Strawberry Day

Yep, today is the day to plant...
  looks outside
 ...ummm MUD my strawberry plants in.
  This is one of my little strawberry babies, I have 50 of these.  My thought(s)?  If I have issues with them growing at least some should do Ok, right?  The two worst case scenario's are:
 #1 they all die
 #2 they all produce
 I just don't see with #2 that being a problem and if #1 happens... well then I learned something.  It took me about an hour to plant them all in the mud.  I put them in today as we are due to spend the rest of the week in RAIN.  Fun for us yes?  However I can't leave the poor things in their box for a week or more, they would die.  So I went out today and mudded them in.  About half of the little plants had really good crowns on them really think, a few were pretty small.  So we'll see.  
   I planted them in our old onion bed that the Elderberry trees are planted on both ends of.
  You can if you look very closely the escapee onions that we have growing there.  My thoughts at having the plants there with the Elderberry is that they will become the ground cover for the trees (shrubs, elderberry are tech shrubs).  I know the ground there is very good as it's full of worms and we already have things growing in the soil there, besides the onions.
 From what I have read over the years you should let the plants not produce the first year after you plant them.  I am debating this as I know the strawberry farms harvest yearly including the first year.  Anyone have some suggestions?   My Elderberries have been doing wonderfully since they were planted where they are, I think due to 2 reasons.  First is that they were grown locally, also Elderberry plants grow here naturally.  They have been sending out "suckers" too.
  This is the taller of the two "trees" see near the base?  that is the "sucker" plant.  Elderberry is one of those that can reproduce by suckers, or plants growing off of roots that grow near the surface.  There are quite a few of them around the "trees"  I do not know how fast they grow, I do know that they are going eventually I should be able to have tons of elderwine, and cough syrup.
 I was covered with mud when I was done with that planting, and when I was done needed a good bath.  
   I need to run for now I have to post these pics to pintrest and start on dinner, have a wonderful evening everyone!
 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Sunday Musings

Well, it's been a wet couple of days here. ..wet and cold, we've had rain,snow, sleet all in the last few days. Fun times! (my sarcasm over bounds) I am hoping the weather will be good Monday as our strawberry plants arrived and I need to get them into the ground soon. I am hoping to get pictures of them.

I've been downloading some info on various wildcrafting methods in the hopes of broadening my skills a tad more. Some are about making primitive tools, which I do find fascinating. So we will have those things to work on as well.

Soapbox time...

I had received on one of my posts the other day a message from “Heather” to email her as she wanted to talk to me about something. Now what happened after has me slightly annoyed.

#1 her name is Heather Von St. James

Good, so I have a name yes? Well there is more...

#2 She sent me a “canned” email asking me to post her story on my blog.

Which outwardly I have no issues with, however I did a bit more digging and sent another email asking a few questions about her as person. As I will not post about someone's story without knowing what kind of person they are. Just telling me you survived mesothelioma won't get me to post your story. Even telling me your daughter has it won't get me to either.

#3 She has through whatever method this is she contacts people she has at least 100 private blogs posting her story.

Ok, so again we fall to a question I sent her.. why my blog? I have a small amount of followers on my blog, so why would someone who needs to get info out about mesothelioma use me to do so? Doesn't make much sense to me.

#4 She has a facebook page and a Twitter feed.

This tells me she can reach millions of people is she truly wished to. Again why my blog? So I sent her a facebook message to her asking the same message I emailed her with.

#5 Upon digging deeper I have found out she herself has through lawsuits gained $5mil due to lost wages and medical bills.

Well in my opinion, if she has gained that much money she does not need my help gaining any more money. If she wants money for mesothelioma research then she should send me a message saying that. Not sending me a message saying she is trying to gain money for her daughter. Why not put aside some of her money just for medical expenses for both her and her daughter? Makes more sense to me.

#6 If you wish to make someone pay for what they did for you, do more than hit them in a pocket book.

Besides, the people who made the materials that did this nasty thing to them are probably not being bothered by it. Also, the biggest issues with it is if things are tested more/longer then maybe they will learn that the “thing” is bad and not use it.

