Here Comes the Sun, doot-n-doo-doo

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It's another gorgeous morning.

I'm sure anyone reading this will fall off of their chair in shock, but the list from yesterday was not completed.

We got to go get straw bales right away yesterday morning, after a call to see if they were available at the barns. The man who owns the farm met us. What a lovely old man of 80. He said, "Follow me!" and proceeded to lead us to the place we needed to load at approximately .097 miles per hour. It was a great day for a drive!

He was so sweet, and had tons of stories. As one of the best ways you can bless someone is to listen to them, we did. For about an hour in one of the hay barns we heard about his family, his farm, his business dealings, his children. It was a real treat to listen to him and I don't regret a moment of it.

We arrived back home and I immediately got to work on the list, but after distributing the bales at their various sites, mulching the gooseberries, repairing the barbed wire fence, harvesting cow manure from the pastures, and a hiccup start on mulching the strawberries - the raspberries arrived.

These were such a good deal, ordered before I knew the car needed repair. "Strange how that happens," she said dryly. I got 36 Heritage and Black Jewel raspberries for a dollar each. But now I had to get them in the ground. Michael was able to help me by then, and we have such a good time working outside.

So the rest of the day was spent doing all but 9 of them before we had to do chores and leave for office cleaning. We were really pleased at the condition of the soil. When we had planted raspberries in that location 8 years ago, the soil had not been very good. But I think the Lord waved his hand, because we had brown soil there.

Each rootling got a hole, a plop of black gold on each side, and a six inch dressing of straw. These went in a row, about 2.5 feet apart, under a wire trellis system that was already there from before. We are hoping for summer raspberries next year.

So today I need to finish the raspberries, and then work on the figs, the greenhouse, and figure out the strawberries.

I've never actually mulched strawberries before. But I think that one reason they did not do so well in this last planting was that I had black fabric down that they were planted through. We had a very warm summer, and they may have simply been too hot. So I wanted to try mulching with straw.

Makes sense, straw-berries, right? Not so much. Everywhere you go, people are blogging about how they mulch their berries with straw. But no one still has green berry plants when they mulch them. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, my berries never actually completely stop being green in winter. So I am thinking that if I cover a bunch of green plants with straw, the inevitable is going to happen, right? Green plants, cover with material, dead plants. I do this with weeds all year.

So I tried mulching around them. Well, I have these tiny little newbie plants that are so small and too close together for that to be done with any success at all. I am currently stumped on how to approach this one, so that will be last on my list today.

I made yesterday what Michael judged to be my best 100% whole wheat loaf yet. It was my third attempt this week. I am determined to not buy another loaf until I figure out how to make our own. Personal goal. Still only four inches high. Actually, with the braided top, this one made it to about 5.5 inches. But they taste utterly fantastic.

This one used potato flakes or flour. I'm thinking, "I always have a box of potato flakes in my pantry." I often get a craving for quickie mashed potatoes. Nope, no flakes. So I juiced a potato in my juicer and used some of it for the required starch the recipe wanted from the potato flakes.

All this in the middle of outdoor work, means I've still got potato in my juicer. Blech.

Time for KP duty.

~Faith

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List for today.

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After a $400.00+ day at the repair shop and helping my mom and dad all day long on their front yard project and dinner with freshly baked (and flattish) 100% whole wheat bread (very long run on sentence) in which we were so happy to be a blessing to my folks for the day and in which, despite being faithful to my juicing I ended up eating too much leftover Halloween candy from stressing out over the unplanned repairs on the van, we will continue to enjoy a week in which most of our regular activities were canceled.

So it's a work day here at home for me, and for Michael, when his school work is done. I have a wish list in front of me. Maybe I should add "Clean off desk" to it.... Nah.

1. Drive about 10 beautiful country miles to a farm and buy as many bales of straw as will fit into the back of the minivan. I might fit 10 or 12. Good deal, but no delivery.

2. Mulch the freshly manured gooseberry plantings with 2 bales of straw.

3. Repair the barbed wire fence that the neighbor's cows keep busting up. They did not come through yet, but it's torn down again. Probably the long-horn crosses. They really learn how to use those horns as tearing tools.

