Well today was not the fun day we were hoping for. The delivery people called us to let know that the flatbed truck is in the shop so it'll be a few days before our rebar shows up. I am almost anticipating that they will wish to deliver it on Friday when we go to the grocery store. I looked ahead at the rest of the month weather wise and due to overnight temps it'll be to cold to put in the potatoes. However day time temps certainly will be warm enough.
I have taken the covers off my plant trays, and I did discover so far one of my sugar cane seeds have sprouted. All of my tomatoes have sprouted, though I am still waiting on my peppers of course to sprout. My eggplants also have not sprouted as yet.
We did run out and get some straw for the dogs and the chickens, next time we re-straw the chickens I'm going to get pictures as they are so funny when we put fresh straw out.
That's it for now...
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
We have had a great weekend so far folks! We got some of our building money, and we have a load of rebar coming tomorrow. We have decided to go down to a 34ft diameter dome. When we staked it (40 ft dome) out we noticed that we mis-staked it and the 34ft is not that much smaller than what we had staked out..
I got my apple trees ordered, I ordered ultra mac's for Silver and double delicious for me. I love the golden and red delicious. The company I ordered from a local nursery for this state Stark Bros nursery, they offered free shipping on orders over $85. So as I ordered 2 of each the order with the free shipping was just over $100. So I saved at least $20.
We had gotten a “pay later” flower catalog, that had Dahlias (edible root) and a few herb and bee friendly plants, We have been approved on their credit plan and I have a order of quite a few flowers coming that will be planted in a few various places one being our outdoor kitchen that will make it nice there and I will have lots of butterflies, bees, and humming birds stopping by.
We have also prepaid on the track hoe for next weekend as we had rain yesterday evening and this morning it would have been a waste of time and money getting it for this weekend. My son is crossing his fingers and behaving overly well in the hopes of getting to learn how to use it. Well, a 16yr old boy should have that opportunity to learn it. He's not doing all the work however. Especially since we need to dig a ditch from the power pole out to the clearing. I'm NOT having a child no matter how old digging near the power pole.
The next pay day we are going to get the chicks ordered, I wanted to do it Friday; but we didn't get a chance to. I did get the chick food and the new light for them. We will still need some pine bedding and a cover for the brooder before they get here though.
Now for the next week we have to clear area for the track hoe to run in. Yesterday my son and Silver started on it before the rain showed up. They'll go back out today after the rain lets up and it drys up a bit. Tomorrow it'll be just me and Silver working out there.
On another note, I was thinking about the weather and I believe we are already in our “Spring pattern” for here as we are getting tons of rain. Which is normal Spring weather here. Oh, my plant starts have started sprouting. Cabbages, grains, and tomatoes; also a couple of herbs! I am very happy about that.
I hope everyone is having a good weekend!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
So here I am with what now seems to be a once a week update of sorts.
I started my plants yesterday I filled 2 trays so far, and I'm thinking of in a month or so starting cukes and squashes to see if they grow better from starts. I discovered that I did not use up all the sugar cane seeds I got from Listia so I put six into the tray to see if I can get them from starting in the house. I'm using a “all weather” birding journal to keep tabs on this year's plants and with what I planted yesterday I have nearly filled all the lined pages.
Silver has pointed out that I probably should wet the starting mix before I put it into the “cells” so I don't have to water under them to avoid losing my seeds. ...hindsight... I defiantly think I'll be doing that next time.
I am hoping for 100% on my plants, but who really knows right? I have it set for 12 of each of the two types of tomatoes that I want to grow. I did 6 sweet peppers 2 of each of the ones I have and 6 hot peppers 3 of two of the multitude I have of those. I have some onions planted as well as cabbage, mini Bak Choi, edible chrysanthemums, nastrums, Kale, and a variety of herbs. I am hoping this time I get the lemon grass to grow good.
We have gone and found out how much a track hoe (wow it really is a “track hoe” ) would cost from a Saturday to Monday. It would be $350, and that's considering that Sunday is given as a freebie. Just need a nice weekend and the money and we can get the digging we need done. Oh, that price includes the trailer to bring it home.
