent me some wonderful thornless blackberry starts a couple weeks ago. When they arrived in the mail I was like a kid in a candy store, literally. Cause I knew she had sent me homemade fudge in that package as well. Love that lady and so thankful for her friendship. I put the blackberry starts in individual pots to hold them and let them get started growing a bit before we set them in their permanent place. I think it will be so nice to pick berries without gettin eat up with thorns. In the greenhouse I have many many containers of cutting from grapevines. One container is for my friend Mamie who had ask me to show her how to prune her grape vines and I volunteered to take some cuttings and start them for her some new plants. Then this past weekend Rodger and I went to west Ky so I could prune Uncle Tripp's muscadine grapes for him as I had promised I would do and brought home 4 more containers of cuttings to get started for him and a few for us to keep here. All those in addition to the pot I have in the kitchen that has leaves on them already from our grapes here at home. I am thinkin I will be over run with grape vines pretty soon. Maybe I best dig out all my books on "wine making". I looked at the grape harbor out back today and they have lil buds and will have leaves soon I think. Cant beat homemade grape jelly and wine. I am hoping the ground is dry enough in the field this weekend so we can move my raspberry plants and start a couple new rows of them. We actually want to orient them in a different direction so all the rows in the orchard and vineyard go the same way. Rodger says its hard to mow around things when they go too many directions. But he has been doing well at it. 

We got home Sunday evening kinda late and was working on emptying the incubator that I had used to hatch my baby chicks in. I had one that was still trying to hatch when we left on Friday before and I had ask Lori my friend who was house sitting for us to just unplug the incubator if nothing else had hatched by Saturday evening and she did. Nothing else hatched. I guess my thermometer is bad because the chicks all hatched early at 19 days due to the higher than necessary temperature. But the hatch rate was really low, only hatched 7 babies. But am happy they healthy lil fellers. But when we got home I went to empty the incubator and a baby chick hollered. OMG, was my first thought. I knew the incubator had been off for more than 24 hours and this lil one had been trying since Friday to get out of the shell. I told Rodger, "dang if he is tough enough to survive this long, I just got to help him" and I know all too well if they cant get out of the egg on their own, most likely they wont survive. I helped him out, got him cleaned off, he was severely dehydrated. I gave him a tiny sip of water. He was weak but could still fuss. I turned the incubator back on to keep him warm and dry and let him rest for a bit. Right before I went to bed I picked him up to give him another sip of water in hopes to get him to make it. He took the sip, fussed a bit and died. Dammit!!  But such is life on the farm. I just sure could not make myself just toss the egg with the chick still strong enough to holler. But I had to give it a try and have in the past and had success. It is kinda tough to keep the heat and humidity just right in a still-air incubator. So if you are thinking of getting an incubator to hatch your own birds, just invest in one that has a fan to move the air and a good thermometer. I will make a big difference in the hatch rate.

My meat birds are doing great. They are growing well and not long till they will be in the freezer. Just a lil over 2 weeks to go now. And gosh do they eat a lot. They are funny to watch. When I open the door to feed an water them, they love to stand at the door and look out. But if you set one on the ground they freeze in their tracks. They have no clue what to do. But they like looking around but are scared to move. 

After we got situated at home on Sunday evening I was checking out facebook and email and such. I got a message from a lady whose blog I read and she has 2 books published. She was on her way to Ohio to a writing workshop and said she would like to stop by so we could meet and see the farm. Well needless to say I was beyond excited to get a chance to meet a fellow blogger and published author. You can check out her blog here. I always enjoy reading about her travels and stories of life. So Monday evening I got a phone call from Gianetta and she was in town. I went and picked her up at the hotel and brought her out for dinner and we got to  spend a wonderful evening getting acquainted and I so enjoyed her company. Such a sweet heart. Her books are both available on Amazon here and here. I started reading them last night late after I took her to her hotel. We waited till our only available photographer (Rodger) had went to bed to remember we had not taken a picture together. So imagine the laughs we had just trying to take a selfie. This is the result.

