GARDEN CLEANED UP

You don't have any idea how much of a relief this is...it's been weighing heavily on me and the more it got out of control, the more it weighed on me.  I kept thinking, how could we possibly get beyond this?  So I jumped in on this first cool weekend, rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  

I'll share the story in pics (click to enlarge)...

Part of it before...

...and after (peek inside) with a little bit of the outside, where I went ahead and worked on some new planting beds on either side of the entrance gate.

Another before...

...and the same direction after.

And again, before.  Notice the clay pot for frame of reference...

...and here it is after.

This is another before (note the barn for another frame of reference)...yes believe it or not, there really are raised beds in there...somewhere...

...and here it is after.  There are those raised beds after all!!

Raised bed garden

This is such a relief for us.  It was a LOT of work, and yep, I did it all by myself as 2nd Man had to stay in town and work on things for the house sale/eventual move to the apartment.  I was in my element, thoroughly enjoying it...mostly anyway, I won't lie, I did have a few moments where I thought "I just can't finish this..." but I pushed on through.  I would work about 45 minutes at a time and then take 15 minute porch breaks with lots of water.  I had to pull the tall weeds first, and even with gloves, I have blisters on my hands today.  Next, I used 2nd Family's push mower to take down the tall grass that was left.  Then I went back to the beds and pulled everything growing in each one, again by hand.  Finally, I cleaned it all up with the string trimmer.  

After all that, I still had a bit of time to work on some future flower beds along the front of the garden, on each side of the entrance gate.  Eventually, we'd like to have them run along both sides and the rear, but for now, we're OK with just the front.  When I looked back after it was done, I think I had a tear in my eye. 

I really thought this was so out of control that it would take several weekends to clean up but it only took one day.  9am-6pm.  Just like a regular office work day, ha!  I still need to rake up some of the dead grass (or maybe just let it blow away in the wind).  Next season we will order more mulch to put down, but for now, we can pull weeds as they come up...and with cold weather coming soon, they will be much fewer and farther between.  

The garden is back from edge of oblivion!

Tomorrow I'll have a question for all you gardeners...

WEEKEND UPDATE

Such a nice weekend.  Sunny, clear, cool, low humidity...just lovely.  Yesterday was so successful getting the garden cleaned up.  Post coming tomorrow morning with pics, the horrible before and the wonderful after.  It's such a weight lifted from my (gardening) shoulders.  

When I came home after being there all day, 2nd Man had this wonderful pasta dish prepared.  He knows I love pasta (I think I must have been Italian in a previous life, I could eat pasta every day).  This is pasta with a mushroom, pepper and pork cream sauce.  We also had some wonderful bread and a glass (or two) of wine.  It was a good day!  

Today I did stuff around here, to get the house closer to being ready to move when it sells.  Tomorrow we're having stew (cooking today) now that the cooler weather is, sort of, here.  

RATIONING MEANS A FAIR SHARE, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

Most every Sunday, we try to post an image of old posters that we find during online surfing.  We enjoy the ones that reflect farming, gardening and/or food preservation and rationing.  We enjoy them because we often wonder if anyone today would heed the kind of advice they gave back then...enjoy!

Here is an image of a poster from WWII when rationing was put into place to help keep us from consuming as much.  We were not only providing food for our own people but for our soldiers and the Allied soldiers as well.  This one shows how selfish people are without and how happy they are with.  Makes one wonder if society would do this today, doesn't it?

Hope you're having a good weekend.  We are cool and beautiful here.  I got so much done in the garden yesterday (cleaning it up), need to finish up.  Then will just relax for a change.  So much going on lately, it will be nice to just kick back and relax.  More of an update later and I'll be replying to all your comments.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

SATURDAY PLANS

Off to the farm today...the weather is BEAUTIFUL this weekend.  Next week, we are expecting rain, which is OK with us because it is much needed.  

Green farm

Very soon, the yard and property won't be this green...the colors will change, the leaves will drop, and it will be barren for months.

Store firewood display with Halloween decorations

Of course, the last couple of weeks have been in the upper 80's and several times, low 90's...for October!  It is October and Fall decor is out but even in this heat and humidity the stores are stocking up on firewood bundles.