We didn't get the package of insulation that I wanted to try to make the papercrete to try out, so we'll have to make an extra trip before we can buy supplies just to try it out. As I'd rather buy in large quantities only once and have it all delivered. We did discover that we are paying about ½ price when we buy the rebar in 20ft lengths, it's just a matter of getting it home after the fact. Which again would be best to include in a delivery option.
We did find out during the last rain storm that the area the house is going does get water during storms, but we are planning to build a bit off the ground; so we should be ok there.
Well I'm up again baking bread at this early hour and I need to return to it. Have a good day everyone!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
We've been silent on the blog as we have not been able to get on the net as much as we'd like too. So an update to things going on here. Well we've had crazy weather again. For 3 days we've had spring-ish temperatures, yesterday we had severe weather in the form of severe thunderstorms and some tornadoes. Today the forecast is for occasional snow flurries and what ever our temperature this morning at 6am would be our high for today. It's so nice to see winter coming back, and I'm serious as I do have flowers that I don't want killed off due to the weather being wonky. Due to the rain yesterday our “pond” (which is still not finished being dug) is filled to the current spill over.
We have finally come to a good place in working with our wood stove, we have it burn new wood at the coal stage only and we have a smoldering fire all day and night. We don't “burn ourselves out” and it stays toasty enough. We also seem to have hit the spot in the wood pile where the densest wood seems to be at. Which is good for long burning anyway.
In the last week I have gotten up at 3 am to bake bread, I have to say I may be doing it more often. The bread I have made these last two times has been heavenly. Good flavor and just the right “weight” (if that makes sense), silver told me today that I need to get up at 3am every morning now. Guess that means he likes it huh?
We have made a small discovery that we hope will work like we think. Loews sells “blown in” insulation that is “green”. This insulation is made from shredded recycled paper. Silver has been wanting to do papercrete on the interior of the dome to insulate it. My only issue had been, where do we get that much paper. Then we noticed that insulation, we are planning on buying one bag and trying to mix some papercrete up and see if it does well with the insulation. If it works out I will let everyone know. Silver is also looking for a way to combine the wall flue of a Russian Masonry stove and a rocket mass heater. Any Recommendation would be helpful.
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
Ok, so remember the wood stove from last year the barrel stove that overheated our home. As you can see Stormy modeling it for us...  Now this wood stove did present us with a couple of PROBLEMS, I think the biggest was the use of space. It wasted tons of space, and going on the space theme, it also wasted space in the barrel. We only burned in the front of the barrel, so the whole back half was not being used. The other problem it presented was that we couldn't cook on the surface of it due to the fact that it had no upright flat surface. I think Silver has effectively solved all of those issues. We have built a pot-bellied barrel stove.  We started off with a new barrel stove kit bought for: $39.99 Got a new barrel that was food grade, and in case it had metal bungs a removable end on it. Silver was thinking if it had, had metal bungs instead of plastic we could just take the whole top off to clean it out once a month. We traded for the barrel but I believe it would have cost $15.  We bought some screws with nuts that were 1/4-20-3in, this was to replace the screw that came with the kit where the screws would not be long enough we made sure to get about half of them flat instead of a rounded top to ensure that they would not interfere with the moving parts on the kit. That was $1.29 per package, we bought two packages. We bought a sanding disc for Silver's grinder to take off the paint on the outside of the barrel. That was $4.99  We did find a really good furnace cement that is almost like a putty... this item we are going to remember for when we build our house and make the rocket mass heater, as it is like refractory cement. That was 16oz for $3.99. We bought some (not wood stove) paint, for grills that are rated for over 2000 degrees at Loews for $5, to buy the stove paint would have cost us $10.  Now for the building process when we got the barrel at home Silver took the top off to see if whatever was stored in the barrel was flammable, I'm not sure if you want to call it good or bad luck; but our barrel had liquid vitamin E in it. ...btw... it doesn't burn. We had about half a quart of it still in the bottom that we smartly saved. Then Silver turned the barrel over to let what could drain out. Then we got a degreaser and washed the inside out. Then Silver proceeded to use the sanding disc to remove the outer paint off the top first, and then painted it to make sure the top was done, then he did each section of the barrel separately to ensure that if there was not enough sand paper or paint it would not be partly done. The next day, after the paint was fully dry (yeah I know it's spray paint and dries almost instantly, but it was almost sundown at that point) Silver started the cuts. He first cut out the section for the door.  