4. While back there making repairs, also pick up a wheelbarrow-sized load of manure for the raspberries.

5. Spread the manure in preparation for the rootings which should be here soon.

6. Leave 5 bales of straw next to raspberry row.

7. Neatly stack and cover the free lumber we got from my dad with the the $5.00 doors we found at the thrift store. These are for the future tables in the greenhouse.

8. Fasten the side base boards to the greenhouse hoops in preparation for walls. Wear black-widow smashing shoes. WooHoo! That stack next to my driveway for years will finally be gone.

9. Draw out a plan for building the ends, now that I have the storm doors (5 dollars at the thrift store) and locate the lumber from the wood pile. Hope there is enough there that has not rotted.

10. Cover 6 figs in straw (whatever is left) build cages or use rope to contain them, and cover with tarps.

11. Try to get some rest before doing an office cleaning tonight. :o)

I am glad that I have 3 good days of sun, in case I can't finish this as I hope to.

5:45 am. Time to clean house, juice, cook breakfast, pray, and load my iPod with Bible study lessons for the day.

Awaiting a beautiful sunrise,

~Faith

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A picure is worth a thousand dollars.

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At least that's about how much a nice new camera costs. I'd been hoping to get mine repaired but, instead, any money we've been squeezing out has been going to things like vet bills for our lovable-yet-useless canine (do you have any idea how much time and money it takes to care for an aging and uncertainly diagnosed dog? I do now; $350.00 and I hope that's it, because that is his limit, sadly.) and feeding a hungry automobile a balanced diet of things like tires and bearings. However, the change to cool weather has been a blessing in the car department. We no longer are roasting in our A/C free and broken window environment. It's cold, and we have a heater that works. Life is good.

We have been blessed with really great weather, for the most part. So that I am able to work outside most days. I've been moving gooseberry bushes which were declining every year. They are now in a new and improved location and awaiting mulch, which I hope to obtain tomorrow - right after a visit to the car repair shop.

The man-child, Michael, is growing out of clothes faster than I can find them. I buy shoes two sizes too big, and he's outgrown them in 8 months. Every time I look at him, I swear he's taller. He'll outgrow me in a very short amount of time. We hit thrift stores again this week, hoping to find him a winter jacket. We found some working coats, but nothing for casual town wear.

However, he was absolutely thrilled to get a trench coat and two casual suit jackets today, tweed and corduroy. The thrift store was selling all their coats for half price, two dollars and fifty cents each, and these are classics that will not go out of style. We bought them big.... here's hoping they last.

It took a lot of straw, but all the veggie and herb beds are thoroughly mulched. We have some experimental winter crops growing out there; peas and Swiss chard. I want to see how long I can keep them growing by just covering them on cold nights. I dug up some of the pepper plants and potted them, bringing them indoors at night.

I am also growing lots of things in the house. It looks a bit like a greenhouse in here, but that's kind of fun. We hope to get the real greenhouse going soon. I've been saving up, here and there, and I think I have enough to do it, if I can find the time in between everything else.

We are getting some raspberry rootings this week, and I'm so excited that we'll have raspberries again. So I've got a 90 foot row to dig, fertilize, and mulch when they arrive. I found a great deal on some new strawberry plants on eBay to replace the ones that did not make it for some reason. I hope the soil is fine. But two of the varieties I had planted gave up the ghost very early. We got 50 strawberry plants for only 12 dollars. I'm so glad to have put them in the ground, so we have a better chance at a good berry harvest next year.

I found a place that I can order grapevines from next spring at only 3 dollars each. That's an amazing price. If I am able, I will rip out all 112 vines that are out there now, and replace them with only 28 Mars cultivars. Mars vines have the greatest resistance to black rot, so it would cut down significantly on the amount of slaving away in comparison to actual ingestion of grapes. Ratios. This is why I studied Algebra.

I'm rooting blackberries for sharing and replanting next spring. Having another go at rooting figs. Oh, that reminds me, I still need to cover them for winter. Yiketh already.

And lady bugs wars are on. With the warmer sunny days in the 60's, it's prime breeding weather. Today we finally succumbed and sprayed all around the doors with Raid - garden fresh scent, of course. So you can lie to yourself all the way to your death bed. It could not be helped. I was spending an hour a day, just trying to keep up on vacuuming them up.