Now go back to #2, I sent the email early this week. I still am waiting a reply. Same for the Facebook message, and I know she has her facebook page very active. So my guess is she doesn't truly care if I post her story or not. Now digging I found out that people call Heather the voice of mesothelioma good, they need a voice. However, a good voice would be very concerned if their message got out to all the people they contact. Not send one canned message and then ignore them.

Just wanted to put all this info out to everyone out there, just so that if you get the “hey email me I want to ask you something about your blog” message you you have info to look back at and make a informed decision based on more than just a canned email.

Now it's time for me to step off my soap box and finish breakfast.

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

Happy First day of Spring!

Well it's a lovely cold morning, so nice to have to light a fire on the first day of spring... yeah ...  Anyway. not much going on with the weather not co-operating.  WE have a winter storm warning which starts tomorrow...fun.  I did manage to get something done yesterday, besides laundry.

I went out and first I fluffed up the potato patch and then I planted my seed potatoes (we didn't manage to get the sun chokes again).  The one red potato I planted last fall is starting to  grow as well.  I did have a surprise when I got out the seed potatoes, they had all sprouted and had roots on them already.  So on the few I had to cut down to be smaller I cut them so that they would all have some actual roots on them.

Had some good news from the weather people the other day, due to all the precipitation we have gotten ourselves out of the "severe drought", and are now just listed as "dry"; I am hoping pretty soon we'll be past that too.

A friend of our's Mark Cheneil writer of the "Missouri Journal"  over on homestead.org is in the hospital, we all wish him good health; and to get well.

That's it for now...

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

March is almost halfway over!

Well it is...
 I have managed to do a tiny amount of work outside today, starting with some clean up from wind blown trash. After that me and Silver went across the road for a bucket of pond water and were pleasantly surprised to see a frog swimming in the neighbor's pond already. Considering we have at least one more near freezing night coming up it was very nice to see.
 We did get the water for our pond so as to add the microbes and the diatoms that appear locally from a healthy pond. I haven't dug up cat tail roots as yet though. It might not happen till sometime next week. I haven't even seen shoots coming up yet in that pond.
   I then went to start moving the mountain of mud/clay from around the pond. Big problem with this is. Both our wheel barrows are minus a wheel, and on the one we cannot remove the old one so we can't replace it. The other .. well we can't seem to find a replacement for it.
   So I am moving them by the 5 gallon bucketful. So the second issue is where to put the stuff. Well I do kinda have one place that does need some dirt. That would be where we put the ash from the trash burning, if I cover it with the dirt I can put grass over it and it'll slowly decompose. As it's in a dedicated place it won't interfere with anything else we are doing. I have mentioned this before also.. trash has to be gotten rid of some how.. I'd rather have to deal with my trash that can't be composted rather than send it off to a miles high landfill. I am tech composting this “stuff” but it takes a bit more to do and I have no plans on using the leavings after the fact.
 After I got worn out from the dirt moving I decided to attempt to do some out door plantings. I have planted some short carrots and some kale in the box that I picked up for free. It now has “black gold” in it, the soil is perfect; which is why I planted the carrots in it. At the end of the season this year I will have to find a good home for the dirt in it.
  Now I also planted in two of the cut out used tires I set up last year. The soil in these while better than just the ground is here still needs a tad bit of work so I went over to the old compost site and dug out what I could of the left overs that were usable. There is a bit of paper and sticks still in it, but it's going down.    
     I took that which filled a 5 gallon bucket about ½ way, and what was left of the starting mix and some wet ashes and added that to the soil in the tires. I did notice when I was mixing it in that there are more worms in those tires than I thought there would be. So the tire closest to the door got some of what was left of my Red Fire Lettuce. It is a red leaf lettuce that we do enjoy. I only planted that in there as I am going to attempt to grow the bushel gourds in that tire this year as I have still to get them to grow for me at all. Since the luffas liked the soil so much it may be possible that the bushels will too. The second tire got mini Pak Choy and edible Chrysanthemum. Done half on one side half on the other. I am really hoping they both do well there.