I was using my tablet to take the photo and had to use a mirror on the wall to see the button to push to snap the photo. I had several failures along the way.

I was thrilled to also get signed copies of both her books as well.  What a sweet humbling experience. After reading G's blog for a long time, and meeting her in person the books are just as wonderful. I hope you will grab those and have a read. Looking forward to your next visit G. 

It has started to rain tonight so that means not much gonna happen outside tomorrow. 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

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

Pruning, painting puttering

Just not all these in one day tho. This weather we are having this winter is enough to make the best of us go nuts. It was nice enough last weekend that we got out and pruned the grape vines, finally. I really wanted to get our fruit trees pruned too but Rodger said we would just make big ruts getting in the field with the truck so we passed on those for now. It will have to either be frozen or dry before we can tend to the orchard. The yard was wet but nothing we cant handle. So on Saturday we got the grape vines pruned in the back yard. They sure looked scraggly before we got into them.

 Much better after most of the growth was cut away. I did manage to take a lot of the limbs and cut lots of starts for new vines for this fall planting.

The hardest part of getting the cutting started was finding some potting soil that was not froze solid to put the cuttings in. Finally got them in some sandy loose potting soil, put the whole pot, cuttings and all in a large trash bag after I watered them well and took them into the kitchen. With the warmth and moisture I am sure they will make leaves soon, within a couple weeks and then they start making roots. So by time I get my greenhouse up in early April they will go in there till summer and be re potted into bigger individual pots to grow till early fall and get transplanted to their permanent location in the vineyard in the field and some to by friend Anna. That is about the extent of what we got done outside.

As you know from previous post, I like to paint. No am not an artist. Just like to paint the inside of the house. Rodger keeps telling me I am making the house smaller with layers of paint. Doubt we miss the square footage. I decided instead of getting in on painting the rest of the house first I needed to get the utility room painted as well as the storage closet in there and finish up the dining room. These need to be done before we start putting down flooring before long, I hope. So today I got myself in the notion to start painting. Then it dawned on me, "I need a lighter color paint for closets". Well hell !!! Off to town I go and get another gallon of paint in a lighter tone than the golden yellow that goes on the other walls. I got back and fixed supper and started painting. I thought may as well get the closet in the utility room first and get that over with. Toted all the "junk" out of there and scattered it about and set in to painting. Oh my goodness!! It took a half gallon of paint to just do the damn closet. But that did include painting the shelves in there too and adding some more shelving. Done!! I was killed. I just cant work as long or as hard as I used to. I had a fan positioned to speed the paint drying time and got the "junk" all put back. SO that is done. Tomorrow, the utility room. And that means moving the washer and dryer, clean them, clean under them, scared to see what might be living behind them, then wash the walls and finally paint. It should be a lil bit brighter in there once I am done. If I live to see it. I can sure hope.

For the ones of you who read and know me, you know it is rare for me to leave the house more than once every few weeks. Well I been out 2 times this week. First part of the week I got paint. And stopped by the grocery store just to plunder around and see what the rest of the world eats. The prices are out of sight, can we say sticker shock, again. Happens to me real often. Not to mention I have never in my life seen so many packaged single serving foods in my entire life. Single serving sausage biscuits, microwave ready. Sandwiches, micro ready. veggies, micro ready. Do people eat this stuff? I guess they do cause it sure seems a lot of people were buying it. Now we are in the country, not a big city, most people live in a rural setting. How the hell they gonna eat if the power is off from one of these crazy winter storms we are having? The food is already cooked I guess so maybe eat a cold sandwich. This type foodstuffs is pricey too. For a while I had almost decided to just buy chicken breast at the store locally because you can buy 10 lb boxes of chicken breast frozen for about $1.79 a lb. Not a bad price. Well that idea was short lived when my friend Lori came down to visit on Sunday. She works at the local grocery store and informed me chicken was getting ready to go up really high. Short supply due to drought shortening food supply for the birds I think is the reason. IF it stayed at the above price I would consider just buying chicken breast but if it is going higher than that, I am gonna raise my own chickens. Initially I had planned on just buying chicken breast and hatching and raising some standard breeds to butcher for stock and such. Well now I think I best order meat chickens and hatch and raise some too. There is no easy way out. But at least I am blessed with a way out of the high prices. She also told me vegetables will be going up in price also due to the short fall in production in California with farmers having no water to water their crops with. Not sure about the politics of that whole situation but it sure seems to me food production would trump having a pretty lawn any day. But I reckon not to the powers that be out there. I say let them eat their lawns, we can raise ours here. We have options here, we can raise our food, supplement with game meat and meat we raise. But what about folks on fixed income, folks who have no space to raise any food. They are at the mercy of the grocery store. If a family budget allows $100 a week for groceries and you pay 20% more for groceries, either you add another $20 to the budget or buy and eat less. Scary as hell these times we live in.

