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

Wasted effort sometimes

You work your azz off and them its all for nothing. Dang it all. I started out with a beautiful row of cabbage and this evening I took another good look at them. Well I guess if I intend to make kraut I will need to find someone else who has cabbage and buy a few. The cabbage worms have literally ate all of em up. And I had sprayed them several times. Next year, I swear I am only planting like 20 cabbage plants at most and cover them with sheer curtains or cheesecloth to keep the damn moths from laying their eggs on the plants.

We initially went to the garden to put some netting material over the top of the sweet corn to keep the crows off it. We had several large lengths of deer netting and just tossed that up over the tops of the corn. We have had to do this in the past to keep them at bay. Crows can destroy a field of corn in one day. Its a constant battle around here.

You can see the shimmer of the netting on top of the corn stalks. Dang the crap ya gotta do to save ya food supply. I know they will raise hell in the field corn as we dont have enough netting to cover it to protect the ears. I guess I could just sit on the front porch with the rifle and keep the devils scared off. Once the corn is past the soft stage and gets hard they dont mess with it.

We drove thru the orchard just looking at the trees. Our almond trees are sagging they have so many nuts on them. Yes, we can grow almonds in Ky. All be it rare they produce due to the fact it takes very little spring warming to trigger them to bloom and most times they get froze or frosted on. But we were blessed this year.

So many nuts such small tree. This tree is about 5 years old and this is the first crop of nuts we have been blessed with. Just hope they do well and the worms dont invade them. I have got to do some research and get a spray program for us and our little orchard. One of the peach trees had lots of worm damage in the fruit. Dont want a repeat of that next year. I guess the next challenge will be getting these nuts harvested before the squirrels figure out what they are. Dont know if Ky squirrels know what almonds are, but if they do, we are sunk.

In the garden the beans have filled in the trellis' nicely. And they are starting to bloom a little bit. We have harvested some okra pods already and getting enough tomatoes to eat with meals. And a few cukes as well. Not long till we will be able to make pickles. Sadly we did not get our trellis put up for the cukes and they are running on the ground and growing into the sweet potato vines. Gonna make picking them kinda challenging at best.

Yes that is a pile of manure covered over outside the fence waiting to be put on the garden when the corn is done in a couple weeks. Where the corn is growing is where it needs some extra organic matter. Not to mention there will be more manure later. I am really glad Rodger got to weed eat around the fence before I took these photos. It is a full time task to keep all the mowing done here. You really cant do much as far as physical work after about 10 am here. Our temps today hit 97 with about 60% humidity. You really need gills to be outside much at mid-day.

Sunflowers are such happy flowers. Seem to always be smiling. We planted a bunch this year. About a half acre total. They are the black seed sunflower. Our plan is to harvest and use them for chicken feed. In the mean time they are just so pretty to look at.

I think it is so neat the way sunflowers turn their head also. They face the sunrise each day. Much like we should do. By the way, do ya reckon there is an easier way to harvest sunflower heads other than a blade to lop off the heads and toss em in a bag? I think Rodger and Jason have decided to try using our corn picker to see if it will snap the heads off without losing all the seeds. I guess we wait and see. I am sure it will be an interesting process.

We did get our carrots dug and taken care of this week also. And man were they big uns. I think I have found a new best place to raise my carrots every year. From now on they will be out back in the bed here in the back yard. It also grew nice beets this year. And the leeks are not doing too shabby either. How ya like these things?

A little over a half bushel from a small bed. Not a bad harvest. I cut most of them in chunks and vacuum sealed them for the freezer. That should last us for a year at least. About the only thing I use carrots for is pot roast or stew and that is with deer meat. I did shred and freeze some to use in stir fry and chicken noodle soup. It certainly takes a while to scrub and chunk up that many carrots. I am very glad Rodger came out to help cut them up while I did the scrubbing. I guess that is why my hands were swollen, stiff and very sore this morning.

Does this have rotten written all over it? This lil girl is growing like a bad weed. She is old enough now that I can let her be out of her pen while we are here. She likes to hide under the back deck when it gets hot out because it is always cool under there. It was one of Luna's favorite places to stay cool too. I hope Sasha is as good a girl as Luna was.