 I do have some “bad” news.. I'm not getting my apple trees and it's my own fault. I didn't notice on the receipt (especially since according to our transactions in our account it already went through) that payment won't be billed till they send it. So I had to cancel them, my only issue there is the person on the other end of the line got very pissy once they found out I was canceling the order. Shrugs Go figure, guess they don't like dealing with people who always have money. If I had noticed that on the receipt the money would have been there.
   Well need to go for now as I have dishes.. then I have to go bathe this mud off me as the girls have a concert tonight.    
  
 Be Well, Be Safe, and Blessed Be...

Family Problems

Fun times, fun times indeed...   My grandmother last year was initially diagnosed with throat cancer.   Now this came on as a surprise to her supposedly.  However since the tumor at the times was very large I don't think it came on suddenly.  I believe she just ignored it.  Half of her throat was gone when the disease was "discovered"  it had spread badly enough that it had gotten into her mouth.  She was on a feeding tube and medicines for months.  

Then out of the blue my one aunt told my mother that my grandmother was cured of it.  Not remission, which as far as I knew is all that can happen with cancer; except in very rare cases.  Also my grandmother is worse than a chain smoker and drinks her breakfast, so... eeehhhh... I don't think it was "cured".

My proof...?

I got a call last night from my mom saying she is going to be in the area next week as my grandmother is now dieing of her throat cancer that my aunt told the family she was cured of.  Seems when my grandmother left the hospital, got her feeding tube removed she went right back to smoking.

I guess the one "upside" of this is at least it's as smoking cancer.. and not some other kind; and I don't smoke. Yes I realize that cancer of any kind is not good, but this is my effort of finding an upside to anything.

That's it for now... sighs

BE Well. Be Safe,  and Blessed Be...

Is It Spring Yet?

I WANT Spring so badly as I'm so sick of MUD.  Tons of MUD.  I HATE MUD... I REALLY HATE MUD.  Know why?  It is because the MUD we have is clay, it's THICK and HEAVY and if it gets on your foot wear it feels like you dded another 50lbs to your feet.  So I am tired of MUD. Sad thing is in Spring we normally get tons of rain so that means... you guessed it more MUD.

I also think the idea of daylight savings time is so outdated that it really should not exist.  Now when I went to school we were taught that it was started so that farmers would have more daylight hours to work their farms.  Well, now-a-days it's kinda un-nessicary for the need to have the farmers working in daylight as tractors,combines, etc all have headlights that could bring in a 747. Also I know that Amish farmers generally don't use the concept of daylight savings time, so who really benefits from it?

Kids that's who.  Now think on this... Kids that have to walk any distance to either get to school or their bus stop during the early morning will have more light during fall back than if the time was at normal.  Ok, well I can see a point there... BUT... again I must comment on modern society here.  There are tons of flashlights out there on the market that people can use to see with at early morning hours, so the kids can still be safe.

How many people wind up late for work right after "time change" and use it as an excuse?  Doesn't seem that it is nessicary at all does it? I certainly don't see a point to it.  As it is there are places in the US that do not even use it anyway.  Some are farming communities, strange huh?

Well, I'll get off my soap box now... and talk about here.

Well, aside from my 3 sweet peppers all my tray starts have died.  I have replanted the tomatoes and egg plants, but I'm worried I may have to buy some plants this year.  If so there is a small local nursery here that a nice farmer owns, his plants are always good.  I bought flowers from him the first year here.

Now that the snow is melted and the days are warm enough to dry the mud some, the pond has lost some water.  No worries though as it is still over 1/2 full.  Tuesday I am going out to gather cat tail roots for it, I am also planning on planting the taters then.  My flowers are all coming up and I think I may have a couple more day lilies this year than last year.  I still have to come up with some amendments for the apple trees that are coming sometime this month they are suppose to be shipped Monday.  So we'll see.

That's it for now.

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...