I am ready for spring myself and ready to start seeds and dig in dirt, somewhere. Whether it be in the greenhouse, a flower pot or in the big garden. Not likely be doing any playing in dirt this weekend or coming week as we have snow forecast for almost every day, in some amount. But dad was right, it thaws a lil bit every day in February. It might snow tonight and melt off tomorrow. I can live with it, for now. Cause I know spring is not too far off.

Not much else happening here on the homestead, 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

Its not so bad after all

I thought our poor garden was gonna be a total bust this year, but its not so bad after all. Although we still have plenty grass in there that is covering up some things it is still decent. We have made enough pickles to last a year even if we don't have any more. The vines are nice and green, just no cukes or even bloom on them. Not sure about why that happened. But we good either way. Our taters are not visible for the grass but the vines have already died back and its time to dig those. Most likely we will do that this weekend if no more rain till then. Well probably Rodger, Jason and Miranda will get em out. My pepper plants are short but have lots of lil peppers on them and still growing. The tomatoes are nice size plants, green and have lots of little tomatoes. They will just be a lil later than we are use to because we planted everything later this year. I hope to have sweet corn in a week or so. And I think we will have plenty to last us.  Watermelons and cantaloupes are coming along too. Beans are starting to bloom. Not sure why they came up so spotty but we should have enough to last us. The corn we planted for cornmeal is huge and the ears are huge as well.

Rodger is 5'11 and the corn is twice as tall as he is. This is the Reid's yellow dent. An old fashioned open pollinated variety that we save our own seed for. So far we are happy with this variety for stock feed an to make corn meal. The chickens sure do like this stuff shelled. They don't eat much of it in summer but in winter it is a different story. Makes nice dark yellow egg yolks too. Rich and healthy for ya.
I am making progress on the herb bed, finally. I did get my new lavender plants planted in the herb bed and some sage plants that I had started in the greenhouse. They have been in pots for a several weeks to get some growth before transplant. Sure makes a difference in how hearty they are in the ground. I got some mulch put down too around the mature sage plants as well as the new ones.

I plan to try to get the sage cut for drying tomorrow as the weather has been much less humid for a few days. Rodger helped me last evening to get the rest of the weeds pulled so we could lay down black plastic to kill out weeds in the far end of the bed. By time we finished it was too dark to get a good picture, but trust me, it sure looked better.