Sadly, we don't have any place that we need firewood for. The farm is all electric and along with the house in town (and soon to be apartment), none have fireplaces or cast iron stoves.

Hope to get the garden cleaned up, CLICK HERE to see what that job entails, and have some things to plant, or at least prep the areas for planting.  We hope you all have a great weekend doing what makes you happy!

ANIMAL CRACKERS GONE WILD

OK...so one of my fave snacks, probably a leftover from my childhood, is animal crackers.

I love having a small box nearby on occasion.  The other day at work, I'm snacking on some as usual when suddenly, I pulled this out of the box:  

Caution!!  

Avert your eyes if you are sensitive to graphic acts of unbridled 

animal cracker lust...

Animal Crackers Gone Wild

What the heck?  

Hmm, maybe one is carrying the other one.  
Yep.  That's it!

Hahahaha!!

YARD ART, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Rusted rings, yard art, image courtesy of Southernliving.com

As we clear more and more spots around the farm property, we look for future ideas for artistic focal points.  We saw this image a couple of years ago and saved it.  I'm not sure what they used for these wonderful circles, but they look really cool.  Sort of modern...sort of rustic...sort of "long abandoned".

We kind of like that look that's kind of blending in a bit but is still a bit of a focal point or something to catch your eye.  Something like this also gives a spot to plant around "on purpose", ha. . 

Be inspired!

SHELVES OR NO SHELVES

Never wanting to be at a loss for storage, we had this set of shelves in town.  We decided to move it to the farm since it wouldn't have a place at the upcoming apartment.  We put it here, about the ONLY place left in the house where it COULD fit, ha.  

It's in the entry/foyer area next to the front door.  

Shelves by front door

Do you think it's too close to the door?  When the door opens, it doesn't bump it but we're just not sure if it's too close?  There is a painting hanging above it and the glass terrarium next to it.  Too crowded?

Thoughts?

RAISED BEDS OUT OF CONTROL

OK...so here is our hidden shame, laid bare for the world to see, ha.  The garden area, which is fenced in of course, has been neglected this season.  First it was the never ending rains of April/May/June.  Then the heat kicked in and it was upper 90's or higher for most of June/July/August.

Do you ever have those moments in life when you walk past a mirror in your house and just can't bring yourself to look at your own reflection?  Maybe you feel you need a hair cut?  Or maybe you feel the need to lose a few pounds?  Or you don't like what you are wearing?  Better to just not see it and then it's not that bad, right?  So I've done that, just not looked in the garden.  Even as I mowed, I mowed around it and looked the other direction.  Of course, letting it go just adds exponentially to much more work later on. 

Raised bed covered in grass and weeds

Well, this is what has happened.  See the picture above?  Yep, there is a 4x4 raised bed in there...I had to draw on the black lines so you could have an idea where it is.  I guess you could call this a "cover crop"...but not the GOOD kind, ha!  This is one of our raised beds.  It reminds us of the TV program "Life After People" that was on a few years back showing how nature takes over so quickly when mankind is not involved.  

Well we weren't involved, that's for sure.

Raised bed kind of cleaned out

BUT...it cleans up after a bit lot of work.  The weeds and grass just pulled right up.  Still had a bit to go on this one.  In addition to the beds themselves, I also had to start on the ground around them.  That's going to take a bit longer.

Mulch covered in weeds 

Here is a section of the mulch.  Wait, what?  Mulch?  Where?  Oh it's there...all it took was a bit lot of pulling and...

Mulch after weeds pulled

...THERE IT IS!  

The good thing is that the weeds are only growing in the narrow space between the top of the weed block fabric that we put down first and the mulch that was put on top of that.  This makes the roots grow laterally in that narrow space and so when I grabbed the base of clumps of grass or weeds, they pulled out in about 2 seconds (while making this oddly satisfying "velcro like" sound).  

So it's coming back, slowly of course, but coming back.  The plan is to go out next weekend and spend both days working in the garden only.  I hope to get all the weeds and grass pulled up, making things look more tolerable (so we won't have to avoid looking at it when we walk by, LOL).  Then I'll just cover the beds with plastic for the winter and I can scratch that off the list...for now!