Then he rolled the barrel over and cut the hole for the chimney on the exact opposite side. He put in the chimney flange and screwed that in place. We spent almost twenty minutes putting the door on, as we started with it having a gap around it from 0-2 inches. We needed to shrink that as much as we could, so Silver kept on tightening the nuts on the screws in rotation. We discovered one thing, make sure you check that the door will close evenly, then discovered that our door did not close all the way after we finished tightening the nuts. So we had to go back and loosen the nuts until the door would close.  So the recommendation would be for anyone duplicating this to check your door as you are going through your tightening. Silver said if you don't have it closing properly you might have the door crack when you light the stove. After fixing the door into place we placed the removable side back on,which we kept to the bottom because the bungs were plastic instead of metal. Like I had said before if they were metal we would have used the removable side on top so we could just take that side off for cleaning. However as we cannot keep the plastic near where the flames would be for obvious reasons. That's ok, it just gives me more cooking surface.  The next step we placed empty coffee cans on the bottom side of the stove, with the open end down. BTW the previous picture is after the cans...These are being used as part of an insulated “dead space” in the stove. Remember me mentioning the issue about all the wasted space? Well this way the extra space can be used to keep heat in the stove. After putting in the cans we took a bag of course vermiculite and filled the spaces and just barely covered the cans. Next we added another row of cans , these were the large fruit cans; smaller than #10 cans. This was then followed again by vermiculite, that then we covered with a few cut pieces of concrete board we had left over from last year as a base for our burn chamber. (the previous picture)We cut two pieces and set them inside in opposing positions.  On top of this we put down a piece of, I believe it's goat panel cut to fit over it; to be the reinforcing for the concrete mixture we are going to use in the burn chamber. Next we opened the container of fireplace cement and used it in the gap(s) around the door, fitting it on both sides of the door gap. Including the bodies of the screws, which; you will want to use a cut off blade and remove the ends or you may cut yourself on them. I happen to like the fireplace cement, and I'm thinking it might have uses when we go to make a rocket mass heater in the house when we build it. As Silver said it is like a refractory cement, which is what is used to make fire brick. The cement will cure at high temperatures only, so it will only dry until then. After filling the gaps in the door frame Silver mixed most of this bag of vermiculite:  And about 5 pounds of cement, he made the mixture fairly wet; to make it easier to get into the opening. Using a trowel he covered the fencing and concrete board with the cement vermiculite mixture. He smoothed it as much as he could and left it to dry. Now a moment to talk about the mixture, we tried out vermiculite concrete in our normal barrel stove last year in the bottom to protect it verses using the sand that the person who makes the stove kits recommends. It worked much better and never cracked. This time we used fine vermiculite, I do not know if this will change how it works but we will see. BTW use PORTLAND cement there are no stones.. we used standard cement and the stones are now coming loose. The original idea was to cover the sides of the burn chamber with the concrete mixture, but we didn't. We did a test burn outside the second day after putting in the concrete. Yes, outside; do -NOT- test your ideas on stove making in your home, if you do you might burn down or blow up your home. The sides only blackened, the paint did not even burn off on the inside and the top surface heated nicely. We were sitting about 3 feet from the stove and we were getting hot outside the house. I'm sure it'll be much warmer than we need it to be in here however that's ok for me. We have changed what goes around the heater as well, no concrete board this time as it's flimsiness bothered Silver. We are using cinder blocks dry stacked instead. So, lets see... I now have a heater that has a use for all it's space, I can cook on it. Also it takes up half the space it took last year. All for about $56.70 instead of buying a $180 small box heater with two small burner spaces... if you wanted to use them as such. ...or of course going back to a standard barrel stove. I think this will work out much better for us this winter and if there is a problem we do have our old barrel stove as backup. Be Well Be Safe and Blessed Be...