This section of the herb bed has been established for a few years and has filled in pretty good and it has mulch so not much problem with weeds growing in here. A few strays that are easy to pull out here and there. The section that will have the black plastic on it for a few weeks is gonna be used this fall for  a few cabbage, maybe broccoli and brussel sprouts for a fall crop. After I harvest the sage tomorrow I plan to make a spot to sow some parsley seed to cut this fall. I am guessin if I plant it late I can let it come back in the spring an go to seed for a new crop next year without reseeding. Kinda takes care of itself. I have lost my tarragon plants. They got over run by the oregano and mint. Suppose I will have to obtain some new plants next spring. I still have enough dried to last a few more years. Seems like on the farm, its feast or famine. In those "feast" years I can and dry everything I can get my grubby lil paws on so we don't run short in the "famine" years. It has worked well for me so far. My strawberry plants near the driveway are still producing some. I did get the bed weeded, it just needs mulch put down now to keep the weeds out. Same with the bed in back of the house.
My new lil beans that I planted in the bed out back came up rather spotty but the ones that are up look nice and healthy. I will trellis those for extra beans to can and save seed from. I feel better now that we kinda have a handle on the weeding here. That got pretty depressing for a while with all the rain an heat and not being able to get any thing done about the over growth.
The excess rain has sure made nice berries this year. My 1 thornless black berry plant that my friend Rosie gave me a couple years ago had lots of nice big berries on it. I know this because I stood out there a few days ago an picked and ate about 2 big hands full. So sweet and juicy. I still have more than enough berries canned to last a few more years without having to pick any in the awful heat. So I took the lazy way out this year.
I finally got my car in today to get the right seal put on the moon roof to keep it from leaking. It seals nice and tight now. The mechanic also unclogged the drain hole so it don't get water inside anymore even if the seal should leak. He did say this is a rather common problem with these vehicles. Now to get the duck tape residue off the top of the car. Maybe I can get that done tomorrow too if it don't get too hot or rain on me.
I know this subject is touchy with most people but some of us still smoke. Yeah I do, and yeah I know its bad for ya. Now get off my case. With that said, we turn our attention to the ones of us who still do smoke. My friend Anna sent us a cigarette rolling machine. Bless her heart, so kind of her and her hubby. Hubby and I can both smoke for about half what it was costing for cigarettes. The machine is so dang neat. Much improved over the ones of long ago like I have of my dads that you had to lay the paper in, put the tobacco on the paper and dampen the edge, manually roll the lil handle to roll the cigarette up. Hell I would have to stop smoking if I had to do that. I have "NO" experience rolling. Nuff said about that. But when we go to the big city we plan to get our tobacco to start rolling our own smokes. I like menthol so I guess I will be finding the menthol filters to roll with. So if you still smoke it is well worth lookin into purchasing the rolling machine that basically shoves the bakker into the filter cigarette thingys. But if ya wanna really cut down or quit, by all means do so or roll ya own. Anna also sent me a huge bag of lavender that she had dried. I love love love the smell of lavender. So very relaxing to me. My plan is to make some lil sachets or bags and fill them with the dried lavender and store with bed linens. I will likely make a pretty one to just hang on the head of my bed and hope it helps me sleep a lil better. Hell any thing that will help a lil. Maybe if I do enough things that help a "lil" that all those "lil's" will add up to a good nights sleep. One can alas dream, er hope to dream.
Not much else happening here 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

Busy on these warm days

In spring on the farm once the sun starts to shine we get busy. You may have one or two days of nice sunny warm weather then rain for a few days and repeat. On the nice days I try to get lots done so I don't fall so far behind. Since I last posted I kinda have over worked myself. It all started with the front porch and back deck. I thought on one of the nice days it might be a good idea to get the porch cleaned off and get new slip covers made for the patio furniture. I dragged the water hose out and with dawn and bleach went to work scrubbing the porch. Got it looking nice. Got the cushions out and got the new slip covers made for those. I used an old comforter that I bought at a yard sale a few years back. They turned out nice. Too bad I don't have a picture to prove it. But you could guess that, right?

We got new satellite Internet installed last week too. Now I can stay online without gettin kicked off or the Internet being slower than dial up. I like it! My computer is old and slows me down some but I can live with it for now.

We are still waiting on that lil grandson to make his appearance. I took my pickup in last week to the nearest Chevy dealer to be serviced before we take it on a long trip. Rodger was there with his company truck gettin it serviced too. We walked around out side just talking and looking at vehicles and we spotted THIS...