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

stella

I found apples, finally

A friend and I were on the search for apples for freezing and canning for the past couple weeks. I knew there were several orchards within a couple hours of us here. I did a search online and got numbers, called em up. And got the socks shocked off me. Orchards are asking $40 a bushel for apples. Oh my, no way in hell I will pay that. They are cheaper in the store. Something is wrong with that picture. Needless to say we did not make the trek to the orchard. Not to mention one of the ones I called charged more if you pick them yourself. What the hell? So I happen to think of the road side stand here in our town and decided to check and see if they had apples. They did, Jonagolds, good for what I was needing, and $24 a bushel. Not cheap but I can handle that price. So I picked up 2 bushels, 1 for myself and one for my friend. Will likely go back next week and get another bushel or 2. I peeled and froze the first bushel today. Didn't count the bags but there are many many bags of apples in the freezer for frying. Next ones will for sure be turned into canned apple pie filling. I will be so glad when our trees are big enough to produce fruit so I wont need to get sticker shock every year and be able to have fruit for our own use.

Our weather has been just wonderful today. Not too hot, just cool enough to be perfect to work outside. After peeling all the apples and getting those put away I peeled and sliced about 20 lb of onions and put those in the freezer in gallon bags to use maybe next week to make gumbo to can. I just need to pick what will likely be the last of our bell peppers and get those sliced up to use in the gumbo too. They are predicting frost for us in our area tonight. Surely not!! The low is supposed to be around 35 with wind. What happened to fall? Better yet, where did summer go? I missed it I think. Seems like just other day we were planting gardens, now they are all done and mowed down. Only thing left is the peppers and a few beans we are waiting to dry for seed. I think Rodger has plans to do more mowing tomorrow provided its not too wet in the fields. The only big harvest left really is the corn and that will be a while yet. It needs several good heavy frost to knock the moisture out of it so it will store well. Then it will be time to shell and get cornmeal ground.

Last evening we were in the garden I dug up my tame thornless black berries that my friend Anna had sent me. We are probably gonna move some of the grapevines in the vineyard and plant a row of black berries and raspberries between the 2 rows of grapevines. I am not sure what I had planned to do with that many grapevines to begin with but they are there and growing well. Once they start producing I am sure I will start to hate grapes. Or start making lots of wine. We may have gotten ourselves in over our heads with all these fruit trees and berries. That is a lot of work to properly care for an orchard and vineyard. Not to mention tryin to keep it all mowed and pruned. But we gonna give it a try.

My Cornish chicks are growing great and healthy as can be. It still amazes me at how fast those lil things can grow. They will be ready for butcher in about another 4 weeks. They surely eat a lot of feed for such small creatures. But they are healthy and happy and nice and warm under their heat light. I am sure they will enjoy that tonight if it gets down to 35 degrees.

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

Stella

It looked like spring, and felt like spring

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Stella

The weather is unpredictable, as am I

I guess since I don't get up every morning like most hard working folks and leave the farm to go off to my job I don't keep any kind of schedule. If I do set times for thing they are kinda vague. The time frame of usually a week, give or take and few days. I got started on the baby cocoon that I had told you about and posted pics on my last post of the finished product. Later that night, couldn't get to sleep so I started on the lil hat to match. I got it all done the same night but too late to add to the post. So here is a photo of the lil hat. I have no pattern for this either, I just started at the top with a chain of 6 stitches and linked them together and did double crochet to increase till I got the the size that would fit over my fist then started the single stitch to decrease a lil bit and finish it off. Then made the lil poofy ball for the top by wrapping the yarn many times around my fingers, tied it in the middle and clipped the loops. Then with the ends of the string used to tie it together I put those thru the top and tied it off.

So what do ya think? I like it and I think its cute. Just long as it keeps a lil boy warm and happy is all that matters. Now on to the next project. Not sure what it will be just yet tho.

I have a doc appointment tomorrow to get meds refilled and I am mailing some kefir grains out to a couple folks. One package will go to my good friend Deb in MS and the other will go to my reader and new friend Lisa in Wyoming. Had intended to get those out today and it has not been a good day. I have felt like hammered crap all weekend. So I stayed lazy and stayed in. Rodger picked up lil padded envelopes today on his way home so I will bag up the grains tomorrow and mail them on my way to the doc. These things grow something ferocious.