Anyone else ever let things get wildly out of control?

TEAMWORK, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

Most every Sunday, we try to post an image of old posters that we find during online surfing.  We enjoy the ones that reflect farming, gardening and/or food preservation and rationing.  We enjoy them because we often wonder if anyone today would heed the kind of advice they gave back then...enjoy!

Teamwork, vintage poster image courtesy of NY Public Library public domain

Now if ever there was an old message that was relevant to today (and dare I say, much needed), it's this one.  This dates from WWII and of course focuses on those left at home to help by working together to, we assume, build the infrastructure needed for the war effort.  

If more of society worked together today and had a sense of teamwork, regardless of nationality, group, religion, political differences, etc, it seems like we could get so much more done to solve problems affecting everyone.

Wise words then, wise words now.

Hope you are having a good weekend.  Weather has been hot and more humid than it should be.  As this posts, I'll be at the farm, going to tackle the fence in garden area.  I am embarrassed to say that it hasn't been touch since the endless rains of the Spring/early Summer and then the heat appeared so quickly for the Summer, it was impossible to get much done.  Now, to use the words "out of control" would be an understatement.  The plan is to tack the raised beds, pull all the weeds, and cover them for Winter.  Then maybe when it's cooler, I can tackle the ground around them, where weeds are reclaiming all of our beautiful black mulch.  Sigh.  It's always something. 

More later!

RANDOM NATURE PICS

Off to run in town errands today, tomorrow will be farm day.  I'll be glad when we are not split between three locations.  The realtor has scheduled an open house, so fingers crossed that will prove fruitful for us.  We need to get the house sold so we can pack up and move on to the next phase of our lives, ha.  

So, for today, here are some random pictures that I have taken at the farm the last few weekends.  I love playing with the camera and roaming the property to find the beauty in nature around us (as always, click to enlarge):

We love these white flowers.  They are all over the farm.  I'm not even sure what they are but they add color!  And speaking of color...

...we found these growing together.  I know the purple is a fairly invasive vine, but it is not near anything that it will take over, it's just growing in with the other weeds and a random marigold that we can only imagine just popped up via a dropped seed.  Makes for some pretty color though!

Huisache Leaves

These are the leaves of one of our Huisache trees, fine and delicate and very pretty in the sunlight...

Nature's Bouquet 

Here's another "nature's bouquet" we found, yellow, purple and white all growing together in one spot.

Hope your weekend is off to a good start!  It's warm and humid here but we'll see what we can get done.  

RIP PAUL PRUDHOMME

Paul Prudhomme

The culinary world lost a pioneer.  Many of you may not know him by name, but you may have eaten or at least heard of his creations.  Renowned chef Paul Prudhomme passed away yesterday after a brief illness.

He invented "Blackened Redfish" a dish that became so popular in home kitchens and restaurants, Redfish harvesting was temporarily halted to allow their stock to replenish.

He also popularized "Turducken" to American audiences.  For those who haven't heard of that, it is a deboned chicken stuffed into a deboned duck which is then stuffed into a deboned turkey!  Yep!  If you've never had one, trust us when we say, you are missing out on an amazing culinary experience.

The cajun chef authored 9 cookbooks and hosted a wonderful PBS show that showcased his Southern/Cajun/Creole cooking.  He also created a line of cajun and creole seasonings that have been used worldwide for years.

2nd Man and I hope to take a culinary trip to New Orleans next year and his restaurant will be on our list for sure.

PORCH FLOWERS, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Image courtesy of Southernliving.com

OK, this is probably outside the realm of possibility, at least while we aren't at the farm full time, because I'm guessing this has to be watered CONSTANTLY to stay looking this nice.  But STILL, it's so pretty.  Maybe it's just the Fall and we're starting to miss the bright colors of Spring and early Summer but whatever, they are beautiful for sure.  

I'm not even sure what flowers they all are.  Oh and how I bet the bees would love something like this, ha.  

Be inspired! 