Long story short, this is my new ride. Its a 5 speed Hummer, H3. Drives and rides much better than my pickup and I am sure the trip to Nevada will be a lil easier. I take my baby back to the dealer tomorrow to get the computer sensor that tells me I got a low tire fixed. Then I will be set. We are waiting on the call that our sweet daughter in law, Amoy is in labor and we are gonna head out to Nevada to meet our first grandson. I am really looking forward to seeing that lil fellow.Papaw Rodger bought him his first lil camo sleeper last weekend and a lil shirt/shorts sets in camo as well. I think they are just darling.

Wont that lil boy be cute in these? We think so. We have an online baby shower going on for Liam and Amoy. Its kinda neat with all the new technology to be able to be in on the shower and not actually have to travel all the way across the country. They have registered with Babies R Us for gifts so family and friends back here can get gifts and have them shipped straight to them to open at the actual shower. They have his lil bedroom almost done but they are lacking a rocking chair. We have a rocking chair here that Rodger bought for me when Jason was born. So its 31 years old. It have been moved around a lot and different people have used it and it had its fair share of damage. So this past weekend Rodger was off on Friday and we got the chair out on the deck while the weather was nice and sanded and refinished it. It looks like brand new now.

Our dining table was in bad need of refinishing too because a past owner had put an incompatible finish on it and it had bubbles and raised areas where the finish was peeling. So we toted it out on the deck and I started sanding the top. Rodger ended up taking a wood chisel and literally peeling the top layer of finish off and that made my job so much easier. I love the way it turned out. I love oak anyway and this looks nice.

I have the antique linens on there just to add some warmth to the dining area. I also put a fresh coat of polyurethane on the chairs that we have had since we been married. It sure freshened them up. I like the end result of a weekends work.

Sunday Rodger finally got my benches done for the greenhouse. Then I got all my seeds started the same day. I started just as much stuff I think but I still have empty spots on the benches. I hope I haven't had a brain fart and missed getting something started.

I went down to the chicken house across the road this morning to check on my lil Cornish babies and found the heat light had died sometime last night. Oh my goodness!! That is usually a disaster when they get cold. But fortunately they had huddled together and stayed alive. I came back to the house and got another heat bulb and put it in so they had nice heat. They got up and all of them were moving around good and started eating and drinking. So the heat must have been off a good while for them to be too cold to eat and drink. These birds do not tolerate extremes of heat or cold. I don't think the light was off all night or they would have all died as the temps were in the 20's last night. Talk about heart breaking. But it all ended well. That is just one reason I don't like having them so far from the house and I cant see if the light is on during the night. And its too far for a remote thermometer to alert me. So hopefully next time we can have a building up here hear the house.

This evening Rodger got in the garden with the rototiller and got the area plowed up good so we can plant taters and onions tomorrow. I have to get the taters cut and ready by time he gets home tomorrow so we can get them all planted and the onions set in. Our peas are up about 3 or 4 inches tall now and look great. I will be picking up some fertilizer tomorrow while I am out so we can get the peas side dressed and have enough to put in the row when we plant our taters too. I still need to get my raspberries cut down and some compost put on them. Doubt that happens this weekend because I am leaving Thursday to go visit my aunt Ann and attend my cousins wedding. I have to gt my visiting done soon so we can be ready to travel and when we get home from seeing the lil grandson and spending a lil time with him we have to hit the ground running. It will be time to plant the major part of the garden when we get back. I am just not sure my body is gonna tolerate much as far as gardening this year. All the piddly stuff I have done over the last 2 or 3 weeks have my knees hurting so darn bad. I am giving serious thought to maybe goin to the RA doc and having steroid injections. I am gonna try taking oral prednisone for a few days to see if that kicks the problem and if not, then its gonna be off to the doc.