When I put the grains in fresh sugar/molasses water 48 hours ago the level of the grains was at the line. You can see how much they have grown in that time. So ladies when you get these grains they will grow. I am sending enough for both of you to start 2 quart jars of Kefir just in case you happen to kill one. That is how I did the first bunch I got. I usually put about 1/3 cup sugar(white, brown, just nothing artificial) along with about 1 tablespoon of un-sulfured molasses in a quart jar, add water about 4/5 the way up the jar and stir to dissolve the sugar and molasses and add the grains along with any liquid that is with them. I cover the top of my jar or jug now with a coffee filter and put the ring only on the jar to keep out "stuff". Let sit for 24 hours and taste, it should be slightly tart. After 48 will be more tart and at this point you can strain the grains out of the liquid, save the liquid, that is your good for-ya kefir water, and mix a new batch of water, sugar/ molasses and put the grains back in there to continue the process. Tonight when I made the water for my grains I used maple syrup instead of molasses. Just to change up the flavor a bit. When making kefir water you do not want to use chlorinated water. Only spring or good well water. We have well water here so I have no issue. Also if you want extra calcium in the kefir you can add a piece of clean, organic egg shell. This stuff will almost dissolve the eggshell in 48 hours. Makes the shell really brittle. And we know us girls need our calcium. If you want to make a batch of flavored kefir that is a lil fizzy after you strain out your grains you can take the jar of kefir water you have made and add some pieces of fruit to it and let it sit on the counter with a lid on for another 24 hours to ferment. I have so far made raspberry and strawberry and I used my homegrown frozen berries. It tasted great. So get creative and enjoy your new science project.

I love getting free stuff in the mail. I tinker around online and sign up for free product samples just cause I can. Today in the mail this is what I got and just for filling out a simple coupon online.

Kinda neat, eh? I can do 2 loads of dishes, 2 of laundry and have lots of coupons and travel size shampoo and toothpaste, all for free. And free is good, yes? Yes it is.

Our weather is as unpredictable as I am this month. Dang over the weekend we had probably an inch or more of snow, it melted the next day, then some rain and cold, now they are giving more snow for tomorrow and by Saturday it is pose to be in the 60's. What the heck! If it is that warm this weekend we will be outside pruning grape vines, planting trees in the orchard. I finally got the trees I had ordered a month or more ago and they are nice for the cheap price I paid for them. I desperately need to get my asparagus bed mulched to keep the weeds down so I don't have to weed so much this year. Dang I don't have time or energy for that stuff. We have 30 plus new grapevines planted near the orchard that need to have stakes so they will develop straight trunks for a couple more years. I am sure the trees in the orchard need some trimming too. And here it is March again and we don't have our grapevines here at the house pruned back yet. I need to get the building ready for baby chicks too. Not sure when they will be here but very soon I hope.