I know there are many preppers out there who are getting ready for "something" to happen. While I think that listening/reading/watching them can be helpful, I don't know if something bad is coming at us or not. However, I do think having a good supply of self safe food(s) available for 'just in case'.
Where I am living we get told at the beginning of 'storm season' (tornado season), we are told to have a emergency kit just in case we have one hit near us and there is no power what will you do for food and water? So instead of just waiting for one instance of one season to hit you. Where I live in Missouri we could have a blizzard, if we do; and I live in a very rural area. When would I receive help? When would the roads be clear enough to get food from a store? If the power went out after it thankfully I have a wood stove for heat. However my cook stove is electric.
Look back at first Katrina, and then Sandy. Both of them had issues with people getting food, Katrina was, pardon this; a clusterf###! Then with Sandy parts of the cities were without access to food for a week. What would you do in this situation? The biggest problem for a city is that 90% of your home is electric. I know in the Chicago area most people have gas stoves and heat, unless you have matches what will you use to light your stove?
I would like to see people keeping some extra foods that are shelf stable that can be eaten without cooking, while I know this is very limited in scope for the people who are picky eaters. But, let me ask you this. What would you prefer? Not having any food or having something you can eat though you do not like it?
When I go shopping I tend to buy an item or two that I am not planning on using right then. It gets put in the pantry for later use, whenever I find tuna on sale or peanut butter I buy lots of it. I don't like peanut butter, but if I had to I'd eat it.
Now with that said, I have a comment on something that has popped up all over the place.
#1 Buying MRE's for your emergency stash
#2 Buying tons of dried foods for your emergency stash
#3 forgetting to account for water
Lets start with #1... How many of you out there who think MRE's are a good idea have eaten them before? I know I have only tried one type, Silver has tried many as he was in the military. I was lucky the one I tried which I think was a chicken parma was good... not the best I'd ever had though. I have been told by a few people (Silver included) that the tuna one is horrible, Silver thought it looked like and smelled like cat food. Also each MRE is suppose to be 3,000 calories which for most people is the total calories you need. The cost can go anywhere form $5-$12 a piece, which if you bought canned goods the MRE's would be more in cost. You also need to check the dates on the MRE's as sometimes the ones you can buy are out of date... or they were rejected by the military.
#2 What good will dried anything do you if it needs to be re-hydrated with hot/warm water? Or even cooked, if you have no way to heat or cook something? I know dried fruits can be eaten as is, how long before you get ill from just eating fruits in an emergency situation? Dried foods can be wonderful, but they need water to be edible aside from dried fruit... and sometimes the dried fruit needs water. If you try to eat the dried foods dry, you will probably eat more than you should as they won't be very satisfying unless eaten in large quantities. That said I do think they have their use, if you have the water available and the ability to cook the items that need cooking.
#3 I think this one is the most important, people don't tend to think of water when they store food for emergencies. Now, I am the first person to say to not buy bottled water, however. In the case of storing water for long term buy bottled water, you need about 3 gallons a person per day. Which is a lot of water, and if the power is off there will be no water coming out of your taps, eventually in the cities the tanks where water is stored will run out.
Now some other things you should have for an emergency. Extra blankets, if you have no heat you will need them to keep warm. Also flashlights, WITH extra batteries; you'll need them at night and in dark corridors. A fire extinguisher, a working one; also not a "kitchen sized" one as they don't put out anything the average one lasts maybe 20-30 seconds. What happens if you do manage to get your stove going and it catches on fire? You'd need that extinguisher for that possibility. I'd also suggest having something to entertain your kids if you have any, I know that when I was a kids power outages didn't bug me as I read like a book worm. I know most kids are not like I was though.
You should also have a GOOD first aid kit, and I don't mean one of those under $20 ones at Wal-Mart. They are not really helpful. Ask your doctor what they'd recommend in one for emergencies. Also maybe take a class on first aid, you never know when it might help.