OK, Lots more going on, but without photos, it's just no fun to write about them, and harder still to illustrate how we are doing things, so I'll leave it with this:

Thanksgiving - 17 days
Days begin to get longer - 41 days
Christmas - 47 days
Get out your seed catalogs - 57 days
Average daily temp begins to level and climb - 60
Order your seeds - 71 days

Not long at all until those crocus are pushing up.

~Faith

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Yawn....... Update request?

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UPDATE - I would like to add some comfrey and Echinacea to my herb garden. Does anyone have some roots and/or dried flower heads they would be willing to send to me, if I pay postage?

Back to the original post! :o) ~~~

Sorry, that was the best title I could come up with this morning.

It was a big weekend, despite there being two Shabbats to enjoy, they were busy ones spent in our very favorite way, with friends. I wish I had lots of photos to show you, but honestly, I was too busy just sitting around talking and I missed most of the adventures.

However, there was a little work to be done before it all began. Friday morning we really tried to get to get the pool deck done, but we hit a snag.

First thing we did was screw down the outermost deck boards, flush with the joists underneath.





The reason we wanted them flush is because we hope to put umbrella holders on the sides, and deck boards sticking past would get in the way.





Then we had to find the center point and mark it, as well as having the boards lined up straight on their ends.





Here, this board is screwed down right up to the center line. Spacing can be a little intimidating, so I usually lay them out and get an idea for how much spacing to go for.





Screwing them in is both fun and aggravating. Fun ~~ who doesn't like to operate power tools? Aggravating ~~ the boards are rarely perfectly straight, and have to be pushed or pulled in various areas as you screw them down so they line up neatly.

In this photo, you can see the garden tool we used as a spacer to hold the boards apart while I shoved on this end and Michael screwed it down quickly.





That ax head makes a nice wedge spacer as well, anything you can find is handy. Oh, and don't you love the numbers on the boards? LOL Michael did not hear me say "pencil" and instead used permanent marker....

Here is one side of the deck where we did not get the spacing right. The old board just would not give enough. At a distance it is not that noticeable...





But up close you can see the end just would not get over enough. We are trying to economize and not buy new boards, so we let this one go.





But at the other end we had three boards that were excessively tweaked as you can see here. There was no amount of pushing and pulling that I could do, feet braced against the poles, that would do the job.





So we had to call it quits and get some new boards when we went to town for office cleaning, gymnastics, and some grocery shopping for the Big War the next day.

Saturday morning, amidst a bit of house cleaning, I quickly planted some Dwarf Grey Sugar Peas, some Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, and a couple of cucumbers.





I don't know how well the peas will do, but I really wanted to try a second crop. I'm hoping with the mulch the beds will be cool enough to see something come of them. This variety is a low bush type, that trellising is not supposed to be necessary for. I will transplant them closely so they support one another.

The lettuce variety is a hot weather resistant type, and is going to be my attempt to grow in the summer, out in the garden area. I may plant them underneath another crop to shade them.

The cucumber plan for the year is to not harvest a bushel a day, like we did last year! So I want to plant just one or two a week, to have a slow but steady supply of salad cukes.

The eggplants are doing great, so far! At least a lot better than I expected. They are withstanding the flea beetles. I believe the mulch is helping. They all have flowers, though they are still on the small side. This is quite an accomplishment here. Usually flea beetles completely prevent the growing of eggplant.





Then we were blessed to have a good supply of friends over for the afternoon and night. Michael had been planning an airsoft war for months, and about 10 young people came to participate, bringing along parents as well.

I wish I'd taken lots of photos, it was a wonderful time, but I was too busy visiting and being spoiled rotten by help!

This brought tears to my eyes. 10 heads out there, all picking strawberries for us. What would have taken over an hour for the two of us, they all swooped in and got done very quickly. I hope they enjoyed a lot of berries while picking, they are so good when fresh.





They brought in 3 large bowls of berries, and we ladies enjoyed chatting and processing them. Then we went out and picked a salad with all sorts of things from the herb garden thrown in. It was fun to pick and choose what flavors to add.

The young people came back from war for dinner, promptly ushered me out of the kitchen, and proceeded to finish fixing dinner for me. I'm so spoiled!