FOUR MILLION PAGE VIEWS

Sometime yesterday, our little corner of the Internet reached a milestone...

When I started our blog a few years ago, this counter was ZERO.   

I still remember when the little counter flipped over to 1 and 2 for the first time.  I told 2nd Man "LOOK!  Someone visited the blog!".  

Then there were 100 and 1,000 and 10,000 and 100,000.  No way we could ever do much better than that, or so we thought.  

Then it was 1,000,000...

And then 2,000,000...

Just last February, we reached 3,000,000!

And now, not quite 8 months later, we have added another million!  That means we are currently averaging 125,000 page views per month.

You cannot even begin to understand what it means to us.  We get a lot of comments from you, some post them here, some email directly to us and of course, many visitors just come, stay a bit, read, and leave.  But you all keep coming back.  

We started this blog as a way to keep track of what we were doing at the farm, starting from scratch.  Thought it might be fun to share with friends and whoever else might want to come along for the ride.  Yet, here we are, four years later, well on our way toward getting to the farm full time.  Along the way, we've shared laughs, we've made friends (so many of you have touched us with personal emails and even surprise gifts that mean SO very much to us), we've shared dreams and hopes, failures and plan changes, even the loss of my Grandfather and our beloved cat Sydney.  We've changed jobs, bought more land, built buildings and fences, cleared new areas and raised vegetables and started beekeeping...and now we're about to move to an apartment downtown, the last step on our journey to the country!

It's been a great ride with so much more to come, we hope you'll hop into the passenger seat (it's a BIG car, LOL!) and stick around for the rest of the journey. 

We do believe it will be time for a giveaway soon in honor of this milestone!  Stay tuned!

SCORED SOME FRUIT TREES

Along one side of the fence in the backyard in town, our realtor told us to get a few plants with some height and put them in a few large clay pots we had.  I'm guessing she was thinking tall evergreens but she never said, so you know me...

...I stumbled onto some fruit tree bargains!  SCORE!  

That counts as tall and sorta green right?

A local garden center had a scattering of plants on "end of summer" clearance.  Most were nothing that we wanted, but as I dug around in the jumble of random bushes and trees, I found these:

Ein Shemer apple tree

One "Ein Shemer" apple tree...a variety that is on our list of trees for our area of Texas.  it's a yellow apple (red varieties just don't grow well here).  We already have one apple tree in the ground, so this will be a second on the property.  The other one has struggled a bit but we're willing to try other varieties and see what works best for us.  It was $5.00.

Plum Trees

Then two plum trees!  They are two of the only three that the county agriculture office recommends for our county.  One "Methley" and one "Santa Rosa".

Also $5.00 each.  

And lastly, I found at another location, a peach tree!  "Texstar" variety, another for our area.  (sorry no pic).

$20.00 for four fruit trees, each about 7 feet tall!

I can't plant them yet of course, that will have to wait, so I placed them in the clay pots and covered the tops with Spanish Moss so they "look" planted.  Hey, a few more fruit trees were on our list of things to do this year so that counts for something.  Win win!  Now I just need to keep my eye out for more.  

Is there such a thing as too MANY fruit trees?  I think in about ten years, we'll probably say "NOPE!", ha! 

WE LOST A HIVE

We knew this was a possibility when we started beekeeping.  Things don't always work out though.  Sadly, we lost one of our hives.

This is "Persephone" hive...I noticed there was no activity around the entrance...NOT a good sign.  So I took the top off...

Empty, abandoned hive

...and found this.  It looks almost like a new hive.  It might as well be because they never even moved up into this "super".  Just a few random bugs that decided an empty hive made a good new home.  

Below is the lower section, called the "brood box"...

Dead hive

...you can see where they built out honeycomb but it was all for nothing.  I tried to do a post mortem on the hive but there was nothing to find.  There were no hive beetles, no invading pests that I could find.

 The hive next to it, "Ariadne" is just fine.

Beehive

Lots of bees going in and out (always a good sign)...

Bee with pollen basket

And here is a lovely lady coming in laden down with pollen doing what she (and the others) are supposed to be doing.  You can stand next to it and literally hear it buzzing with activity.  