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

Stella

I like to tinker

I am probably the worst person for not following directions or recipes or instructions. Not sure if it my adventurous side or rebellious side coming out. Either way I like to tinker and that is what I have done today. Now that I have this nifty sewing machine that can do most anything but jumping jacks, sewing and altering has been my focus for a week or so. I spent most of today going thru my closet and getting clothes sorted, I guess thas the right term, for winter and summer wear. I also tried on lots of pant to make sure they fit and put them on hangers in order of wear. Such as dressy, casual, jeans, sweats. Tops I did the same way. I loveeee tee-shirts. I live in those things. I have some that fit at the top and sleeves and are just a tad too long. So now that I have those pulled out I think maybe put elastic in the seams vertically on each side so kinda scrunch the sides to make them a lil shorter and more to my liking.Then I have some 3/4 length sleeve long tail button up shirts that are too long as well. Soon I will come up with a plan for those so I can at least get some wear out of them.  Then I found many articles of clothing that is in desperate need of ironing. So add ironing to that list of things to do. Did I mention I had to iron stuff? Well I do. If it ever gets warm enough to be outside during the day I wont have much time to sew and craft and tinker inside. I got lots of beds that will need my attention. Gosh we already have some ornamental things starting to bud out here and the temps are pose to be below 20 tonight an tomorrow night. Damn this global warming stuff. What the hell happened to spring?

I was in the mood to test another lotion recipe today too. Now this is where my tinkering came into play big time. I now have on hand several oils and butters that each add their own great quality to lotions and creams. Not one recipe could I find online that included all the things that I wanted in my lotions. So off I go to create my own. I broke all the cardinal rules of lotion making too by not weighing or measuring the ingredients. The only thing I did was weigh the total of the oils, butters and water so I could get the correct amount of Germall Plus(preservative) in the lotion. This is to make sure the lotion will be shelf stable and not turn into a petre dish after you stick your fingers in there to use the lotion or cream. I had also got a bottle of vanilla essential oil for use in making the lotions and oh my it smelled so nice. If you close your eyes you can smell vanilla cookies with a hint of chocolate in there. Almost smells good enough to eat. But the lotion was great. I put almond, apricot, coconut castor, avocado oils with shea and mango butter and some cocoa butter. I used my homemade herbal tea blend as the liquid or water part. I did use the vegetable emulsifier wax and a bit of stearic acid as an emulsifier and thickener. Turned out perfect, just nice and thick and not greasy. I am a happy camper with my summer supply of lotion made now. Yippee!!!

I am a lil bit concerned after my baby chicks did not arrive today in the mail. The post office always calls me when they come in and no call today and our sweet mail lady didn't deliver them either. So am sure hoping they arrive in the morning. If not tomorrow for sure I will have to refuse the shipment. Baby chicks can live fine for 72 hours after hatching without food or drink but longer than that they will be so very weak and not likely to live or thrive. I got online and tracked the order and it was due to be delivered today. Not sure what happened to em but wont be happy if they someone drops the ball and lets my lil birds die. But I have everything ready for them, a large tote with straw and a feeder, a water jar ready to give them electrolytes and vitamins as soon as they arrive and a heat light for them to keep em warm. Just sure do hope they arrive and are OK.

Once I get the lil ones settled in and happy I need to get my trays from the old greenhouse and get the potting mix in them to start seeds. Rodger don't have my benches in the new greenhouse yet so I will probably just get the soil in the trays and the seeds in and put them in the summer kitchen till the benches are ready. That wont be a problem cause the kitchen is near the new greenhouse. Not to mention I am not starting near as many plants as I have in the past years. (I don't think anyway) But I do get accused of not starting enough, but alas starting toooo many. But my thinkin is , "is better to have em and not need em than to need em an not have em". So I just keep planting .

My 3 lil setting hens are still setting and not a peep yet. I sure hope they at least hatch a few chicks. I like to use the standard breeds for making stock and canned chicken. It is better canned because I can let the chicks free range with their mommas till they are big enough to butcher or when I get time to butcher em and they by then are usually a bit tougher. So much better canned for soup and casseroles and such. But I got to hatch chicks to can chicks, so maybe best not count my chicks before they hatch.

