Sunny Morning Chores with Beet Pulp.

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My citrus grove, happily enjoying a new flush of growth, due to some fertilizer.





I am just enjoying the light. Forward lighting can take a back seat today.





Thaw is in full force. Not real warm yet, but the sunlight is hard at work.





Is there any breakfast today?





Why yes, as a matter of fact. There is!





Beet pulp!





Stirring up in some warm water. Don't want to take any chances, even though the information of dry versus wet is still a bit conflicting.





Oh, yes. Warm, sweet, tasty, healthy, fibrous, metabolism-boosting, lovingly prepared beet pulp. Just for you!





Breakfast is served!





Is this for me? You are too kind!





This is new. What is it? Mom, come on over and try this.





What is this slop?





Maybe this one is better.





Nope, same stuff. I don't like it, do you like it?





Maybe the 20 dollar a bale stuff will come on the next delivery. We're not eating this!





Tune in next time for "As the Stomach Takes Turns" when the ruminants arrive and happily enjoy this same meal four times as much.

I'll trade two horses for a Dexter cow! Any takers?

~Faith

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A Photo Montage

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For 2011, I've decided to look at the world in a whole new way.





Maybe not. I can see the plates go flying on the way to the dining room.

On Shabbat the sunlight hit the greenery we have still not put away, intensifying the colors. The lovely golden hue that was there was lost however.





Michael, testing and finding the roads still providing the perfect skating medium for shoes. Not so good, though, for driving to rehearsals and office cleanings. We went anyhow, very carefully, but there were many wrecks all over town, including in front of us.





I had dug up our pepper plants to save for next year. They lost all their leaves, but had grown lots of new ones. We took them out on days above freezing, and brought them in before frost hit. Until one night we got home too late. I'm hoping they'll come back.





Brrrrrrr.





The horses were shivering, poor things.





A snow angel from the day before.





Photographing used children's clothing for ebay is using up a lot of my time. I can see this is a poor return on my time, but I am grateful for any income at this point. Now, if I can just figure out how to get them up and selling.





Michael is still getting used to the fact that these are indeed, man shoes.





And yesterday, after foraging food for the horses from where ever we could scavenge it from, making snow angels, and having a snowball fight. We did a little outdoor work, planting grass seed.





I'm told that during snow is the best time to broadcast seed. You can not only see where and how much you've strewn, but as the snow melts, it pulls the seeds into solid contact with earth, and next spring it should do very well. This is Kentucky 31 blend, only good for the sunny side of the house.





I hope this old seed is still viable. We've tried to thicken up this grass for years, and it doesn't like to grow. I'm thinking something tall, thick and lush would be mighty fine. Except for mowing. OK, a modification; thick, lush and green. And bad bug repellent. And....

Slap!

Realistically, the days are getting longer. And we have passed the official date where the northern hemisphere begins to gradually warm up its average temperature. Hold on, any faint of heart, we are on the upswing!





There's no place like Figi. There's no place like Fiji. There's no place like Fiji.

~Faith

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So Close, and Yet, So Far.

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Such tasty, mouth-watering steaks!





But when they are still on the hoof, and not your own... you must resist.

"Mom! The cattle are over here again!"
"Go chase them back and repair the hole."





"Mom! The cattle are over here again."
"Go chase them back and find the other hole and fix it."

"Mom! The cattle are over here again!"
"I thought you fixed the holes."
"There's no more fence left. It's all down."
...sigh...

These cattle belong to our nice neighbor, who is very busy, and trying to work full time while taking care of many acres of land. He's helped us a lot in the past few years.

We had half a roll of barbed wire, so we went up the hill to put up fence.

Problem was, Michael had the flu. Poor guy, up there working on fencing with me with a fever, body aches, and exhausted. We did about 75 feet of fenceline, good and tight.





This is no easy task. The scrub trees have completely overgrown the fenceline, so you have to hack them away first.





And saw off the branches that are too thick for the loppers.





Then we returned to the house, grateful we had the supplies to do it, and got Michael some rest.

That night we did not go to Bible study, as you can lose a lot of friends sharing the flu bug. On top of suffering FROM the disease, having people glare at you while they are curled up in a fetal position is a real downer. The plan was to just go do office cleaning, get home, and get to bed early.

"Mom, the cattle are over here again!"

AAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!

I'm OK. Really.

I'm hoping to take care of this quickly. I mean, we'd just repaired a lot of fence. It had to be a small issue, right? RIGHT?

