LATE CHILL WITH RAIN

The farm is somewhere in the middle of this monsoon like mess.  And to top it off, it is now in the low 40's.  The farm will dip into the upper 30's.  No freeze thankfully, for us anyway, but dang, this is a record breaking low temperature for our area this time of year.  Brrr!  Stay warm and dry wherever you are!

RAISED BED GARDEN UPDATE

Here are two of the garden beds.  They have survived their first week with the automated watering system, yay!  We only had yesterday with rain since last weekend and this is what they looked like.  Still doing well. 

4x4 raised bed herbs

The one above is the herb bed of course.  We just planted a few of the basic herbs we use most often.  We have the rosemary on the porch, and then I have marjoram and sage in town that I need to get in the ground next weekend.  Future seasons will expand our herbs to more culinary varieties and hopefully medicinal, tea and others.

4x4 raised pepper and eggplant bed

This is another of the 4x4 beds.  We decided to go for three eggplants (the two Ichiban we've grown before, in town, and they did very well) since we enjoy them,  then we're trying the Orient Express variety.  Next, we added the TAM jalapeño, and lastly a poblano pepper, which we love to cook with.

We have a 4x8 bed and another 4x4 bed (those are the last two currently irrigated beds) that we have plants in, more on that in another update this weekend when I get the pictures.

Fingers crossed that they all continue on their journey!

RANDOM SUNDAY

View out the master bedroom window at the farm

It was a gray and rainy day.  But we got some inside stuff done so that's always a good day.  Moved some stuff around, put up a shelf, cleaned (where DO all the dead bugs come from in a week?), and checked the garden.  The automatic watering (not counting rain, since today was the first rain all week) is doing great and the plants are starting to grow. 

Yesterday was the wedding, whirlwind day but so much fun.  2nd Man's family is SO amazing.  More on the cakes we made later in the week.

Wild Crinum

On Friday, blogged about the wild crinum growing in ditches.  I thought I'd get a better picture.  Check these out!  More bloomed since the last time I photographed them.  As you can see, they just grow in ditches, and pop up all along the sides of the road.

More wild crinum

So many more blooms.  After the blooming period is done, I'd like to try digging up a few.  The ditch was a bit wet today (and possibly 'snake-y', LOL).  And if I don't get them this year, I'm guessing I know exactly where to go next year, ha.  

FUEL FIGHTS, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

Once again, a war poster image all about conservation.  This one urges citizens to save fuel because it saves manpower, material and equipment for war.  

I don't see anything on there that is not something we'd all be better off doing today.  Heck, I think we keep our thermostat  at 65/64 during the Winter months.  We do keep curtains and shaded pulled at night. We block off rooms that don't need to be heated, etc.  

It would be nice today to see posters like this today in stores and businesses, minus the war references of course.

Hope your weekend is going well.  As this posts, we'll be at the farm.  Today is check the garden day after a week of having it 'watering itself'.  We'll have to see what happened.  It's also a rainy day today.  Scattered showers, not monsoon rains, but it still limits outdoor work and of course, no 'zen machine' time this weekend.  Boo!

More later this afternoon or evening.  Check back!

IT'S A WEDDING

Pardon our absence last night and today, we are at a wedding!

2nd Man's niece is getting married and it's been a whirlwind of activity...

...as we are in charge of the wedding cake.  It's a twist on a traditional cake, per bride and groom request, and I'll post pics all about it later.  Just didn't want everyone to wonder where we were since I usually post Friday night and Saturday.  This is a mobile post, hope it works!

Hope you are having a great weekend!

CRINUM WILDFLOWER TEXAS

Wild crinum

I didn't get a Feline Friday picture up this morning because we were working late last night on a project for this weekend, but more on that later.  For now, I wanted to get these pictures up, some wildflower photos we snapped recently.

I believe this one is called a crinum, but I'm not 100% sure.  They are growing in wet ditches along the roads around the farm.  Above is one of them blooming.  Below is what a whole bunch of them look like in a mass.  They are incredibly beautiful for something that just randomly pops up in the Spring.

I wish I could dig some up and put them around the farm 'on purpose', but I don't think it works that way, ha.