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

Stella

We keep puttering along

If spring would just get here and stay here I think I would feel better. I hate this feeling rotten for seems like no good reason. If I am gonna hurt like hell I at least want to be able to DO something to have reason. Not sure whas up with my joints and back unless I am in the middle of a big ole flare up. The usual things I do that provide some relief are just not working right now. So me thinks is a flare up. But I will get over this hump too like all the others. I had to spend most of last week inside because my knees hurt so dang bad and bad knees is just not conducive to going up and down the porch steps and walking around in an un level yard. So I just puttered with my toys in here. Mostly the sewing machine. I have been in need of an apron with a wider than normal top section for a while. A normal size apron leaves too much of my shirt exposed to spots of grease and other cooking mis-haps. So I started making one  just fer lil ole me with a wider top section and much longer ties so I can just cross them in the back and tied them in the front. After shoulder surgery on both sides most days it is impossible to tie on anything that requires me to put my arms behind my back. So this is what I came up with.

So now hopefully I can prevent stains on my clothing. Not to mention I am the worst for wiping my hands on the bottom of my tee shirts when I am in the kitchen. So this was one of my projects for late last week. I even added a large pocket to the front so I don't lose my phone when I am in the summer kitchen too. I know most older ladies, my grandmother for one , always wore an apron, even to the garden. An apron tail is good for lots of things. From totin orphan babies of some sort, gathering veggies, drying hand and a multitude of other things. And those ladies alas had pockets too. But us modern day grammies have to keep up with things like cell phones and cameras for blog photos ya know. So I, still in the tinkering mode, made a lil baggy to hang around my neck for the phone and camera if I am away from the house. And both mine will fit in this lil bag.

This was a fabric scrap that was left from upholstering a foot stool for Jason several years ago. Kind heavy fabric for this application but does provide a lil extra cushion if I happen to bump into something. That is where my creativity ended.
We did go pick up my lil greenhouse Saturday and did some other shopping. I picked up several bags of potting mix to start seeds in. That will be getting under way as soon as Rodger gets my benches bu9ilt for the greenhouse. He did manage to get it put together and put up today too. And it is anchored to the railroad ties on both sides.

This is before the cover was totally in place. It was pretty cold outside today and really hard to work with the plastic material. Once it gets warmed up we can maneuver it into better position. But this will be so much more convenient for me. A blessing not trudging up and down the hill several times per day to check on the greenhouse and water and make sure some critter is not in there eatin hearty.

You can see the plastic has a mesh like heavier material inside it. Easy to zip the door closed and you can then un-zip an area over the door and one in the back for better cross ventilation. It is pretty heavy for a portable greenhouse. I will be a happy lil camper to know I don't have to walk so much to care for another one. Now I have to round up all my trays and planters and get busy.

I got baby chicks that should arrive about Wednesday of this week. I think I will keep them in a Rubbermaid tote for a week or so out in the summer kitchen so I can check on them many times per day. It will be much easier to keep the temp steady for the first couple weeks in there than in a large building. By 2 weeks of age they should be much stronger and able to withstand a lil variance of ambient temps. I do think my 3 hens should hatch sometime this week too. They have been really good about staying on their own nest too. Having 3 girls taking up 3 of the 4 nest boxes on the bottom row of the laying box had put a kink in some of the girls laying habits.

The 3 girls in the bottom row are the ones that should be hatching anytime now. The buff in the top laying box inside the fence jumps the fence everyday to lay. She will make a big fuss when she is done so she can get out.The 2 nest boxes on the end are occupied and 1 lady is pacing. After I took this photo she decided she was not waiting anymore and scooted in beside the lil hen on the bottom row. Out of view is 2 more hens waiting on a place to lay. I just put this section of wire up haphazard to try an prevent hens from laying with the setting hens and it has worked pretty good.

It started raining shortly after Rodger got the greenhouse up so we had some home canned veggie soup for lunch and he went to find some scrap lumber to make the benches with while I did inside stuff. I know we need rain, ya know, rain makes corn, corn makes whiskey, but crap cool and damp and me are just not compatible any more. Who the hell came up the idea of "global warming"? They need to move to Ky. Well on second thought , nope they don't. We don't want their kind here.

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

Stella

I learn something new almost every day

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

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

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

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

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

Stella

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