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

Stella

Almost time to plant

It is about time to plant the rest of our garden stuff now. We should be beyond frost after the first of May. Then the tomatoes, peppers and other frost sensitive stuff gets planted. We have peas that look great, onions are starting to make bulbs already, lettuce is coming up, carrots are peeking thru the ground, cabbage are getting settled in to grow. So far so good. The forecast is for rain for  another week here. I suppose this is what the old folks called "blackberry winter". It usually is rainy and cool when the blackberries lose their bloom. It has rained too much to allow us to get the mowing done in the orchard and it looks like a hay field. The trees are just peeking above the tall grass. Hope Rodger can mow tomorrow if we don't get more rain tonight. I would love to get the weeds cleared from the strawberries I moved in the field near the raspberries last year. The plants are huge and beautiful. We have picked nearly a gallon of berries just picking over them and getting the ripest biggest ones off. And boy do they have a good pronounced sweet strawberry flavor. IF we don't get rain maybe I can work on those tomorrow. I have a bed of berries here at the house that will need picked again tomorrow and those plants are loaded with berries. I am thinking this is the first year we will be able to say we have enough berries to fill our needs. And appetite for strawberry shortcake. The raspberries are near the plants in the field so I will try to weed them out as well. That I think will require a heavy pair of thorn proof gloves. But the raspberries are so worth it. This year, Lord willing, I would like to can some raspberry and strawberry syrups to use this later. Got to freeze a lot of them too for desserts. Raspberries or strawberries and chocolate are a match made in heaven. I guess that means too that I need to make sure I got a good stock of sugar for canning season.
I did get some parsley cut for drying yesterday and it is drying nicely. I use lots of parsley in cooking. It don't have a lot of flavor alone but sure adds a lot of flavor to foods. Next on the cut and dry list is gonna be sage and chamomile. I am happy my sage plants have came out and really are growing well this year. I have a bunch of lil ones started in the greenhouse to transplant to the herb bed a lil later.
I should be thinking on how to house chickens in a few weeks. I have my layers living in the brooder house for the winter and they still live there. I will be getting my first shipment of Cornish cross in mid May and they need living quarters. A friend and co-worker of the fellows has offered us some baby guineas. I know they make lots of noise but they are good to alert you to things creeping in the yard that Luna might miss. Luna is kinda off patrol duty for a while. I was really upset last week when she went missing for one whole day as that is just not like her. So after supper one evening Rodger and I were gonna go in different directions to look for her. I was afraid she had gotten off the farm a lil and someone had shot her. If that had happened nothing or nobody would have been safe passing thru here. I was sure livid at that thought. So Rodger took a flashlight and went to look under all the outbuilding and under the old house across the road. He came back in about 5 minutes to get me. I was sick thinking she was hurt. She was under the old house and had 2 lil puppies. OMG I was so relieved to see her. I had looked there early in the day and didn't see her. She went under there for shelter and to keep her babies safe. They are so dang cute. I am so hoping they look like her. We have no idea what the daddy is so they will not be full stock Pyrenees puppies. But they are her babies and I am gonna have a hard time seeing them get adopted. I don't even want to think about that yet. She does come to the house to eat and get water, then she is off to take care of her babies.
As for you all that knew I had surgery on my left shoulder and elbow in February. It is doing better. Actually the elbow is mostly good, the shoulder is still painful and stays sore and stiff. The doc tole me it will probably be like that due to the bursitis in the shoulder joint. Not what I wanted to hear, but I have to live with it I guess. Beats the alternative.
As of right now we will b planting trees tomorrow in the orchard. The friend and co-worker that offered the guineas brought us some apple trees(Wolf River) and some cherry trees this evening. Guess I need some compost to get them going good. I do need to trim the grass at the base of the other trees in the orchard so they can get light and air circulation. Might help keep down disease later.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Love or hate the weather

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

Stella

Daisy and Delilah

The puppies now have names, Daisy and Delilah. I think Daisy is all white and Delilah has dark ears. They are so cute. Jason said he was playing with em this morning and took some pics. Dont they have cute lil smiles?

The lil girls sitting beside their pool. They will get in the water when they get hot and this will make a nice place for them to cool off. Luna don't know they live in the neighborhood yet and I think when she finds out she will be guilty of puppynappin.
I had some minor chores to get done today. Got more homemade laundry detergent made so I can do laundry tomorrow. I did go to the garden and put the fertilizer on the melons and pumpkins that are finally up. The potatoes look pretty good for a change.

These look better and have kept their leaves longer than any potatoes we have had in the past few years.

The beets will be ready to harvest in a couple weeks I think. And the beans beside them are doing really good. They  are the heirloom variety Kentucky wonder bush bean that we ordered from Baker Creek seeds this year. ALL our garden veggies are heirloom now and we can save our own seed.

Where the grass is we have trees planted there, That is the new orchard we started last spring. The trees are small and young yet but they will grow. They have grown a good deal just since last year.