Now please note... this is not a comprehensive list... nor is there any such things as a "magical list" that will work for everyone. I am no expert on this stuff, but I know what makes sense to me; and what I have observed. Make the decision for yourself.
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
I know it's been a while since I have been on here.. over a year really. I thought it was about time I updated here as I have regular internet now. We tried out growing luffa gourds this last year and they did grow pretty good we got about 2 full sized sponges. One of the two had better seeds in it than the other. Funny thing about it was that the one with the better seeds is one I never noticed until we took the vines down once winter started. I did learn from it that it's a plant that while you need to thin some flowers the plant itself is pretty much self caring for. It is a voracious vine though, it tried to eat our electric pole.
We had tons of tomatoes this year and we have decided that the Cherokee orange purple smudge is the best for us. I have finally discovered why you need to trim the plants and cut back flowers. I have learned that if I don't understand why “they” say to do something I won't know until I figure it out myself.
I got my Tiger's eye beans to grow better than I thought, even though I didn't try to grow them. Odd how that the one I plant for “the heck of it” grew the best? Considering I can't find the seeds though I cannot eat them this year though, I have saved them all for next years planting. The “green bean” that I grew up growing.. well, it just didn't want to grow for me at all. I think we got maybe 20 beans and I planted ½ a pound of seeds. When I was a kid I could plant 10 seeds and get 10x's that.
My eggplants didn't do much of anything, as well as my bell peppers. The Rhubarb I ordered and planted grew a bit then quit on me. I hope they come back this year, we will see.
We have gotten the space for our house and our new chicken coop cleared fully. In 2 weeks we will be starting to buy the rebar to work on the house. We built a newer type of a barrel wood stove, we made it upright; and it takes up less than half the space. There is also no wasted space inside the stove, we also have the ability to cook on the top of it.
We also made an attempt at helping a friend out. A young man,who wants to be a woman who was living homeless. We invited her to live with us in exchange for being a “farm hand” to help me out with the day-to-day chores. It did -NOT- work out. I think it partly had to do with the person's age, and the desire of them to only play video games all the time. We just recently sent her to a place where she can spend tons of time playing video games with someone else 90% of the day.
So now I am hoping to keep this site up to date as my other blogs. Lets hope I do!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be....
Hi folks, got some good news / bad news... so as typical the bad news first. Our net is down again (yippie) for probably a couple weeks to a month so I won't be writing blog posts for a little while. We had an overage on our last bill that we were one surprised by.. and couldn't at that time pay so this morning we found out that they cut off our entire cell service. What fun... but hey, c'est la vie.
The good news, well at least I consider it good. We have been berry picking a lot right now and I have a few gallons of black berries in my freezer right now. The plants are still producing so we are going to be picking for a while. The ones on our property are producing good as the ones on the road, granted they aren't necessarily as big as some of the ones on the road. As 2 spots on the road have water that means the plants have a constant supply and the berries are huge. We are going to look up how many black berries you need to make black berry wine and once we can get the supplies we are going to make some up. The idea is to buy a complete kit for a standard red and learn the process, then move on to making some of our own types.
 Now all three sets of our zucchini have flowers on it. ...and not just the male flowers either if you notice the picture. I can't wait to see how big this one gets, and I can't wait for the lunches with them stir fried. We also have the starts of some cucumbers, they are tiny right now; but at least I saw two of them last night. You'd think with them being volunteer ones they would have started producing already, but they are not.
I have set up a teepee for our long beans and the luffa gourds. The luffa's are just starting to climb right now, and I expect that the long beans should “kick in” and put on enough growth soon so that they will be too. When we did that I also have started staking the eating tomatoes as they are growing very vigorously. I guess they like the chicken manure/perlite/oyster shell/ clay soil we gave them. Not to mention how well the dill plants that are growing just as well.
 We started picking beans today, this is the first batch; they are in an 8 inch cake pan. So you can figure about how many we harvested this morning. I also picked some more Lamb's Quarters, with some male squash flowers for breakfast. I also harvested a couple leaves of the wintergreen to try to make some tea with it. I'll find out later how it comes out.