I head up, to chase the cattle back through. They see me coming. It's like the showdown at the OK corral. Only neither one of us is OK. Most of them give their point of entry away...

"Look! The strange creature on two legs is coming! She looks really mad this time. Let's get outta' here!"

I see it. It's a small place. But one cow freaks. It's young. It's stupid. It's buzzard bait as far as I'm concerned. It sails past the hole, and foolishly heads toward the brand new fencing we just put up earlier that day.

Those of you who do not know cows might think, "Good. She'll see the new fence, figure it out, and head back to the hole with her good-for-nothing buddies."

WRONG!

Not only would you be discounting the amazing lack of brain that exists in the common cow, but you do not know one vital piece of information. You see, the broken fence is on a steep slope. On their side, it's 5 feet high, but on our side, when the cow looks at the fence as the only obstacle between her and, "Sanctuary!" (Done in my best Hunchback of Notre Dame imitation.), it's only about 2 feet high. I smell impending doom a mile away. So I go past, up the hill, and around to gently encourage her back this way, before all hell breaks loose.

Sadly, my extremely helpful and sick offspring was not aware of all this when he came up after me to help. You guessed it. He came through the thicket, and that cow went straight through 5 strings of freshly fastened barbed wire.

Oh, she didn't feel a thing. She was quite satisfied with herself. It was all I could do not to spit nails. Needless to say, our plan of getting home early for rest was out the window.

The new hole? They had actually decided to simply shove between the trees and break the old wire strands. That's bad news. That means they've learned the most evil trick a farm animal can learn. If you push on it long enough, it will break. This is something you NEVER want a farm animal to figure out.

I was trembling in fear. I'm out of barbed wire, and all the farm supply shops are closed by now. Oh, did I mention that all 30 head were milling about behind me, just waiting for me to leave so they could come over again?

Oh, yeah. It's raining.





Did I also mention that we had already robbed our incredulous horses of their own mineral block and sacrificed it over the fence to the cow gods?





They'd already licked most of it in the last two days anyhow. We'll buy the horses a fresh one this week, but I'm not sure they'll ever trust us again. And I'm pretty sure they hate cows, too.





Oh, and another little tidbit? My sister was in town from out of state, and my uncle, whom I've not seen in decades, too. I did not get to go see them. I was busy with precious little mooing things.

WHAT are you looking at?





And the age old question. "Why?"

They have a hundred acres of lush grass. Just look at this!





What do they see when they look at our side? Nothing but a line of scrubby trees.









They have water. Apparently not as tasty as our water, though. And we've already sacrificed our mineral block. We don't have enough grass for two horses, but 30 head of cattle want to chomp the life out of every bit of our soil before returning home. I guess it's like eating out; not as good as home-cooking, but more fun.

Here's the line where they wait to get in. Notice the lack of vegetation due to the milling about.





It is at this time I realize this post is getting long. But this is my WATERLOO! Custer's Last Stand!

Now, where was I?

Oh, yes, trembling in fear...

They'd broken the four strands of rusty barbed wire that were strung between two trees, about 3 feet apart. I had little hope at this point of convincing them they should not do this. Several of them are part Longhorn. They look to be a Longhorn/Angus cross. Nice... tasty... cows....

With horns, they learn to hook things and it doesn't hurt at all. Great for them, bad for us.





(Ah, I see I missed one of the sneaky buggers, head down, in that photo.)

I had just enough wire to cover the last 20 feet of fenceline where there were several bad places, but no time to clear it. So I cut across the corner, and prayed it would hold til the next day when I could go buy more wire and get home to do it properly.





It held, though I know they were plotting something anyhow.
WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT!





Upon coming home the next morning from town, where tons of things went wrong, and actually ended up sobbing in front of my strong, yet impressionable young man, and had to go shopping with sunglasses on, I sent him to work on his schoolwork and I proceeded uphill to fix that fence or die trying.

Just start lopping where we left off yesterday.





The horrible thing about scrub red cedar is that is grows everywhere. However, the GREAT thing about scrub red cedar is ~ that includes in the fencelines. So you have naturally occurring posts that will just continue to get more and more numerous as the years go on. So I didn't need any posts, just wire and fence staples.





When I'd just about cleared the last 100 feet of line, my dad and uncle arrived. Dad was able to leave mom for a while with my sister, and my uncle declared this was the only way he was going to be able to see me. It was like the cavalry. Wasn't their motto "Always in the nick of time" or something?

Lopping through 2" branches was a lot more fun when someone with muscles was doing it, so I let them finish that up, as well as the sawing, while I used the pruning shears. And it no time, we were ready to begin stringing.









It's done. And I've not seen hide nor hair of those cattle ever since.





Good fences make good neighbors! (That's the country motto.)

~Faith

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I Have A New Television Hit Show

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What do you get when you cross a cooking show competition with surprise ingredients with a show about gardening?

You have my new hit, "Garden Chef Smack Down".

You have chefs enter the simple home gardens of commoners, such as I. They must create a scrumptious feast out of all the ingredients that are ripe that day. And you can't make condiments from them. They must actually be combined into a meal, using all the produce and leaving nothing out.

They can use any herbs they like, if they cannot find them in the garden there.

We can have all kinds of fun with this one. We can surprise them with a live chicken to butcher. How about 40 pounds of cukes, all at once? Hopefully they won't ""smack any gardeners down for planting 20 zucchini bushes.

Yesterday was my first attempt to succeed at yard sailing. I sailed over to one yard that was advertised as a "huge" yard sale, open all week, with piano, organ, keyboard, laptop, and years of household items!!!!

We got there early. 7:30 am and parked at the side of the road. Great opportunity to do schoolwork. The weather was pretty nice compared to lately.





But the promised trucks of stuff never showed, and we sat there for 2 hours, waiting for her to open up.





Turns out, no piano or keyboard for sale, the laptop was way too much money for way too little, and I ended up spending 80 cents on a couple of clothing items. I am still clueless as to this phenomenon.

However, it was great to get school work done early yesterday. It felt like old times - up early and school done by lunch! WoooHOOOO!

Michael celebrated by throwing some knives.





We have been behind on keeping the barnyard cleared, so on the way down to pick up some t-posts for today's project, we brought the mower and the weed sprayer to take care of the V.V. - Vast Vegetation.

Whoops! Our wire that holds the trailer to the hitch since we lost the pin broke as I was driving.





Aha! A bolt! Why didn't I do this before...?





The horses have been doing much better after the Endure and Freedom products, so I'm really glad for them that we got it.





Having collected up the t-posts and post driver and dropping them off at the lettuce row, we began working inside. Michael handled unrolling the 50' clothesline coil we bought for 4 dollars, so he could cut it in half.





And I began sewing this stuff. The least expensive landscaping fabric WM had; a 3 by 50 foot for $9.99.





I cut it to about 23' feet in length, and sewed two pocket hems along both edges to slide the covered wire through.





And here you can see several views of how we tied the wires to the posts, creating a shaded area for the lettuce bed. Fortunately, the bed faces exactly south, so directing the fabric could not have been easier. We can access the bed from the north side and the sun will not touch the lettuce except for the early morning and late evening time.





I do not expect this to last more than one season, but to replace what will rot will only cost 5 dollars a year. We did consider a more traditional hoop setup, but I was trying to go cheaper. We'll see how it works out.

Here's the baby lettuces. Shade growing here is an experiment, and I'm hoping to succeed in getting lettuce year 'round by the time I'm done.





We did not run the whole length of the bed, as the clothesline was only a 50' foot length, so it's 23' foot, with another 10 feet maybe to use otherwise.





And here's a good view after the the sun made an appearance. I am concerned about wind and rain. We clipped the fabric to the wire, but a good strong wind may overcome it. Rain may possible weigh it all down. We'll have to keep and eye on it. I'm wishing I'd set that more horizontally.





Yesterday's harvest: Eggplant, peppers and tomatoes.





Speaking of which, I'm not really happy with the tomatoes progress. Still, I guess they can do more growing.





Swiss chard.





I washed all of this up and Michael offered to put up a cucumber trellis.





Great job! Now if we can only get them to grow...





All I can say is that I guess the ground is not yet fertile enough. However, I hope that if we can continue mulching, we'll get a good bit of earthworms in here and the soil will improve steadily.

I'm pleased with the leeks. I hope they do well wintering over in the beds, so I can have leek soup all winter.





And it's been a wonderful year, comparatively, for the Brussels sprouts and eggplant.





The peas are done. We did not get many, what with the very warm spring temperatures.





He loves his swimming time.





We had wonderful fellowship time with friends at Bible study again last night, before we headed off for office cleaning. We are almost through Romans and I'm really glad the group has decided to do a Torah study I've done in the past. That begins in a couple of weeks.

I hear shouting.... Oh, that's the cherries and gooseberries calling.

~Faith

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