I am standing near the row of raspberry plants with the orchard behind me looking west. Just beyond the strawberries that have been mulched was just disc again today and Ladino clover planted there. Toward the front of the truck is the main garden and to the rear is the corn field. We had so much rain for a while that I am kinda afraid to say we need rain. But it would make things take off and grow better. Gentle summer rains make plants grow by leaps and bounds. Although the gardens here will be able to get water being so close to the river.
This has been the extent of my day. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Busy holiday weekend

With this being Memorial Day weekend the guys were off work for a 3 day weekend. So we did manage to get a lot done this weekend. But first off I would like to take a minute to thank all our heroes who made the ultimate sacrifice so we can all go about life as usual. So Thank You from the bottom of my heart.
We were privileged to carry on as usual here as well. Rodger got the corn plowed out on Sunday as it was still a lil too wet on Saturday to do most anything in the garden or field. On Sunday morning we had planned on being in the garden fairly early to beat the heat with forecast in the 90's. Well that didn't happen but we did get there all be it later in the morning. We hoed most of the garden out and finally decided to come to the house and take a break from the mid-day heat. He went back on the tractor a bit later an did plow the corn while I finished hoeing thru the remainder of the garden. It was after sundown before we both finally finished. Oh my goodness the skeeters were hungry and ate well I might add. ON me. Being near the river does have a few drawbacks. Thas is one of em. Rodger said I didn't need to be in the garden this morning and that he would go in there early and run the rototiller. So that he did. The garden looks so nice now that its been plowed out. My dad alas said stuff just grew better when ya plow and work it out. This evening after the sun started going down we started moving the compost and rotted straw from last fall and spreading that around the raspberries. Got those done FINALLY! We had a good bit of rotted straw left and put the rest around the fruit trees in the orchard. The rotted straw stinks and I didn't like the idea of putting that around strawberries where they might come in direct contact with it. Got most of the trees mulched in till we ran out of rotted straw. Tomorrow I am going to pick up a load of straw to mulch the strawberries with and a lil extra for the brooder house. Hopefully I can mulch the strawberries tomorrow evening while Rodger gets the yard mowed, again. I must get the brooder house ready as well for the new babies that will be here end of this week. I ordered a bunch of 50 heavy breed assorted chickens so I can keep some layers and butcher the rest before raising my final batch of Cornish cross this fall. So as you can tell there is never the lack of something to do here on the homestead. I can keep myself occupied 7 days a week here and stay busy. Well except when it gets really hot. Then you most likely will find me in the house. My meds are making me wimpy.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

I'm back home now

I got several emails and messages from friends and readers of my blog saying how much they missed reading here and asking if I was OK. Well I'm fine, was just away working for a few days. Made me feel good knowing I was missed tho. I finally got back home yesterday evening late. I had been in western Ky for over a week helping my aunt and to attend my friend Jackie's memorial service. The service was really nice and one that I think Jackie would have approved of as well. I always enjoy time spent with Aunt Ann and got to spend some time with my second cousin Matt, a really nice young man. I picked him up on my way west on Sunday and he was going to spend a few weeks with my aunt which is his Gram. Any way we worked all week and got lots done. I left aunties house on Monday morning and headed back east and stopped off the spend the night with my friend Rosie an her family, then on to my house on Tuesday. I enjoy going to west Kentucky but I alas like home best. But I think that is pretty normal for most people.
Any way back at home all is going well. Rodger did really good taking care of the greenhouse while I was gone. He did have to turn the heat on in there a couple nights when it got really cold. I have lots of seedling coming up and they all look healthy an happy in there. I always come home with things to plant every time I go somewhere in spring time and it was no different this time. Rosie had picked up some apple trees for me from a nursery grower so I have those to plant soon. Not to mention the ornamental things from my aunts. I also took cutting from several different kinds of shrubs at aunties house and have those in soil to take root.  Before I left Rodger had said it was too wet to plow an plant anything here but after I got on the road he checked the ground an it was all good to plow so that is what he did. When I called home he tole me he got the peas planted an a 150 ft row of onions, about 50 ft of carrots an 75 ft of beets. Then of course it rained shortly after so that should help them sprout an come up pretty quick. I think it rained several times here and when I was on the way home he tole me he was going to have to dig the tractor out, he had been plowing an hit a soft sandy spot an the tractor sunk. Prolly not a pretty sight but it was out an he finished plowing as I was getting home. I was only gone for about 10 days buy my goodness how things greened up in that time even with it turning off so cold. We have lots to do when it is dry enough to work outside again. I have things that will need to be potted and put in the greenhouse for a while, more grapevines to get started, several bushes to get planted, raspberries to plant in the field. Still waiting on a tree order to get here so they can be planted in the orchard. Not to mention the brooder house needs to be readied for the baby chicks that will be here next week. Oh joy, I just hope the weather warms a bit before then. But I still will have a heat light for em. It has been rainy an cool all day today and that sure don't help the arthritis one bit. I did go out to town today to get some cleaning supplies that I needed an came home an cleaned house. May as well do something as I was gonna be in all day anyway. Still a lil tired from being away but maybe I will rest a lil more tomorrow and relax a bit as I do some more planting in the greenhouse. Really need to put more benches in there for all the plants. The benches that I have now are all full and still lots of things on the floor, but I can manage if I have more benches over the stuff that is in the floor. Have to see if I can talk these guys into building some for me. We will have to wait an see how that goes.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Outdoor chores have started