Well we are sitting here at the local library so we can get our podcasts and so I can post this today. A week from now we should have our first “farm hand” here, his bus is suppose to arrive at about noon then. So we'll see how that goes.
The kids leave on their trip next Saturday, my mother decided she just wants to do a half way drive both “ways”, which really will be the easiest way to do it. She's going to pick up the couple food items we wanted and bring them with her. The kids start the new school year on the 15th of August here, I'm not sure but that seems a tad early. All three of them will be going to the same school, just different parts of it.
It's funny how the thought of no internet doesn't really bother me, aside from not being able to write on my blog(s). ...and this is after watching a show on frontline last night called “digital_nation”, which was about how “connected” the world is now to the internet and how people really can't “live without” their connection to the online world(s). Even more so how people who say they are “multi-taskers”, really aren't very good at multi-tasking.I do wonder to some extent if this ability to reach any bit of information we could want at any moment of the day; with it have a bad effect of any kind? What happens to creativity when you can look up any subject and find information on it?
How would you feel if you were “unplugged” even for a day? Could you manage without your connection to the world of everything? Could you live in your own piece of the world without your escape into the “connected” world? How many people don't read actual books any more because they can get a kindle or a summary of the info? Or even just a part of the book that you find interesting somewhere online?
Now please don't mistake, I do think the internet is a good tool; but to me that is all I consider it. I've been trying to keep my kids from being so enraptured in the internet, yes they are fully capable of “surfing the web” sometimes much better than me. I have no issues with using it, but I have unfortunately seen people who get so wrapped up in the internet that they do not know how to live in the real world. ...and it can affect their families, their jobs, and even their own lives. Just something for everyone to think on...
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed be...
 That lovely picture is of this morning’s harvest or if you will the product of my foraging, as I got them from a location I didn't plant intentionally. That is about 3/4's of a gallon of blackberries in one morning! They are being frozen until the season is over and I have some rose hips, then I am making some jam and maybe some syrup.
It made me think though, as I had help after I had gotten 2 pints already on my own by at first my youngest... then my oldest and then finally the middle child. I -LOVE- fresh blackberries, not as much as fresh strawberries; but hey nothing adds up to them.
To me there is nothing better than putting into my mouth a blackberry just off the bramble that has exploded into my hand from being sooo ripe. Sweet with a lite bitterness that comes from natural sugars. I did pause this morning when I tasted a particularly sweet one, with a moan escaping my lips. As oddly, considering modern life I prefer my sweets in the form of berries now. Don't get me wrong, I love chocolate... but it's just not the same.
I think many kids and adults miss something good when they don't eat something freshly picked, like fruit. It has it's own flavor and it's very unique. To me most of the processed sweets have all the same flavor, and it's missing something.
The other part that I was thinking on is how my kids pick berries. Had I handed them my berrying bucket and sent them out I'd have been lucky to get maybe a pint. ..and the thing is it would not be because they were eating while picking. Part of it is they don't seen them all on the brush. They also want to find the “perfect” berry. It really made me think when I realized that, as I just finished a book about primitive man(novel) and how they lived and that included gathering food.
If my kids had to rely on what we had found to eat.. they would wind up picking more of them. My youngest admitted that, so I told her then just think that way and we'll have tons of berries to make things with. One or two blemishes mean nothing, and partly dried out? Come on, people pay tons of money to buy dried fruits; pick them yourself. It'll do you some good to be out in the sun enjoying the fresh air... and grins getting covered in berry juice! It's an old family pastime, that I think needs to be revitalized.
People use to spend whole days going out “berrying”, and they'd bring a picnic lunch and the dessert would be the fresh berries with sometimes some home made cake. To me that sounds much better than going to the store and “foraging” for a nice looking package of berries. As that is what you are doing when you are in the store turning the berry packs all around to check every angle until you find just the right one that looks to be “perfect”. WOW.. I just realized where my kids' idea of perfection on berries comes from. As if you don't do “perfect” on ones in the store you are likely to have rotten berries.
