It was a Dark and Stormy Night

..it really was too...

It overfilled my pond a wee bit, the young willow on the right of the picture has wet feet.  However it's not the only one with wet feet...

That would be my Macintosh tree.  It's kinda swimming, so as soon as it dries up a little bit (yeah Spring and dry prob not anytime soon) I need to get more dirt around it to keep it from happening again.  I just need it dry enough to move the dirt without it being clumped.

The other side wasn't so wet thankfully:

Not sure how well you can see it, but the Redhaven peach is in water that isn't in water now.  It soaked up in a few hours where as the Mac is still in all that water.  See the tires?  I thought I'd try the grow potatoes in tires since I have 7 tires right now.

Also I have  another picture of the cinder block stove.

The back will get raised up like the sides, then we'll fill up the holes of the  cinder blocks then they'll be capped and some rebar will be put across to cook over.  Also the center will get a solid block for the burn surface.   I can't wait for it to get done so we can cook in the mornings on it.

Hope you're safe with the severe weather moving about.

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

After the Rains

We survived all the storms moving through the area.. though I am wondering if we shouldn't call Noah in with his boat... grins

Well I know I haven't posted in a while... using the Internet is just so irritating to me right now. Not in a “I don't know how to use it” way. More like.. I don't see the point to being online unless I have good reason. It's weird.. but it's me.

I am going to keep my blog going I just seem to need a bit more motivation to do it right now.

Bit of news, kids will be going on their trip next week sometime on Saturday unless my grandmother winds up ill. My mother is spending this week caring for her then she'll pick the kids up on her way back home. We're picking them up and getting her washer and dryer as well. One long week no kids though! That is going to be sooo nice.

Garden...

Well... I saved all those Tiger's Eye beans to grow as no one sells them right now. They all sprouted... then... our “tame” buck and his buddies came by and mowed 80% of therm down. Sighs I guess I'll be growing them just for seed this year again.

My grape is finally grasping onto our grip trellis, I'm going to have to work out how to prune it with how our trellis is. I'm hoping the cucumbers will get big enough to start up the trellis this week. Two of the three types of gourds have sprouted, and my sunflowers are spotty. I have all my squash plants growing, and my cabbage family plants as well as my onions are HUGE this year. The cabbages themselves have not started heading yet, but they are twice the size they were last year at this time. The onion stems are about ½ an inch... those are growing in the buckets from last years tomatoes. Speaking of tomatoes... My three little tomato plants are turning into trees out there. They also have tons of flowers on them.

We have been harvesting kale and lettuce every other day, while the kids are gone I should be able to daily. The herbs are doing very well this year as well.. also the one eggplant we have seems to be growing. Our strawberries are looking good, we have not picked any yet as Silver keeps saying they aren't ripe yet. Shrugs I am use to store bought ones which are sold under ripe. The elderberry.. TREES are taking over, they should flower this year and if so there will be tons of them.

I got to try an interesting jelly at the farmer's market yesterday it's white zinfindel. Yes you heard me.. as in the wine. It is soo yummy! Goes really well with banana bread too!

That's it for now.

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

Update!

As everyone knows we have been offline for quite sometime now. WE still will be for a bit as we are doing some bill catch up for the trip the kids took to see their grandmother. Once those are caught up we will be getting our internet back. Hopefully, before winter; if not it will be near winter.

As for updating everyone... We have all of the wood we think we need for the winter cut and stacked. I have one batch of my blackberry jam made up and one batch of melon jam made up. Once I can manage some more jelly jars I'll have much more blackberry jam made. WE didn't manage to get any peaches to can this year and all the wild grapes kinda died on us.

Our tomatoes have been producing fairly well due to the drought conditions. I imagine we'd have gotten more if we weren't under drought conditions. I have 3 of my own melons getting ready to ripen soon. Our main garden area has been a bit of a wash though as the 4-legged lawn mowers ate everything but the brussels sprouts. They even ate the leaves on the Elderberry trees! WE have discovered the luffa gourd plant is a very prolific one. I, not knowing how well it would grow; planted 3 at each of the “climbing points” for the plants. Well the plant is trying to climb everything now and we have to keep moving it daily. It looks like a tree! Silver says it grows at least 3 inches a day. It has tons of flowers on it and we have a few of the gourds growing at this point. The problem we had been having though was that the local ants love the plant but hate the flowers on it. So they have been cutting them off.

The kids are now back in school and I wound up with a few irritating things due to this. I discovered for my son to be in shop class I -HAVE TO- have some kind of accident insurance on him. ...when I took shop when I was a kid the school systems didn't require it. Seems our local school doesn't have the money to clean their gym floor daily or wax it more than once a year so, we have to buy shoes for the kids just to wear in gym and no place else. What fun when you have a son who wears size 14 mens shoes...

I guess I just don't understand how this is a necessity as if they have a bunch of sport programs that require money why not spend a bit less on the teams and more on the upkeep of the school? ...that would make much more sense to me.

WE are enjoying the leftovers from Issac since Thursday night, and enjoying the rain it has been giving us even though it is much less than they originally stated we would get. I almost wish we had gotten the projected 8 inches even if it flooded places, as it would have helped our rain total for the year to date.

Well that's about it for now, I am hoping to be able to post more soon … just a matter if we can get near internet the few times we go out.

Be careful out there...

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