I did manage to snap a couple of shots of only a small portion of the battle paraphernalia strewn about the house and front porch.









Good times!

~Faith

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Thrills, Chills, and Spills

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CHILLS ~ It was actually a little chilly at times yesterday. We LOVED it! When you've got all this hard work to do in the spring, it sure is nice to not be in summer-like temperatures for a change.

THRILLS ~ We finally got the first half of the garden beds covered in old hay for mulch. We got to where we could, for the most part, lift an entire round bale and put it into the little trailer. They are smaller ones, and being rotted a bit, they are not so big, but it sure saved time and got our trips to pick them up and offload them down to about 20 or 30 minutes each.





Now we just have to finish planting the beds. Today!

THRILL TWO ~ Michael is now battling contact dermatitis along with me. Ah, the pleasures of woodsy undergrowth!

We also need to apply the mulch to the herb garden. The early lettuce bed is taken care of so far. I hope the cooler soil and additional moisture retention will encourage sweeter leaves than they've been producing. But these, in combination with the very light and sweet leaves from the bed I planted under the woods, make really wonderful salad greens.





SPILLS ~ Another hour of strawberry picking, could have been less but my feet were so tired it felt like longer.

Michael had gone on before me and, when I arrived, I found he had been awfully, AWFULLY, choosy about the quality of the berries he kept.





That's him, trying to look ashamed.





My lovage is going all crisp on me. Wonder why....?





You think you've gotten away with your lackadaisical berry picking, don't you!





What comes around, goes around. LOL









Nothing like picking them twice!

We called it quits early to meet some friends at the theater for Cheap Tuesday, and saw "How to Train Your Dragon" ~ really enjoyable movie!

Heading back over to process all those berries into the freezer...

~Faith

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Flipping Out

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Thursday began an early start to a busy weekend.

Sometimes I'm fooled into thinking that sage is just some boring ol' plant. Well, it sure showed me, as I was outside doing a little weeding!





I was actually just mosying past everything on my way to pull suckers and weed each grapevine. I don't know if you can see the clusters in these photos or not, but this first one shows what is available from a single trunked vine. A goodly amount...





But grape clusters grow from new branches on older wood, so the more older wood you have... sort of common sense here...





Did you know that the vine produce little tendrils of which some turn into clusters, and others just wind themselves around things to hang on for dear life?

Here's the work I had to do.





And here is my half way done point.





The kiwi vines are really showy with their bell shaped blossoms.





Later in the afternoon, Michael went off for more mulch while I processed about 2 hours worth of berries.





Here's about 1/3 of them.





Don't they look yummalicious?





These were destined to be Ladies Night strawberry shortcake later on in the evening.

Errands and a quick make-up class for Michael in which he was able to do some vaulting he'd not been able to practice for 18 months.





Then he went off with the guys for mens group and we ladies had some fun making a mess with home made cards.













And strawberry shortcake! A gift from God.

~Faith

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Mulching, Planting, Strawberries!

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You should know that a couple of weeks ago I had a discussion with Michael, where I was pretty much ready to quit this huge garden endeavor. I wanted to forget about it, and not try to bring in a big harvest, but just be satisfied with a small garden to get a few things from. Michael actually pushed for the larger garden. He likes the work, enjoys the food, and is looking forward to learning more, doing more, and hopefully being able to sell things at Farmers Markets. So we are sort of cheering each other on through this very busy garden building time.

We are SO proud of this path! The side of that bed is about 18 inches high, and that USED to be right next to the peas, covered in lots of weeds! I hope it stays put fairly well once we get it mulched. I expect some erosion, I've done raised beds before, but never on a hill, so I hope it doesn't turn around and bite me.





First thing after morning chores, we planted melons.





We worked in some holes into the lowest bed that we had mulched.





And labeled 5 different watermelon plantings.





Then it was off to get more rotten hay. Michael does most of this, as I have to avoid the poison ivy.





Which means that in between helping him, I get to find more lovely things to photograph!





Including him.





He's listening to Bible study lessons that he enjoys.

After many trips, and battling an embedded nest of very angry ants in the third round bale we found, we had enough to cover 5 beds.





We also planted the next melon bed toward the house with a variety of muskmelons, including an old fashioned Banana melon.

