Tea Parties, Tax Days April 15, 2010

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This duty-filled day began with more gardening. It keeps us grounded.

We decided to do onions in the first raised bed. I had four groups of them I'd purchased some time back, but things had never worked out to plant them. Now, on the verge of it being too late, we are giving it a shot.





Tilling it up. Oh, somewhere in here we had another workday with a friend who helped us put up the tomato cage. That's sturdy!





Planted and watered.





Dogwood season!





One Bradford Pear in!





Still haven't found this guy a home yet.





Asparagus beetles have invaded our patch.





They have 3 or 4 generations that hatch, come up on the spears, mate, lay eggs, die, and do it all over again. All this while you are trying to eat yummy spears.

Can you see the little black eggs on the sides of these spears?





Here's what the beetles do to the tops.





I picked all the spears for cleaning the eggs from and eating.





It's dandelion season!





Watering in the third Bradford Pear.





This is a Manchurian Apricot. It was a freebie from a lower quality nursery supply many years ago. It needs a pollinizer so I've never had any fruits from it. But I hope to get apricot trees this fall to add to the orchard.





We planted Swiss Chard at the end of the onion bed. I only went with six this year because last year we had PLENTY of Swiss chard.





It's the Bright Lights variety, so it will have beautiful stem color.





The praying mantis egg sacs have hatched.





Can you see the babies? They are about 3/8 of an inch long.





Those bare root blueberries in cardboard I picked up from Lowe's for 6 bucks are turning into a disappointment. They are about to be dug up and returned.





So we invested in an 11 dollar plant to see how it will do in the same area.





I got my taxes done and in the mail. Then we were on our way to the local Tea Party gathering.





Many friends, AKA terrorist/extremists, if you ask 'some' people.





Look at this vicious girl! I wonder if she feels uncomfortable by all us white extremists? LOL





And our young friend who opened us in ..... ready for this....?

PRAYER!!!!!!

IN PUBLIC!!!!!





All kidding aside, our friends also led us in songs of God and country.





In our conservative town of about 15,000 people, between 400 and 500 came to the rally. We had several speakers and, though people are angry about what is going on, there were no threats of violence or any of the ridiculous things that are bandied about in the media. Some reporters really need to take off whatever it is that is blinding them to reality.













I am at a loss sometimes as to what to pray for the country any more. The best I can do is say, "Your will be done."

We left with friends to spend the day together and have some fun.

Still working, still hoping, still praying, still loving, as madness ensues...

~Faith

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The Birds and the Bees

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We got most everything done on our list last week, but for spraying, again. That will be this morning. Coming back up from picking cherries I chanced upon a VERY busy bumblebee and spent several minutes trying desperately to get him in focus before he zipped off. However, he barely stayed in one spot longer than 2 or 3 seconds, so I was sorely disappointed.





And we found a nest in the kiwi arbor of robins' eggs. I looked at a chart one time of how long it takes bird eggs to hatch and leave the nest. I was amazed. Some are out of the nest in only 3 days! I just tried to find the link but was unable to.





Cherry picking was fun. These are only bush cherries. They are like a mild sour cherry. They did not ripen all at once, so we are going to go pick more today. We also got rained out and had to hide under the bushes for a while, picking the inside.





















Here is the fungus that gets the cherries; Brown Rot. I had to rip out all the sand cherries I had put in years ago. They were so susceptible to brown rot that the entire bushes were a pile of mold. These are not so bad. We just lose a small percentage.





The grapes we will not be able to eat this year, due to spraying. But they sure LOOK great! LOL





The van before:





And getting clean. The car was almost unrecognizable afterwards. LOL





And the exterior windows sure look a lot better! They were pretty gross.





The potatoes are out of control! I've not been getting boards up, and the straw is barely hanging on. One of them has started to flower. I think the rest of the potatoes will go in the ground. I just need a bigger garden plot.





I like to keep my salad fixings all made up. We came up and put together salads worthy of the finest restaurants!









The asparagus forest. You can't see the forest for the spears?









If you've never smelled fig leaves, they are so uniquely scented. I visited my folks and their fig tree yesterday. It too had not fared well this winter. Just one of those years...





Laying out the string to mark where the new locations for the posts on the greenhouse will be.





I am really not looking forward to digging those out and moving them. One of those chores that I'll have to force myself to do.

Oh, yes. Our list for today:

DONE - Finish mowing goat pen
DONE - Mow around compost bins
DONE - One hour work on rocks
DONE - Pick more cherries
DONE - Pick more peas
DONE - Pick more strawberries
DONE - Pinch runners
DONE - Clean off patio
DONE - Put away sprouting stuff
DONE - Water lettuce
DONE - Plant more lettuce
DONE - Cover lettuce box with wire
- Re-pot houseplants
DONE - Prune/Tie grapes
DONE - Spray grapes
DONE - Tie up blackberries
DONE - Spray fence lines


~Faith

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Yay! We Are Finally Gaining Ground!

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Today we actually had down time. We still have a lot of work to do, no question, but it's at the point now where the work can begin to be planned, rather than dragging us around like accidentally getting caught on a bumper and trying to keep your feet underneath you at 60 mph.

We got a lot of fertilizing and cultivating done. We planted most of the last of the herb seeds I'd not gotten to yet. We also straightened up the house a little bit, knowing we'd be gone much of the day tomorrow. I really hate coming home to a messy house.

I missed showing our first lettuce harvest about 4 days ago.





It's nice but we did not notice until putting it away in the house that the leaves were covered with tiny little green gnats. If I don't figure out how to wash them out of all those delicate little green leaves, we are going to be getting protein we didn't bargain on.





I also missed relating about our mint mishap. Isn't this beautiful? We worked so hard, getting in these newest beds of various herbs....

Not so fast. Michael accidentally grabbed a MINT flat instead of a nice tame, laid back Italian herb.





Here is what was SUPPOSED to go in! LOL





So we had to dig it all out again and plant in the other. We had been trying to decide where to put these mints for a long time. But finally, we just were ready to forget about them. We recycled most of the flats and just put a few in pots to keep them contained. We have common, lemon, spear, and peppermints here.





Back to today....

The birds have been eating our strawberries. This is the first one we got, and Michael shared it with me.





A sage we put in.





And though I had a packet of lavender seeds, even freezing them, I never tried to plant them, but chickened out and bought this at WalMart.





I don't think I had shown our upper crops yet. Here is one end of our asparagus bed. Impressive, right?





Well, here's the other end. LOL Not enough care. Perhaps this fall I can give it the manure and straw it deserves.





I'm really sad that my hardy figs died back to the ground again. That means no crop again this year. I did not think it was that cold, but apparently it was. I don't like dried figs much, but I love fresh. They will produce two crops, a spring and fall, but our season is not really long enough, so if you don't have fruit producing wood ready to go in the spring, you won't get a crop. These new branches will grow figs, but when frost hits, they'll still be green, small, and unripe.





You can bury them, but it's more work than I want to do right now. Here's some new growth.





Blackberry plants; The Good -









The bad -





And the ugly. Anyone know why leaves in only a few selected spots turn vivid yellow this way? I fertilized them, but I don't think that's the problem.





And Michael's friendly lizard.





Too many posts in one day! And I've picked up poison ivy again. Bummer.

Faith

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