So, we're not sure what happened.  The empty hive was just that, empty, abandoned.  A few dead bees in the bottom but not the hundreds you'd expect to find. It is not unlike the description of CCD (Colony Collapse Disorder) that is affecting beekeepers around the world.  This hive has been weak from early on.  It could be a weak queen who died before they could create a new one?  Or perhaps they swarmed when we weren't around to see it?  

So, a bit of a bummer BUT we still have another strong hive that we need to see through the Winter and help it start the Spring healthy and strong so we can get our first honey next year.  

Now I just have to take apart the empty hive, clean it, and store it away.  I'll have details on that when I do it.  There are special instructions (thank you JM!) on how to do that the best way for future use.  Oh, and we need to order another bee package for next year.

For now, it's onward and upward!

SOUR CREAM CAKE AND ICE CREAM WEEKEND UPDATE

Got the property mowed today, but alas that was all I got done.  It took a long time because I haven't mowed in a few weeks.  I have a feeling though this might just be the last time this season.  I mowed it pretty short, so we'll see what happens over the next few weeks.

Sour cream cake with ice cream

But when I got home, we had dinner and then this for a fabulously delicious dessert...sour cream cake and vanilla ice cream.  

YUM!

Hope you had a great weekend!

WOMENS LAND ARMY, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

Most every Sunday, we try to post an image of old posters that we find during online surfing.  We enjoy the ones that reflect farming, gardening and/or food preservation and rationing.  We enjoy them because we often wonder if anyone today would heed the kind of advice they gave back then...enjoy!

Join the Women's Land Army, image courtesy of Wikicommons

During WWII, when it was a male only army of course, women were tasked with keeping things going at home.  Britain and other allied countries (this one comes from the UK) started the "Women's Land Army" to have women work in the farming industry to replace the jobs and responsibilities of the men that left to go to war...because as this poster says, FOOD COMES FIRST!

I dare say they probably did a better job!

Off to the farm this morning, not sure what all I'll get done, not sure what will need to be done, but with this cool weather, I'll do whatever I can.

NATURES BOUQUET OF FLOWERS

I saw this clump of 'weeds' in an area of tall grass because the color caught my eye when I was walking past it. 

Together, they formed the prettiest "natural bouquet' I've seen yet.  2nd Man said it looked like something a bride would be carrying down the aisle.

Natures flower bouquet

I agree, it was just beautiful to see in person.  I wanted to cut it and put it into a vase just like that but alas, we know how that would have ended.  

Off to run "open house" errands in town, then Sunday will be off to the farm to see what I can get done out there.  Our weather today feels like the first real, true day of Fall.  It's GORGEOUS!

Hope your weekend is off to a great start!

THE BLOOD MOON

Picture via a relative that lives a bit Northwest of us.  They were free of the clouds we had all over our area that prevented us from seeing it.  Well, we did catch a glimpse of it behind the clouds, a sort of reddish glow.

Blood Moon

Of course most all the pictures I've seen this week look pretty much the same, ha.  Is it Mars?  Or the moon?  It's the moon of course.  Very pretty!  Astronomy stuff is so awesome.

Did you get to see it?

POTTING BENCH GARDENING STATION, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

So I thought I'd share of picture of our backyard in town from a few years ago.    With our house on the market and this a distant memory, (this was prior to having the farm), I thought it fit for today.

Potting Station, image courtesy of me

It is my potting bench / gardening station that I set up in the backyard.  2nd Man got the bench for me as a birthday gift and I put shelves above and around it and filled all the spots with plants and flowers.  As you can see, I've had "the bug" for awhile.  It's sort of my own inspiration for Inspiration Thursday because I see it and it reminds me of what I like to do and of course that I'd like to set up something 'similar' at the farm.

I guess that is one of the issues at the farm, how does one create something small and filled like this with so much space?  I seem to do well in small spaces like this but with so much wide open space, it seems more daunting to create a setting like this.  A potting bench in the middle of a big empty area seems odd.  But hey, we'll figure it out, that's half the fun!


Be inspired!