We were pretty tired - seems to be a theme of ours lately, and we still had office cleaning to do that night.

I thought - HA! - that I could quickly shower and wash my hair while Michael went out and picked a few berries and we might still make it to part of our Bible study first, though.

By the time I was out and ready to go, Michael was nowhere to be found. I saw a bowl of berries in the kitchen, I called inside, I called outside, I went to all the windows and looked in every direction.

Finally, his iPod laden head popped up beyond the tool shed. He was STILL picking berries!

Poor guy. I sent my exhausted child - well, young adult, really - on what I thought was a 10 minute chore, and it turned out to be an hour, while I was enjoying a nice shower! Needless to say, I went out and helped him finish.

Here are 3 gallons of sweet labor. We did not make it to Bible study.





He still loves me. LOL

~Faith

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A Tidy Harvest.

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We are using a combination of herbicides since our weed whacker doesn't work. This year is our first year trying out a 1-Year length chemical. We only spray this under fences where we know we are not going to want anything to grow for a long time. It can't be used under trees, or it can get into the root systems.

Here is the garden fence. We sprayed here about 4 to 6 weeks ago. We ended up moving the fence a little after we sprayed. So far the horses are keeping this part chewed, so I'm not going to worry about it.





I did a little spraying around the house with short term spray, Round-Up, to keep stray weeds from taking over, as well as along the side of the property so the electric fence doesn't short out over there.

Here the berry rows look much neater having been sprayed a couple of weeks ago. You have to be so careful not to get any leaves on your plants. I've actually gotten really good at this and can spray even in the wind and right up close to the plants. So far, so good...





The vineyard never got sprayed for weeds, so we'll try to get to that this coming week.





Michael is taking care of push mowing where ever the riding mower could not be taken. We should get a good crop of those bush cherries and bush plums this year. The frost did not get either grouping.





The hardy kiwi are looking good. I hope another mockingbird builds a nest in there again this year. We so enjoyed watching the babies.





I will really enjoy it if we ever get a crop. But wait, what's this....?





Could we be getting flowers for the first time? I hope so, and I hope that means enjoying some fruit from them this year!





Many suckers need to be cut off from the grapes before we can spray for weeds. Also, with the black rot, you want as dry an area near the vines as possible, so the closer to dirt we can make it below the vines, the better our chances of getting a grape harvest.





This vine is always laden with clusters. It's a European grape, and highly susceptible to black rot. Tasty, but after this year, I am probably going to thin out the grapes in each row to about half. This one may go.





The Doyle Thornless blackberries are getting ready to blossom out.





Getting ready to harvest some Red Sails lettuce. I believe the deep red color is likely due to the abundance of sunshine, as I have another bed in the shade, and it is almost all green.





I decide to take the outer leaves rather than cut the whole plant.





And this is what came from one. About two dollar's worth of organic lettuce. I ended up filling the basket to overflowing.





We can't eat it all, so I just take the biggest for now.









I planted Arugula to go with the lettuce...
Now what? LOL I'm thinking it is probably too far gone.





On my way up to pick strawberries, I get to enjoy the variety of herb blooms.

Chamomile.





Cilantro.





Sage.





Here's that marker stone I was mentioning before. I like them, but there were only four available. I would like to make some for all the herbs, and maybe even vegetables.





The chives are about to go to seed now. I need to build alternate year beds so I can have a cutting bed, and a bed to enjoy the blossoms.





This rhubarb's crown ended up being covered by the time heavy rains came. Once I cleared earth away from it, it got a lot happier and sent up some leaves to match it's sister plant.





The strawberry bed. I believe the sparse section is the one grouping of June bearers we planted.





They produce quite a few berries, but look awful. And, of course, I've forgotten which type we put in. Most of what we picked came from here.





The ever bearers are much healthier looking, and getting ready to gear up for production.





About 4 dollar's worth of berries, but half of them are gone. I told Michael to just eat his fruit while we picked. I like the really ripe ones. He likes the ones that are not quite, in my opinion, ripe. So we've got quite a mix here.





Washing the lettuce and hoping it will dry well enough before we have to leave for office cleaning.





Then a fun evening of barn prep!

~Faith

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