I don't know if any of you remember seeing an older orange commercial a number of years ago from the orange growers. It had a woman explaining a ripe orange isn't always fully orange, which tech if it's green it's not ripe... but the point is most people have no clue what “ripe” is... I certainly don't know what a ripe wild blueberry looks like. So I am learning that, maybe true ripeness should be taught to all people; most of all children.
I hope everyone out there gets to experience the freshest of the season!
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
 This is half of my "horde" of green bush beans that I'm growing this year. Aside from maybe 3 plants having slightly yellowed leaves everyone of them is very healthy and in flower. I actually think they are putting out secondary flower stalks.
I am hoping to get lots of beans from them, I will try canning some. I know I cannot eat commercial canned veggies as they make me ill, so Silver is hoping/thinking that home canned I could. The thought is that maybe it's a preservative in them besides being too soft that is the reason for it.
I seem to have also issue(s) with over cooked ones as well so we are going to try raw packing them. who knows maybe they will do well and I'll be able to eat them. If I can't the kids and Silver certainly can.
Last year I had tried growing pole beans and I was sorely disappointed. That's why I am doing bush beans this year. I have grown "Blue Lake" bush beans for almost forever and I know they'll produce. This year I am determined to have a good harvest from my garden. As I said I do have my Tiger's Eye beans growing up front, we will see if I can get them to produce this year and if I can we will just go with those as they are also a dry bean. Pinto style, which for us means chili.
 This is one of the many cabbage plants I have growing, and this is one of the remaining three that I myself started. I had started 6 of the Early Jersey Wakefield, but after some four-legged lawn mowers went through I only have maybe three of these and the red cabbages I bought.
These green ones are a tad behind my red cabbages, as the red ones have been heading for a few weeks and the greens have only been for about one week. I am really hoping to be able to harvest them soon so we can have some cole slaw. I love fresh cole slaw!
Oh pardon the picture quality as my camera is out of batteries and we keep forgetting to buy them so I used our phone to take these pics.
 This is my volunteer squash, in flower (male flowers btw). It has had I'd say about 8-10 flowers at this point and they have all been the "male" flowers. I am waiting on the female ones to appears so I have a better idea as to what kind of squash it is.
Now like I said I think it's a Dark Star Zucchini, and next time I'll get a picture of those in flower as they are starting to get their flower buds now. Which for me is a wonderful thing, I am hoping again that they produce lots of squashes for us.
We got hooked our first year here eating for lunch a stir fry with two or more squashes in it and maybe some canned ham and a fresh herbs. I really want to do that again, so because last year our squashes didn't do much past producing male flowers we didn't get any of those fun meals.
One other "Crop" that I am hopeful on is melons. I love to eat melons and I have a wonderful recipe for a catulope jam that I made last year with half of a huge one that I bought. I have some melons sprouting and .. considering I had tried some vine peach seeds, which at this point they all sprouted then withered. I planted to see some of the melon seeds I bought last year. I planted "Oran's melon" which is suppose to grow well in this state.
 This is one of the two flowering heads on the one Elderberry that is blooming. I do hope the other one blooms next year. As you can see the flowers are starting to open up. I am going to be watching this closely as I have no clue how long it takes for them to go from flower to ripe fruit.
I spent the early part of this morning doing the kids' early chores of feeding the animals (which in the summer they do). I went out and took these pictures and I did a bit of pond digging. Maybe I'll post some pond pictures next time. A progression of what we have done so far.
I also checked my plants out and the Oran's melons are still very healthy, which is making me very happy. i do hope they do well and we get melons, in some amount. Even if we are overwhelmed by them. I would not mind, because if they do I'll just turn them into jam.
We've lost one of our chickens yesterday to I think a fox, and I'm wondering if maybe we've lost more than one. As a number of days ago they had managed to get out under the fencing and there was tons of feathers all over their yard. So after finding the dead one half pulled out of the fence and half eaten, I do wonder.
Well that's about ti for now.. I'm heading to wordpress and Blogger to put up updates there as well.
Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...
|
RSS Feed