The weather was rather nice today, sunny but no rain or snow. We got out an got busy pruning our grapevines. They have been in 3 years now and we have never pruned them. Just for the record, this is a really bad idea. They get over grown and make the job harder.

They should have been trained to make tall trunks for the first 2 years then the third year leave 4 long branches with 6 buds each and below each of those a renewal cane with at least 2 buds on it. The following year this years producing branches should be pruned away and the renewal growth trained to the trellis. Again leave a renewal cane nearby for the following year. Google grape pruning and it is very simple with pictures.

 
My vines never got trained to make a large trunk and now they have branched out near the bottom so we had to cut them back rather drastically. The canes that were cut off can be used to start new grape vines. So I took about 65 cuttings to try an start those for new vines. Again simple instructions, cut canes and leave 3 or 4 buds on each cutting. The bottom and top cut should be near the top and bottom buds. Dip in rooting hormone and shove them into a tall container of damp sand. I used extra tall coffee cans for this with sand in them.

The canes are put in the sand over the second bud up the cane leaving the top bud exposed. In about a month they should have roots and the top bud should develop leaves. I put my container in a trash bag an sealed the top to keep in humidity till the plants get started. So they are sitting here in the house to keep warm and hopefully sprout roots an leaves soon.
Rodger also got the young pear tree pruned and tied back to try and straighten it up. Last year it had so many pears it pulled the tree and made it lean down the hill a good bit. So lil by lil we are getting some things done. Or maybe we just are trying to force spring. Next project will be to prune the big really old apple tree that is in the back yard at the home place. I really need to learn how to graft and propagate that tree.
Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Canning beets, fussin in the garden

I finally got to moving around good today and got to the garden about noon and pulled my beets. I had almost 2 5 gallon buckets of them. Washed em good outside and got them on to cook so I could peel and slice em up to can. Well to make pickled beets from, I don't like beets just canned. I think I ended up with 14 pints and 2 quarts of beet pickles.

And all the jars have sealed. I still have the dehydrator running out in the summer kitchen. So those should be done in the morning.
Went to the garden after I finished with the beets to see how the tater bugs were doing. They seemed rather hungry, so I gave them another dose of nicotine spray. The beans look really good, some are blooming. The tomatoes are blooming and setting tomatoes now. I simply must get in there tomorrow evening and mulch the tomatoes to keep them off the ground.
The fellow that cuts our hay has most of it raked and some baled today. He is also gonna bale the hay that was cut in the orchard. The guys got in there this evening at nearly dark and put up metal fence post beside each of  the fruit trees so they don't get baled. So now we will have some good roll baled hay to feed goats and sheep if we have some this winter.
Tomorrow is a new day, and I start over. Till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

Fertilizing, planting and transplanting

It has been one busy hot day today around here. It started with some errands this morning. My buddy Gene that had a stroke on April 1st was in need of a haircut and the same lady is the one that cuts my hair. I picked her up this morning and we went to see Gene for a bit and we both got a hair cut. That was a good start to the day. Got her home and came back to help Jason transplant tomatoes and plant beans in the garden. He already had 5 rows of pink eye purple hulls planted by time I got home. We got started on the tomatoes and all those are in. I had 4 rows about 50 plus feet long of those. If we dont get rain tonight we Rodger and I will finish planting the rest of the beans and such tomorrow. Although it was really hot today the tomatoes hardly wilted.
                                                        (tomatoes after they were transplanted)

The peas are blooming, the mustard turnip greens are ready to can, thas a project for next week. The potatoes we planted are not coming up like they should, the onions do look great, the lettuce is ready to eat, the carrots and beets are doing good as well.