Wild crinum in roadside ditch

BULBS IN POTS, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Bulbs in pots, photo courtesy of https://community.southernliving.com/‎
Image location is from Sarah Raven's garden at Perch Hill Farm (thanks Growntocook)

I found this online a few years ago, and loved the idea of growing bulbs in pots like this.  I wanted us to do it but I realize now it's just like getting them in the ground, you need to plan ahead.  Of course, the only thing I would not like is when they aren't blooming, it's just a clay pot full of dirt, ha.

Maybe they could be stored somewhere until bloom time?

Anyone ever grow bulbs in pots like this?  So pretty, that's for sure!

Be inspired!

TUNA CASSEROLE SHELLS RECIPE

Tuna Casserole Shells

Here is something we've been cooking for a couple of years.  I believe the original recipe came from Everyday Foods (the Martha Stewart magazine) but I'm not 100% sure.  I know some people don't like tuna casserole, or it hearkens back to an older time of generic old casseroles.  I guess you could call this an updated twist on it.

First, boil a box of jumbo shells pasta.  Don't cook it all the way until done, you want to par boil it.  The box that we used said 12 minutes, so we cooked it for about 8 minutes.  Drain them and set aside (spread them out on a plate or they will stick together).

In a blender/food processor, blend together the bread, parmesan cheese, and seasonings.

Whizz it up until in resembles a fine crumb.  Divide the mixture in half.

Sauté diced up onion in olive oil until translucent, about 7 minutes.

Add flour to sautéed onions and cook about 2 minutes longer.

Slowly pour in 4 cups of milk and bring to a boil.  Cook until it starts to thicken a bit, you are basically making a sort of béchamel sauce.  Let it cool a bit and divide in half.

Mix together 2 cans of drained tuna, thawed and drained chopped spinach, half of the bread crumb  cheese mixture and half of the milk and onion sauce.  

Stuff the shells with a tablespoon or two of the tuna mixture.  Different shells hold different amounts, just stuff them as much as you think looks good.  This is the most time consuming process.

Pour the remaining milk and onion sauce over the top of the stuffed shells.

Finally, over the top of all of that, pour the remainder of the bread crumb mixture.

Bake at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes or until browned, bubbly and looking good.

And here it is dished up, with a side salad.  It's really good, and certainly a worthy 21st successor to the ubiquitous tuna casserole.

INGREDIENTS:

4 TBSP olive oil

1 package (8 oz) of jumbo pasta shells

1 medium onion, diced

4 cups milk

2 cans white albacore tuna in water, drained

1 package of frozen chopped spinach, thawed and WELL drained

1/4 cup all purpose flour

1 hamburger bun or 4 slices of white bread

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp red pepper flakes (more or less to taste)

salt and pepper (to taste)

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp Italian seasoning blend

See above photos for instructions. 

GARLIC AND SHALLOT RAISED BED UPDATE

Oh what a difference five months make...

Raised bed

...above is the raised bed after planting all the bulbs and smoothing out the soil in early November.  All that work and it looked no different than when started...

Raised bed garlic sprouting

...but just a few weeks after planting, they were already poking their little green sprouts out of the soil so we could finally see some progress...

Garlic and shallots in raised bed

...and here they are this past weekend!  They haven't been in the soil for six months yet, but I think they are getting close to being ready.  I need to read up on garlic and shallots so I know what to look for and when.

These will 'technically' be the first things we've harvested from the garden at the farm.  Man cannot live by garlic and shallots alone...but it's a good start, ha.

RAISED BED IRRIGATION ACCESSORIES

Three great purchases for anyone who has soaker hoses, especially in raised beds.  These are actually made for that purpose and have proved invaluable in getting everything set up and now that irrigation is done, it's plant ready.

These are clamps that are made to go over 1/2" diameter hose, which is what most hose is for soaker hose irrigation systems.  I needed something to keep the hose on the bed so that it didn't move around.  So with these, I could 'nail' down the hose directly onto the wood sides of the beds.  They were perfect for what we needed.

And then these soaker hose ground staples.  They are 8" long so that they can go deep into the soil and have 1/2" hooks at the top that fit the 1/2" soaker hose.  They worked brilliantly for holding down the hose in whatever configuration we wanted.

Lastly, here is our solution for watering the raised beds while not there.  This awesome timer.  It screws onto the faucet and then your hose screws into the bottom of that and best of all, it's weather resistant.  This is under an overhang anyway so that's not a major issue but still nice to know.  The top flips up and it has an LCD programming panel.  You set the current time and day, and then you can program it to come on for whatever time of day, for whatever length of time and up to four times per day.  You can schedule it every other day, or every day, or weekdays only.  I bought it at Home Depot, but they sell them on Amazon as well.  This is it:  DIG Hose End Timer.  I installed it at the house where the faucet is (with a dual outlet head) and then attached it to the hose that I buried a few weeks back.  So now we have drip irrigation in the garden that is on a timer that will hopefully work to keep it watered throughout our long, hot Summer.  As a backup, we have 2nd Family that will keep an eye on things for us.

And speaking of, got the plants in the ground this weekend!  Yay!  One raised bed of herbs, another of eggplants and peppers and a third larger one with all tomatoes.  We have one more empty but irrigation ready bed that we are putting in squash.  More on those in an upcoming post.

FRUIT TREE SUCCESS / FAIL UPDATE

When I was at the farm, I roamed around to check the fruit trees we planted last year.  It was time to see how everything fared after the first year "in the ground" at the farm.  We had a hot and fairly dry Summer, and then we had a colder than usual Winter, so we needed to see how hardy the tree varieties were that we chose.  I took the first batch of these photos a couple of weeks before the 'big ice storm' so read through for the final outcome of all.

This is a the beginning of a peach blossom.  There are quite a few of these on the tree.  This will be the second year for the peach but our first Spring with it and I understand the flowers are beautiful.

This is one of the two fig trees, about ready to leaf out (the other is the same).  We can't wait to get some figs (hopefully anyway) this year.

This is one of the two pear trees we planted, it made it through the Summer and Winter as well, not to mention the bark damage from rubbing animals.

And this is the pomegranate, it is covered in leaves and new growth so it made it through the Winter as well. We weren't sure that this was going to make it, but it did so at least we know it's a hardy one.

I didn't get pictures, but the two mayhaw trees, while still spindly and not growing as much as we'd like, are starting to bud out in tiny little leaf buds, so for now, they are a success as well.

As for losses though, we did lose a few fruit trees.  Lost one of the pears.  It's turned brown/black, not sure if it was the freeze since the other did well.  Lost the plum, but I believe that was due only to the ground and area it was planted in.  It's not a freeze sensitive tree, so it had to be the clay soil.  Also lost all three citrus trees.  Boo!  The Meyer Lemon, the Mexican Lime and the Satsuma Orange.  Sad because we really wanted to have fresh citrus.  I think the lemon and lime were lost because of the freeze.  They made it through the Summer, but our freezing was colder than normal and I wasn't able to keep them covered with every freeze.  We'd be 70 degrees one day, and then wake up and it was 30 and then 20 and then back up to 60...I just couldn't make it out there to cover and uncover.  Until the day we are out there full time, I'm afraid we might not be able to have citrus.  I might try one more time, we'll see.  The orange was a Satsuma which normally all do very well in our part of the country, so I think that one was also a location issue.

We still have the Olive and the Avocado in town where we can care for them but I might get those in the ground here soon once freezing is not a possibility.  We will definitely buy a new plum tree, and plant it in a different area, because we love plums and they do well down in these parts.

And now, an update since I took the above pics prior to the big "Frozen" days.  Even with the thick layer of ice, the fruit trees continued budding out!  These are the peach blossoms, and they are opening up. Yay!

And here is the pear, the one that survived and it is opening up as well. After being covered in a thick layer of ice, all of these trees just sailed right through.  It's kind of amazing to see nature at work, isn't it?

Sadly though, the pomegranate that had leafed out in the earlier picture, is now covered in crunchy brown leaves.  I'm going to assume the tree is fine, it's just the leaves that didn't make it after being frozen under ice for a period of time.  

Still not a bad outcome for the first year in the ground.  I did some pruning of the wiry branches so we should be doing good this Spring.  Fingers crossed!

Lastly, this is one of the only casualties of the day of ice.  This branch on "Ginger" (we name our trees, don't judge, LOL) was just too weak to hold the weight of the ice and snapped off.  If that's the only damage from the heavy coating of ice that was on everything, we're OK.

PHOSPHATES AND LIME, VINTAGE POSTER SUNDAY

OK, this one is lost on me.  It's a vintage poster image but I'm not sure what crop they are growing or what might benefit from 'phosphates and lime'.  Is this something we'd use today?  Or was this 'old school gardening'?

Well, today is rainy and nasty, so it's 'stay inside' day.  But I got a lot done yesterday so that's good.  I'll post more on that later.

Hope your weekend is going great!

OOPS!

Remember in the Winter when we put some of the pool noodles around the tree trunks of the citrus to protect them?  Well, the trees died anyway and I took the blue noodles off and laid them in the grass...and forgot about them.

Today, on the Zen Machine, I FOUND one of them!

Hope you are having a good weekend!

More tomorrow (and I'll catch up on comment replies)

A LONELY LEAF

Leaf in a tree

I just have to post this picture because it has a funny story behind it.

I was out roaming around looking for birds to photograph, as you saw in the post on Wednesday.  Yep, you probably know where this is going.  I saw it from a distance and thought to myself, "wow, look at this bird, it's so pretty".  So I whipped out the camera, put the telephoto lens on, held it up to look through the viewfinder and snapped the picture of the bir...oops!

Oh well.  In a way, I think it's a pretty picture, and so instead of deleting it, I found artistic value (and I use the term very loosely, ha) in keeping it...and of course sharing my embarrassing moment with the world.

Not sure if there will be real birds I'll catch on camera this weekend but we'll see.  Off to the farm in the morning, since we didn't get out last weekend because of the bee school, there will be lots to do.  Updates later on Saturday!

PILE OF CATS, FELINE FRIDAY

When it got cold in the Winter, all three cats loved tolerated each other for a few fleeting hours. This pile of fur is Sydney, Brisbane, and Hobart, the three kings of the household.

Can't say as I blame them, they did get nice and warm.  We always like to stick our hands in between them while we are petting them, it's amazing how much heat they can generate like that.  Of course in Summer, it's each to his own.

Friday is here, and it's raining.  Boo!  

More this afternoon!

BEEHIVES IN A YARD, INSPIRATION THURSDAY

Beehives in a yard, image source beekeepingforums.com

Well, now I'll have to keep my eyes open for beehive inspiration pictures.  We have yet to decide if we'll paint or not, or if we do paint, will we be uniform in color, or paint a variety of colors?

Right now I have to concentrate on clearing an area to be a bee yard, but until then, pictures like this will inspire us.  Love the terra-cotta color of these hives, thought we might be more partial to a lighter, pastel color.  We were thinking pale yellow, pale green, something like that.  Time will tell!  

Bee Inspired! 

BIRD WATCHING AT THE FARM

**This was supposed to be today's post, but yesterday's post was mixed up with the wrong dates and this one popped up yesterday morning for a few hours.  That's what I get for trying to be funny on April Fool's Day, ha.  Anyway, I fixed it midday yesterday and got the right post up for April 1st.  For those that saw this post already, forgive me, and for those who didn't, well here it is in case anyone had any more information on these birds**

As we spend more time at the farm somewhat relaxing, instead of working so hard, I've decided to take up the hobby of roaming around and looking for birds on the property.  With all our trees and bushes and even a water feature, we must have a wide variety passing through.

So when I was out there recently, I took some time to see what I could find.  Now remember, I am not a bird person so this is all new to me and I don't know my bird species yet so identification would be awesome.

Without further ado, these are the first two I was able to get photos of:

First up is this grey and white one.  It found a pile of grass clippings that the mower had left behind and was having a field day rooting around in it looking for treasures.

Then this pretty brown and tan bird that flew all over the place, staying in tree branches, and rarely venturing down to the ground.

I also think I saw some quail on one of the freshly mowed trails.  There was a group of birds pecking around on the ground but as I came around the corner, they flew into a grove of trees that I could not easily get to.  I Googled some pictures of quail and I think that's what they were.  Hope to catch them, and more birds, on camera soon.

Do any of you do birdwatching?

Any suggestions for us "part time" birdwatchers?

FINALLY SAW ONE AT THE FARM

Jackalope at the farm

This past Saturday when I was at the farm, I was able to finally spot one of these.  There were three actually, they are really cool to see hopping around and butting heads with each other.

 

It's called a Jackalope.

 

Too cool that we apparently have a whole herd of them at the farm, or at least a small family of them.

Hope you are enjoying this first day of April!



BEEKEEPING SCHOOL SUMMARY

Warning, long post!

So I got up at 5:15am.  Showered, dressed and headed out by about 6:15am.  It's a lovely drive from Houston to Brenham, about 65 miles NW.  Pretty much just getting on one freeway and driving until you exit, turn right and arrive!

When I arrived, there was already a line at the check in table.  They had over 500 participants registered.  It was awesome!  We all received these yellow gift bags that were full of catalogs and brochures and magazines, all related to bees and beekeeping.

Since I was a bit early, I did partake in the breakfast of champions; donuts and hot tea with some bee reading!

Of course, there would be local honey for sale, I mean what kind of beekeeping school wouldn't have that? LOL.  The first class of the morning was two and a half hours.  It was called "Beekeeping 101: For Beginners".  It lasted from 9:00am to 11:30am.  The time FLEW by.  So much good info and the instructor was great.  He went through things step by step, how the hive works, anatomy of bees, how the colony is organized, pests, where to put your hive, feeding, wintering, etc.  LOTS of info, handouts and a bunch of handwritten notes.  For a brief moment, I had a college flashback.

Then it was time for lunch, traditional Texas fare at an event like this, smoked BBQ chicken, sausage, potato salad, beans, pickles, onions and white bread.  It was yummy!

...oh, and being that the fairground in Brenham, TX is just a few blocks up the road from the Blue Bell Ice Cream factory, there was, of course, Blue Bell homemade vanilla for dessert (I did not eat that entire box).

After lunch, there was time to visit some of the demonstrations before the next class.  Here was a demonstration of hive building from kit form. Fascinating but it made me realize I will buy hives that are already built, ha.

This was a hive inspection demonstration.  It was nice to see children involved and interested in bees.  Lots of children there and they truly seemed interested.

Then I visited the vendors area where they had all sorts of honey related products.  This is a Texas winery that produces mead, a honey wine.  I tried a couple.  One was delicious and sweet but another tasted like cough syrup, ha.  I wanted to sample them all but didn't want to come across as a lush or something.

This lady brought her painted beehives to display.  Very pretty!  Her beekeeping tool box (on the side) was painted purple.  I would love to see her bee yard.

Then it was time for a smoker demonstration.  It was really nice to see how the smoker is lit and used...as long as you weren't standing downwind, ha.

Had to swing by the table with all the home baked 'honey goodies' and t-shirts and gift baskets from the local clubs.

I was really loving this sparkly new, white, Langstroth hive.  It was part of the grand prize raffle that was held at the end of the day.*

*Alas, I did not win.

There were also vendors there that were not bee related but certainly interesting to see and chat with.  We're going to look into these large cistern rain collection tanks once we get gutters up on the house.

The last demonstration I attended was on honey extraction.  That was fascinating, as I had never seen the entire process.

She showed how the frames were prepped (decapping) and then put into the honey extractor.  It uses centrifugal force to spin the honey out without damaging the combs. She tipped it over when it was done...

...and poured out some wonderful, fresh from the comb, honey.

After eating lunch, visiting vendors and watching the demonstrations, I finished up the rest of the classes I signed up for:

"What Should I Order?  A Trip Through the Catalog"
"Beekeeping as a Property Tax Exemption"
"Beescapes: Choosing Honey Plants for Gardens, Landscapes & Rural Land"

The day was over about 5pm.  I learned a LOT, took tons of notes, and I'm already perusing through the catalogs and creating a list of what to buy.  I think I may have even already pinpointed a spot at the farm to make a bee yard.

This is pretty cool.  When you checked in, they had participants' names printed on little slips of paper.  They gave you your name and a pin and you pinned it on this map of Texas to show where you came from.  The red dot is where the school was held so you can see how far away some people came.  Those slips outside the map?  They are from other states!

I'll share the things I learned in upcoming posts so I can spread the knowledge.

We have two thank you shout outs to give.  The first is to blog commenter JM and his wife.  They are the ones who tipped us to the school just in time to sign up for it.  Thank you both!!!   And of course, we would like to extend a huge thank you to everyone who helped organize and teach the school.

Central Texas Beekeeping Association