Gardening update

Hubby finally got the garden rototilled and then I planted my potatoes.  Then I planted some peas in between the potatoes (they are supposed to be good companion plantings together).  We have cabbage, celeriac and tomato seedlings almost ready to go in.  Have to wait another couple of weeks to be past the last frost date here.

The chickens are really putting out the eggs.  This is their third year.  Hoping they live and lay for a while since we don't plan on getting any chicks for a year at least.

The blueberries and cherry trees have lots of buds.  Keeping my fingers crossed that we will have lots of cherries this year as last year there were lots but they all dropped off...:(  Not too worried about the blueberries, they are soooooo prolific every year.

Hanging clothes

Note to self:  Hanging clothes on the line in 33 degree weather is not a great idea.

Not much happening here.  Can't wait to plant our garden.  How about you?

Long time no see

Yep I'm back again.  I've been busy just doing day to day things.  I've been selling things on Ebay and getting rid of other things just to get ready for the cabin adventure.  I've been sewing a lot and knitting a lot too.  Here are some pics:

Some socks for me.

Thought I better start making some socks as ours are getting rather hard to mend anymore what with all the holes :)  Next on the needles are some socks for hubby.  I also have on the needles a sweater for hubby and another one for myself.  Yes I multitask LOL.

Don't know if you can see this but I wanted to show you how to piece batting on something you are quilting.  You line up the pieces and sew them together.   

It's an excellent way to use up scrap batting for small wallhangings or table toppers.

This is the batting all sewed up and ready for my table topper.

And here's the top of the table topper.  I have since finished this.  Need to get a pic of the finished topper for you.  To make this topper you need 5" squares and 2 1/2" squares.  Place the smaller squares on opposite sides and sew from corner to corner (you can mark them on the back but I just winged it).  Cut off the excess triangles.  (Don't throw these triangles away.  I have an idea I'll share in a later post)  I squared them up to measure 5" and then tried out the placement on the table to see how they looked the best and then sew them together.  I used a 5" border. I used two packages of precuts for this and had plenty left over to make another one plus.  The squares I used weren't even from the same designer but I think they look great together.

On the home front, our chickens have started laying again.  Boy did we ever miss our home grown eggs.  We were getting them from an Amish farm but their eggs just didn't even compare to ours.  They keep their chickens penned up and ours have access to fresh grass - big taste difference!  We've been juicing and drinking our green juice every chance we get.  I give the pulp to the chickens.  They do not like carrots and their run is looking a little orange ;) but they do like the greens.  I even had some chard and parsley growing in the garden so pulled some chard leaves for the chickens and juiced some of them for us too.  I picked a little bit of the parsley (left some to grow) and dried it.  mmmm parsley potatoes mmmm.

I started some seeds and the plants are up and just waiting to get bigger and the weather to cooperate so I can plant them.  The weather today is pretty yucky.  It's turning colder and it's raining.  Last week we were over two inches above normal for the year.  Hope it keeps up and we have no drought this year.  I have to wait for a sunny day to hang my clothes out on the line so I did them yesterday since it was so beautiful out but the week before I had almost two weeks worth of laundry.  No fun doing that much laundry.  Took me all day.  

Cabin News-  We burned a lot of brush and small twigs.  We pulled up some rotten tree stumps but need to take our saw with us next time so we can cut some of them out.  The wet weather does help with this kind of job.  It would have been so much harder if the ground would have been really dry.

I guess that catches you up on my life, how's yours been?

Assorted pics from June and July

Here are some of the girls, furred and feathered.  Yes Penny thinks she's a chicken now.  She cries to go out with the girls.  Maybe they have meetings? LOL.  That bush on the right is a cherry.  Had lots of blossoms and even had some cherries but they all fell off. :(  The building in the back is the chicken feeding center.  The girls use it in the winter to get out of the cold too but just the feathered girls, Penny stays inside if it's too cold ;)

Here is Roxy and Penny looking to get in.  

Here are some of the blueberries and potatoes fresh from the garden.  You know how I was complaining of too many blueberries, well I should have kept my mouth shut because then we went into a severe drought and all the unripe blueberries wilted and died on the bushes.  

I canned some pickled beets.

This was the sky one afternoon.  So pretty I had to take a picture of it.

We had lots of grapes.  These are concords.  Hubby had fresh grapes for a couple of days.  What he didn't eat we gave to the chickens.  No I'm not too crazy about grapes.  I did make three quarts of grape juice though and it turned out pretty good.

Drought, ice age and other thoughts

The recent drought, which isn't so recent as we have been in drought conditions for years, got me to thinking about history and I remembered I had read about the little ice age back in the 1300's.  Now I didn't learn about this at school I learned this on my own about 25 years ago.  So here is a link for info on the little ice age:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age  and here's another link:  http://www.eh-resources.org/timeline/timeline_lia.html

and here is some info on the Medieval warm period which happened before the little ice age:


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Warm_Period

Makes you kinda think doesn't it?  Although the scientists don't say whether there was widespread drought before the little ice age, they could have had a drought before it and history always repeats itself.

If you don't think this drought concerns you, think again.  Everything and I mean everything that you eat is going to go up in price as well as everything you buy because of the ethanol in the gas so it will cost more to ship things to you.  If you have a family or even if there is just you, please start buying more food NOW while the prices are reasonable.

Also if you only think this is happening to the US, think again because there is drought all over the world and who do you think they get most of their grain from?  hmmm?  Us and Russia and Russia has had a severe drought too.  The price of meat will go down because the farmers won't be able to buy food for their beef, chicken, pigs and fish because of the shortage so they will sell off the herds and us consumers will benefit for the short term.  Notice I said for the short term because as soon as all that meat is processed then there will be a shortage of meat and the price will skyrocket.  So if you have a freezer or can please do so for you and your family.  If you have dogs or cats, you should be buying canned food in bulk.  Anything you can buy in bulk buy and store.  It's better to have too much than not enough when times are bad.   Oh and if you think I made a mistake about the fish guess what, they feed soybeans to farm raised fish so there you go.  Grain isn't the be all and end all either.  Our ancestors didn't eat a quarter of the grain we do and their animals didn't either.  If you diversify your food sources, you will survive.  They knew it back then and we need to learn it now.

Sorry this has been such a depressing post.  I wouldn't have written it if I didn't care and I do.

Little update

GARDEN/HOUSE:
We finally got rain.  I could hear the plants and trees sighing, no actually I could, really.  The seeds we planted while waiting for rain all came up so looks like we might be having some cukes and beans after all.  DH has off this week and we are going to do some work around the house.  We want to finish the floors in the living room and two small bedrooms.  And we are going to tear out the carpeting in our bedroom and put down laminate in that room as well.  We also have to do all the closet floors.  Then DH is going to till the garden again and we are going to plant some more seeds for our fall garden.  We have never planted a fall garden so this is all new to us.  With the drought, there was one nice thing.  Not very many bugs.  But then there weren't very many plants either LOL.

I have been getting a lot of little peppers and tomatoes off the garden.  I have been freezing them until I have enough to can up some sketti sauce.  I found a recipe for hot sauce I want to try since the peppers that survived are all hot ones.

KITCHEN:
I actually canned some plum preserves the other day.  DH saw them and decided to buy them.  We brought them home, he tasted one and said they are sour and hard as a rock.  Yep he was right they are sour and hard as rocks.  After spending a couple of hours pitting and chopping them up, I told him do not EVER get these again.  My fingers were sore until the next day.  But and here's the thing, they made wonderful preserves.  I had to taste test them before they were canned LOL.  I put them in the slow cooker and let them go on high for about four hours.  That softened them up.  I still didn't use all of them either so I was thinking maybe I could put them with another fruit (blueberries or boysenberries since I have lots in the freezer) and make some jam.  Has anyone done this before?  I think they are Damson plums but I'm not sure.

I got some green peppers from the Amish last week and cut those up and put them in the freezer so I can make my grandma's pepper relish since we are on the last jar of that.  When I make up a batch it usually lasts a couple of years.  At this rate I won't have to make up any relish or jellies/jams/preserves for at least 2-3 years.

I also have all those potatoes I got from the garden.  I'm thinking of canning most of those up.  I had canned some store bought potatoes in the fall and those were real handy to make some hashbrowns for breakfast.  I also have a bunch of hamburger I want to can up too.  I don't want to wait until we loose electricity and then say I should have canned it up.

CHICKENS:
The girls are doing fine.  We had been giving them watermelon and had a fan on them during the heatwave.  Maybe we were giving them a little too much watermelon cause they kind of got the squirts, poor things.  We have two that we are going to have to clean their butts up.  This is something that we always look forward to...next flock we get will be handled more cause chasing chickens is not a lot of fun.

CATS:
The cats are doing great except Roxy who seems to be feeling his age lately.  Penny is loving the outdoors and in all that heat she wanted to go out but she wouldn't come in when you called.  Crazy girl!  And she crawls under the door to the chickens fenced in area and stays with them.  I don't know maybe they have a girl get together :)  Tikki has been his lazy self but has been jumping up on the bed after DH leaves in the morning so I can make a fuss over him.

QUILTING:
I worked on a small quilt and got most of the quilting done on it.  I just have to bind it and it will be done.  I also started quilting on another one and almost have that done except the binding.  I knitted up a little pair of footies for me.  I only had one little ball of yarn in this particular colorway and thought I would try to make a pair.  I even had a little bit left over.  The ball only had about 200 yards in it which isn't quite enough to make a decent pair of socks.  I have a couple of more 200 yard balls in my stash so I think I will be making some more.

READING:
Right now I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin.  It's not bad and really interesting that it was written before the Civil War.  If you haven't read it, it's about slavery.  Some parts kind of slow down the narrative but when you think that the author actually lived during this time and saw these things going on it really makes you think.  I have a lot more to read after I get done with this one.  I checked my Kindle and I have 7 pages of books on there.  Each page is 10 books so that's 70 I have to read.  Like I don't have other things that have to get done...

NEW PLACE:
We called around to see how much it would be to put in a water well.  The two places we called it was going to be over $6000.  Crazy.  Of course, it was just a guesstimate because they really don't know how far down they have to drill but that price was the minimum.  We have a couple more places to call.  Hopefully we can find someone more reasonable.  We have decided to get a little cabin.  We looked at a few and really liked them.  DH is saying now maybe we should have bought a piece of land with a house and well already on it.  I could say I told him so but I won't ;)  He thought it would be cheaper to get a piece of property and put a cabin on it...ummm NO.  We went to Marvin's (a building supply store) today to look around.  And we kept saying we need one of those and a few of those and....you get the picture.  This cabin is just the shell.  If we have extra windows we want to be put in they will put them in for $50 extra but we have to buy the windows.  Marvin's has excellent prices but I told DH that we should check at Home Depot and Lowe's because they have returns and scratched and dented things that they put on sale.  Now of course I know that windows and doors can't be too dented.  You have to be able to open and close them but a few cosmetic scratches doesn't hurt the operation of them and I have seen some pretty good deals before in those stores.  Oh and the well situation, we asked about whether they douse (you know when someone goes around with a stick or two metal rods and locates water) and the one driller just laughed.  Hey if someone can find water and there is less ground to drill through I think we might try it.  Jeez Louise we all aren't made of money.  Anyway I remembered that one of my books in the Foxfire set had something about wells in it so I looked and yes in volume #4 there is all about dowsing and well digging.  So DH and I decided that we will try to douse.  We're not going to dig however.  That can be dangerous.  Wish us luck!  I'll let you know what we find if  anything.

Well I think I caught you up on everything for now.  I hope to get some pics up soon.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Trying to keep you updated...

On Saturday I canned six pints of pickled beets from the beets I got in Ethridge.  I made extra pickling juice cause it just didn't seem like enough so I made double.  I used the extra leftover juice to make pickled eggs.  And I picked more blueberries...I see a theme here.  I haven't done anything with them yet but I will and will post what I make with them.

Sunday was not a very good day.  It was raining well actually misting and I had the window open cause it was warmer inside than out.  I had a puzzle that I had glued and apparently when it gets humid these things curl up, maybe I should have put it in a frame,  anyway I had it on my fireplace mantel.  It was pretty and it was in back of some breakable things.  Yep you guessed it.  Puzzle curled up and breakable things went down on the ceramic tiles that are in front of the fireplace.  I had glass everywhere.  And to make matters worse, one of the things that broke was a temperature thingy that I got for hubby for his birthday.  It was filled with liquid and had these little globes in it that had a temperature on each of them.  When I started to clean it up it smelled like kerosene.  Yuck.  Then I was worried about the floor.  We had laid a laminate floor not too long ago and all I could think was this liquid whatever it is will eat through the finish.  So here I am mopping it up with my cleaning  clothes.  I almost went through all my cleaning clothes.  I wasn't going to try to clean them what with the glass and the liquid all over them.  What was weird was the little globes did not break!  So I saved them.  Maybe we can use an old jar and put them in regular water...don't know if that will work or not but we'll try it and see.  Guess I'll have to get hubby something else to make up for the broken temperature thingy.

 I found a pic of the temperature thingy but the one we had was on a base but its the same otherwise.  Kinda cool thing and hubby liked it.  It did work too.  Doggone

I felt like Dorothy...

Well  not quite but almost.  The tornadoes tore through here on Friday.  They do sound like freight trains or jet planes ask me how I know.  Yep it came close just down the road about a mile in fact.  They didnt declare it a federal disaster area so all those folks will not be getting help from the government to rebuild.  The official numbers for the tornadoes were F1 to F2.  Not as bad as April and it seemed to jump over fields and go right into the rural areas.  I had to go to therapy again today and the roads were open when I left but coming back I had to detour around some roads as they were taking down trees and loading them on trucks.  Just down the road several cement telephone poles were laying down.  The winds just ripped them down.  We lost electric for about 10 hours but that is nothing like losing your entire house.  Several schools were damaged and we lost an entire restaurant down the main highway.  It's just gone, poof like it was never there.  Mother Nature is really having a bad year this year.  This is early for tornadoes and the most in one day that we have ever had since we moved here.  Guess what?  There's another batch of storms rolling in on this Friday.  I think I need to make a nice little place in the closet again ;)

Hope everyone stays safe this year!

A little wind with your walk...

Hubby and I got a really big laugh the other day when it was so windy.  I went to leave the cats outside and the only one that really wanted to go out was Penny.  I opened the door (keeping a firm grip on it) and she started out.  The wind hit her and she crouched down belly walking with her ears laid back like that was going to help LOL.  Doesnt take much to amuse us ;)

If it's really windy and our old cat goes out not only does he lay his ears back but the wind almost knocks him down, poor old thing.  Not much to him but skin and bones.  He still eats and drinks but he's not gaining any weight.  And he cant hear as well so no matter how much you tell him something he just doesnt pay attention (I think all the parents with kids could relate to this LOL). 

It's really windy again today so I'll have to watch when I take the chickens their treat.  Dont want all of it to blow away.  Chickens dont seem to be bothered by the wind.  It just ruffles their feathers.  I cant believe it is up to 75 today.   Strange, strange weather.  Yesterday we had storm warnings out and there was a storm with some slight rotation with 70 mph winds.  Hope that didnt do anyone any damage. 

I'll try to take some pics here so you can see how our little plantlets are doing and I have gotten some projects done as well and want to show those to you too.

It happened...

We got a freeze last night down to 28.  I havent checked the blueberries but they might be OK.  DH said that they only had little buds on them. 

Big commotion out in the coop this morning and we're up to three eggs today!  Yay!  We have golden comet chickens and they are pretty noisy (proud) when they lay an egg.  We have three laying boxes out in the coop and of course they all want to lay in the same one at the same time it seems LOL.  I take them a treat every day in the afternoon.  Today they got some spinach and grapes.  They go bananas for grapes although there are a couple that just love the spinach.  There isnt much green out there so not much to nibble upon.  I went out with DH in the early evening.  He likes to see them before they go to bed and it relaxes him after putting in a long day at work.  Lucy wouldnt go up on his shoulder while I was out there.  I think she has a thing for DH ;) 

The cats are out except for Tikki who has decided that the only time to go out is in the early morning and after dark.  He has such delicate skin and is so worried about getting sunburned LOL. 

Hope your day is going great!

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Peepers

We heard the first peepers last night.  Hope they dont get frost bitten cause it's supposed to freeze tonight.  Crazy frogs were jumping all over the roads last night.  Hubby was trying to miss them and actually did but you know the person behind us didnt try to avoid them. 

Our blueberries have buds on them.  Think we will have to kiss them goodbye with the frost coming tonight but hope not.

Has anyone started their seedlings yet?

I went, I saw and I conquered...

Well not really but I did go to therapy again today.  Boy oh boy did she hurt me but I can move my shoulder better tonight.  I have to go back on Wednesday and got new exercises to do tomorrow as well.  Yippee...yuck. 

Our chickens are giving us about two eggs every other day and look like they are out of molt now.  Our friendliest one, Lucy, also known as Lucy-Goosey, has a new trick.  Hubby likes to go out and pick her up and she must like it too because if you dont pay attention to her she pecks your leg.  Anyway she was being held by said Hubby when she flapped her wings and flew up and landed on his shoulder.  She is a character.  She also has gotten up onto his head before and pecked (very lightly) his hair.  She has pecked my leg before if I dont pay attention to her too but she likes Hubby better I think LOL. 

We had severe storms last night and there is still flooding in parts around our area.  I guess the almanac was right when they said we were going to have a wet winter.  I sure wish that some of the rain would hold off until summer though cause that is when we really need it.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Well that went well...

Went to therapy and they hurt me.  I expected that though so no problems.  I got diagrams of the exercises I am to do twice a day.  My shoulder actually doesnt hurt so much this evening especially after I did a second set of exercises but boy did that wear me out so off to beddy bye for me.  I know its late but I had to catch up on some of this work cause those darn fairies did not do anything while I was away today.  I'm up early in the morning to work some more (gotta pay for that therapy).

We're getting some storms blowing in tonight and tomorrow morning.  Hope everyone is not getting too much snow where you are! 

Just checked my stats.  Sure do have a lot of people from the US that read my blog along with people from Russia, France and Germany and many other countries.  It really is a small world isnt it?  I appreciate each and every one of you that read my blog.  Dont all be lurkers though, let me know what's on your mind.

Sleep Tight!
Denise

What strange weather...

Very very strange.  Yesterday we had severe thunderstorms and flooding and today we had snow and falling temps.  There is ice on the roads too. 

News on the home front:  Two chickens are now back to laying not just one like before.  We are up to two eggs every other day YAY!  Had to resort to some store bought eggs for a month there but back to really good eggs now.  Now if we could just get the mud out of their run.  Nothing like sinking an inch when I go to feed them.  It's like glue too.

Hot, hot, hot

Yes it officially (by our thermometer) hit 101 today at 5:30 pm.  When it dropped 4 degrees, hubby said to break out the coats it's cooling down!

Not keeping you up to date...

And I am very sorry about that.  Let's see...We transplanted our little pepper, tomato and parsley seedlings into our garden on Saturday after DH rototilled it again.  I planted some more little flowers last week and they came up and are outside hardening off.  I also planted some more veggie seeds inside on Sunday and they are coming up now too.  DH got two grafted tomato plants in the mail on Friday and boy did they look straggly but after planting them in some bigger pots and watering they look pretty good now.  Turned the air conditioner on yesterday for the first time this year.  We are having a mini heat wave right now.  Yesterday it was in the high 80's and today it is in the 90's with a lot of humidity.  Then we are supposed to have a front come through and get some rain and then it will be cooler (in the 70's). 

We pulled a couple of onions and a garlic to see how they were doing.  DH chopped them up and used them in speghetti.  They tasted really good - not too hot or strong.  They arent ready to all harvest yet though.  The garlic didnt have any bulbs just one big one.  Looked like an onion.  I harvested some of the collard greens Monday and cooked them up.  Since I'm the only one who likes them I canned the remainder yesterday.  They really taste good.  Not mushy like the canned versions in the stores.  I only got three pints but that's enough for me.  DH doesnt know what he's missing. :)

I'll post some pics later.  And I'm going to try to post some tips for surviving without electricity.  I think that might be interesting to some of you.

Talk to ya later!

Denise

We're OK

The recent storms and tornados that hit Alabama last week only took our electricity away.  We were very lucky.  The F5 passed to our south.   Please keep praying for the victims of these storms.  They are I'm sure having a hard time dealing with everyday life now.  How do I know this?  Because in 1996 we lost our house in a flood.  It was just swept away.  We only had our vehicles and the clothes on our backs.  We were really humbled by the outpouring of love and support from our friends and family during that time.  You really find out who are your true friends, too.  The folks who lost everything during the tornados are just realizing that the only thing that they will really miss are the things that cannot be replaced, people that are gone, animals and pets that are too and pictures that cant be replaced.  The "things and stuff" that you had arent really all that important.  Things dont make you who you are either. 

We just got our electric back yesterday so this is the first time I was able to get on blogger to post.  Hope everything is wonderful for all my followers out there in blogland ;)  I really appreciate you!

Talk to ya later!

Denise

Snow

Here are some pics I took during our big snow storm of 8 inches.  It's a lot for down here in Alabama so pick yourself up off the floor from laughing so hard ;)  The pics are also showing off our new fence system (two dog pens put together) and the behind the coop is the little building we built to keep the chicks out of the weather.  That's DH checking on the chicks...

Update on the flooring

On Thursday we started the flooring in the craft/computer room.  Needless to say there was a lot of stuff to be moved out of there.  Hubby just kept shaking his head and mumbling dont know why...:)  Told him not to open the closet (good thing we didnt have to do that floor in there yet).  It is a good reason to get rid of some stuff though.  I even (gasp) got rid of some yarn.   But everything needs to be looked over and either donated or sold.  We didnt get the room done but almost.  It took a lot of time to take off the baseboards, pull up the carpet, pull up the little wooden strip with nails and pound down the nails into the cement.  We have a cement slab and it was easier to pound down the nails than try to pull them up cause if you try to pull them up some of the cement usually comes with them.  Then we laid down the foam (this is for a floating floor) and then I stayed on the floor fitting the pieces while hubby went out and cut the end pieces I needed to complete each section.  It went pretty quick but we tuckered out.  Must have been all the moving out of stuff LOL.  Needless to say we were very sore the next day.  I'm still a little sore.  My upper downer is pretty sore.  Hard to sit down and even harder to stand up.  Getting old and too fat I guess for this kind of stuff.  We are planning to finish up the floor here next week when hubby has another day off and then we will have to go to Home Depot to get some half round to put with the baseboards to make it all look professional.  Will try to get pics but half my "stuff" is in other rooms and I put together my computer just last night. 

The truck still isnt working.  Hubby got a brand new battery but it wouldnt start.  He thinks its the starter.  He has put one of those on the truck before so maybe we will be getting that part and he can put it on when he has time. 

We're supposed to be getting up to 7 inches of snow and if it snows that much he probably will not be going to work.  They dont have snow plows here that I know of and usually use sand on the roads if we get dustings of snow.  It's not the snow that worries my hubby just the crazy people down here that have never driven in it.  Kinda scary.  He works at Kroger and they were so busy yesterday that he had a hard time putting out lunchmeat there were so many people in there.  Its crazy to have to run to the store immediately because of a storm coming but thats what they do.  No planning.  And the things that they buy kind of crack me up.  Its always toilet paper, milk and bread.  We lose electricity your milk will go bad (in the summer) and what they dont need something to put on the bread?  We're set unless we lose electricity but even then we'll be OK.  We have a fireplace and some fake logs.  They dont make much heat but some and if worse comes to worse we can go get a kerosene heater although hubby's sinuses cant take that smell too much.  We have the cats for heat too :)

Has everyone got their seed catalogs yet?  We have gotten so many.  Cant wait for spring!

Talk to ya later!

Denise

It's cold out there

It has been in the 20's all day.  Last night it was down into the teen's but with the wind chill it is a lot colder...

The chick-chicks got a taste of their first snow yesterday and its still on the ground today.  They arent too happy with it and are cuddling in the coop instead...only coming out to guard their scratch from the sparrows who apparently think its free food LOL.  Kinda fun to look out the window and see a chicken chasing a sparrow ;)

Talk to ya later!

Denise