                                                    (the rest of the garden)

                                                         (the volunteer potatoes)

As for potatoes, we planted taters last year and the bugs ate the vines up. The potatoes were not worth digging. So this spring they were turned under with the rest of the garden. The volunteers came up and are about a foot tall already. So when Jason ran the tiller in the garden getting it ready to plant everything else he plowed thru the taters and made them into rows. They will get fertilizer a lil later and we will see what they do. If these make good taters, this is the way we will plant them from now on, or should I say let them come up volunteer. We shall see.

                                                                (orchard beyond the garden)

The trees in the orchard all have leaves on them and seem to be doing ok. We have been keeping the grass around the trees mowed  with the riding mower and letting the rest go to seed. There is a really nice stand of grass on the orchard area. It is located on the end of the river bottom east of the garden. And we do need to mow again real soon as some of the grass is waist high.

                                                         (Jason side dressing corn)

The one acre field of corn that we planted for cornmeal is up and it was time to side dress it. They found out that the corn planter and the cultivator are set for different width rows. So the tractor cultivators can not be used to plow the corn. It will have to be plowed with the rototiller. So with not using the cultivator we had to figure out a way to side dress the corn with fertilizer without doing it by hand. Rodger and Jason rigged the side dresser on the 4 wheeler so we could use it. It worked like a charm. It was bolted to the rack on the back of the 4 wheeler and when Jason would take off down the corn row he would trip the machine to let the fertilizer flow out the tube that was attached to the hitch on the 4 wheeler. It did a better job than we could have done by hand.

                                                        (adding 100 lbs fertilizer to machine)

                                            (the little chute drops the fertilize near the plants)

The fertilizer gets dropped right beside the corn in the row so there is no waste and you dont fertilize the weeds and grass. We used 19-19-19 fertilizer and the usual amount is about 400 lb per acre. The flow rate on the side dresser was set for about that much. That was so easy and now we are thinking we will likely use this method to side dress all the garden as well. It sure saves my arm and back from doing it by hand and you are done in a third of the time. It only took about 2 hours to do an acre of corn. And that was a lot of smoke breaks.
While Jason did that I was in the garden getting the weeds out of the strawberries and some other stuff. It was really too hot in the middle of the day for me to be doing that. I think I got a little bit too hot. I got really weak and felt kinda odd. So I came on to the house and had about 3 big glasses of water. I got my self a little bit dehydrated. Or maybe I am getting a little too old to do this stuff in the heat of the day any more.
So till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella

It feels like summer now

The weather was so nice today, it just felt like a beautiful summer day. I feel like I kinda plundered through the whole day not doing anything constructive. Well I kinda did. Finally got able to move this morning. My body was really sore when I got out of bed. Note to self, do not try to carry a 50 lb bag of chicken feed ever again. I think my body is broken, I just cant do those things anymore. But my little chicks are doing ok. Although they have been in a total panic all day today. Rodger and Jason were working on my summer kitchen and it is near the brooder house. I guess the sound of the saws and drills were a little much for the babies. But the kitchen did get started today with the sole plates in place an one wall framed up an standing. Thats progress as far as I am concerned. Maybe the other walls will go up tomorrow.
I got in the cellar to get the sweet potatoes out to get bedded out for slips and found a mess. All the sweet potatoes that we had stored in the cellar over the winter were not good. We have determined that sweet potatoes need warm dry air to store well, preferably in a dark place to prevent sprouts from forming. The cellar is perfect for other root crops that need cool an humidity. Not sweet potatoes tho. We had to toss out a few bushels of them and that was very disappointing. I have some of the Goldrush Irish potatoes out of the cellar so they can get light and heat and make some eyes. We plan on planting some of those this weekend weather permitting.
My trees came in yesterday that I had ordered a few weeks back. All of them look really good. Now we have a good start on an orchard of fruit and nut trees. Those will go in this weekend on the east end of the river bottom in front of the house. We will be putting up electric fence to keep critters from eating the trees.
Not much else happening here, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella