Busy Weekend Ahead.

We spent most of the week relaxing as the kids have been visiting their grandmother.  So we had been hoping to get a ton of work done, but then it got hot, so due to no kids we'd sleep late then it would be too hot to do any work outside shrugs it happens. Yesterday we spent about half the day helping out Queensized Tink and her family with a building project.

I managed to pick some broccoli out of the garden this morning which we will be eating with our dinner tonight.  We have been getting strawberries and I've been drying a good portion of them.  I am also putting some away to make jam with once I have enough.  My Elderberry should be blooming soon and I'm hoping  that they don't do like last year and die after blooming.  Now the broccoli I picked today made me smile as last year we had one "make it" and it only got as big as my thumbnail.  This morning I got 4 big florets one the size of my fist with wise.

Our tomatoes are coming along nicely and I'm starting to get some tomatoes on the plants, my peppers will be "popping" soon.  As like my tomatoes and all my cabbages they are growing huge.  They are also covered in flowers.  The new rosemary plants we potted with my onions and hot peppers is trying to take over the pot.  Our other rosemary does not grow as happily, so that's really good.

The roses are getting ready to bloom as are the dahlia's I have planted.  Pity though that they will probably bloom this weekend  while we aren't home.  See we have to go pick up the kids Saturday night.. and will be back very late Sunday.  So knowing my luck they will both bloom Sunday morning.

I have also started gathering off of my "old fashioned" day lilies the buds so I can dry those for putting into soups and stews this winter. I have a recipe for making paste that I'll post when I have a chance that takes dried tomatoes and shows you how to make tomato paste from it.  It sounds much easier than the "cook down" method.  The person who wrote the book that it is in in stated that the point of making paste is removing enough water to make it thick so if you start from dried you only have to add enough to thicken it.

Well, I'm heading out now as we have some prep work for our trip and for our shopping trip tomorrow.  Everyone have a great weekend!

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Bulb Planting Day

Yep I'm going out today to plant some flower bulbs, the ones we ordered months ago showed up early this week.  Due to the rain we were suppose to get (we only got rain 1 day) we decided to wait till today to plant them.  I do not know if they will grow today or in a year.  My cabbages and other planting seem to have taken and this morning I'll have to see if they got too cold last night due to frost.  Which is amazing due to the fact we were in the high 70's the other day.

I have jumped off the "no-poo" bandwagon, Ok not jump I dived head first off of it.  I have discovered that I have one BIG issue with going no-poo.  My hair is very dry and very thick, the issue I'd have is that it would take me a couple hours to comb through my tangled knotted hair after "washing" it.  The first time was not bad, but it got steadily worse.  So a couple days ago while in tears and barely combed through the rat's nest that my hair became I gave up and went and used shampoo and conditioner.

Now I will say if I ever needed to live washing my hair in this manner I could do it... however I'd have to cut my hair VERY short to make it easy to comb through.  Actually I did like how my hair felt while I was off shampoo(s), it felt so much better  I would recommend trying it and seeing if it works for you.  Now trying it means for at least a month.  You may be surprised.

Now I want to mention something about the "school lunch thing".

My local news is still covering how kids are still hungry after coming home from school.  Now I have a few comments in reference to this.  Most kids are not use to eating "healthy" foods.  Also most kids are not use to eating a serving size.  Which is generally much smaller than what you get in a fast food place.  This really is a home problem, however... if the kids are suppose to be properly fed at school. Well, then they need to be satisfied.  i know one BIG issue is kids would rather have chips and candy rather than fruit and cold veggies.  Now my kids will do fruit and cold veggies, however they are still coming home hungry.  Well my son is anyway.  His problem is he is a picky eater, which is his own problem.  If he doesn't want to eat enough to be full it's on him, because he refuses to eat some of the entrees they serve.

Now the reason for the change in the school lunch system is because the First Lady is trying to fight childhood obesity.  Good, however there are other ways to combat this.  The biggest one would be to increase Phys Ed, and making it more physical.  Now I say this because I know when we lived in NY my kids had a few weeks of stacking cups.  Now I know it's now considered a  hand-eye coordination sport, however it's not very physically challenging.  When I was in grammar school... many years ago... the first one I was in make the kids run a track for 10 minutes daily.  Now put that on top of sports.  That would help.  Also saying that recess suffices to exercise kids.  Watch what goes on during recess and I'm sure you'll see a lot of kids just hanging out.

So this in my opinion this is being handled wrong.  I hope someone figures this out and maybe changes something that will work better.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Gardening Time

Well it's coming to that time of year my friends, and I am hoping to have my taters in the ground by week's end.  Also I just found out that the Elderberry trees have baby leaves on them.  As the snow is melting in the lovely temps of the last few days our pond shrank a little, which I expected; I hope the rest of the water stays.  My day lilies are coming up as well, so I defiantly think that the warm weather is on it's way.  I set my plant starts outside they have to come inside tonight, but they should be able to get some time outside tomorrow too.  My good tomatoes are not doing as well with the weaker light we have this year.  While the eggplants love it.   Go figure.
 Hope it's warm by you!

 Be Well, BE Safe, and Blessed Be...

Great Day TODAY!

 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...

Well Troubles and a "weedy"day

 Well to all those people that cheered when we got our well first running, we had a brief scare yesterday. Yesterday afternoon our water stopped flowing... Silver went out and the well tank was empty. Silver tested all the wires, and it was getting power. However... there was 2 things wrong with it. #1. There was a “bug” between 2 of the connectors interrupting the circuit.

#2. We discovered that the control box was not fully “connecting” with all the connections.

So we got rid of the bug and then duct taped the whole box in the correct spot. I am heading out later today to do my (groans) weeding that I've been putting off, as I can't stand doing it. However I'm going to take a close friend's suggestion and use meditation while doing it... I'm gonna plug into my ipod and “tune out” the activity. I'm also hoping to get some pictures done of the garden and so forth. If I manage to get some I'll be back on to post them. I'm ready to start harvesting our lettuce, and my red cabbages are ready to start grabbing people they are so big.... and they are only starting to “head”.

I am doing laundry this morning and I will be going out between loads to plant our new very pretty black current out in our “berry patch”. Though with the cherry bushes I imagine “berry patch” is a slight misnomer.

The day lilies are starting to put out new greens so they are doing well... however I think only one of the banana trees have survived. Our trees/shrubs we have planted along our road are getting leaves... and I can't wait to see them grow this year.

That's all for now,

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Good Sunday Morning!

It is a beautiful Sunday morning here, aside from the whiff of garbage burning.. and it's not me doing it. I do hope who didn't leave it burning overnight. Our rainwater levels have gone down, so much that our half dug pond has no standing water in it. Our walking paths were clear of water by yesterday morning.

Our onions have been taking off, and I imagine that soon we will be using some fresh out of the garden. The new “babies” in my garden seem to be doing just fine after their transplants, I am really watching the Rhubarb to see when it starts going.

I have some flower news, I had planted some Hyacinths when we first moved here; they bloomed finally this year a couple of weeks ago. This morning when I went to feed the dogs though, I discovered something else flowering. My Bleeding Hearts are starting to flower, they have been shooting up in this last week. I hope the Dahlias come back and flower this year.

The majority of our Dogwoods are getting ready to go into full flower especially our big one, that is going to be such a sight. I wish I had the camera working right now so I can get a shot of it like last year.

I hope everyone is having a good weekend.

Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Lots of flowers going on here!

Wow! again I am amazed by these tomato plants that have myself started and planted. Like I said I have grown tomatoes before, however I have never started them myself before this year. I counted this morning 28 flowers on one plant!

I think I have identified the paste tomatoes and if I am correct I already have about 5 mini tomatoes on them. Not to mention the abundance of flowers on them. Seems that every tomato plant now has flowers on them and if I am right about which is the purple smudge and they produce as much as they just have in flower I'm defiantly voting for them for next year. We still have to check taste of course *winks*.

My rice beans are still in flower and they are defiantly a bush type (I need to get more pictures dang it!) The Tiger's Eye are flowering as well, no flowers on the pole beans as yet though. The long beans are still behind on the growth compared to my standard pole beans.

My squashes are now covered in blossoms and one I noticed this morning had a double flower! I can't wait for them to start producing! The butter pumpkin is starting to vine out, which I am taking as a good sign. IT is going to be loaded with flowers from what I can tell.

Over in my "flower" bed one of the melons did come up and is getting ready to flower as well.

We've had 2 lazy days due to heat and rain as Silver does not do well in the heat and our root cellar is full of water due to the rain. Yesterday it was so humid I didn't even want to set up a bath.. but I'm not going to HAARP on the weather.

But... don't take my word for it...

Be Well and Blessed Be...