Wednesday World of Gardens

 And WHAT--you may ask--do teenaged chicks have to do with gardens ???  Well, I'm glad you asked.  (Here they are--you go first, no YOU go first--coming out of the coop in the morning...) Aren't they precious??

   Chicken manure and straw from the coop are an important part of our composting routine. IF we didn't have so many dogs, cats and coyotes around here, they'd be free ranging and eating up bus from the garden. Maybe. My last experience with that was that I had to fence my garden, because they LOVE tomatoes, all green plants and especially green beans and peas, as well as bugs and weeds.  LOL  As it is, we exploit their waste product, which is very high in nitrogen and ammonia. So, after it's been good and composted, we use it on the gardens...but not before, because chicken poo is very HOT and can burn anything you plant in it. (And yes, this IS the voice of experience talking. lol)

   The gardens are off to a good start, it looks like.  All the flowers that should just be blooming are almost finished (irises and such) the Clematis is in full bloom already, and this morning the first  Stella D'Oro day lily bloomed !!

   I have quite a few of these planted around the place. They're great and they bloom almost all summer long.

  For some reason I'm not seeing the picture I took of the clematis...hmmm...

  Anyway, here are some shots of the vegetable gardens in their infancy (mostly):

Assorted and Sundry Bell Peppers...

 Sugar edible pea pods

Green Beans

French Breakfast Radish babies (the rest of this bed is planted in 2 lettuces, spinach, chard and onions and the 2 bottoms of celery experiment!)

Christmas Pole Limas--not sprouted yet..a lovely maroon and white speckled bean. 2 trellises,7 poles, 3 beans per = 42 plants (Our first time to do this--we'll see.)

  'Maters--4 Big Boy, $ Better Boy and 4 Beefsteaks

Taters--Red Pontiacs, Kennebecs and Irish Cobblers

Edamame bed--no sign yet, and can't pull weeds, just in case. lol

And GOOSEBERRIES!!  In the backyard by a big old dead tree and I didn't even know they were there until Ellyn pointed them out on our stroll yesterday!

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 The peaches are going to be great this year!!

The apples too!

And this is the quinoa bed-an experiment- and it was just planted 2 days ago.

Ahhh...here's the clematis--came through when I downloaded a second time.

And the evening primrose at the front porch.

And finally---the king of everything, Sir Jinga

 So, there you have it...the gardens at Honeysuckle Hill in the middle of May.   Hope you enjoyed the tour!!!!

Namaste.

Monday has a mind of its own...

  My Mothers Day herb pot from my husband...loaded with goodies like basil, sage, oregano, thyme, and mint.  It's sitting out on my back deck on the corner...

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  We had a great day yesterday, my son came over and spent the day with his old mam.  He and the Irishman spent several hours planting things and cleaning up some things and working around outside. They had as good a time as I did watching it. lol  Then we had a big late lunch of burgers and corn cooked on the grill, potato salad and Chinese slaw. We all ate until we couldn't move. A good MD indeed, and he brought me the sweetest card and I am one of the luckiest moms I know to have such a handsome, talented and brilliantly loving man for a son.  Feelin' the love, baby!  lol  They can't know what it means to me to be able to cook for them and sit and enjoy a meal.

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  Today I am going to try to get some things caught up...need to make bread, need to do laundry, need to hoe some weeds out of the potatoes so we can straw them.  Going to take it easy on myself, as my back is hurting and there's no need to get crazy about getting things done. The house is okay, as I cleaned like a dervish on Saturday. The only thing left to plant in the garden is the quinoa, and a little pot of extra basil that I got. We got the onions in last night, a little late, but they'll be okay. I am going to go to Pappy's and pick up some more onion sets while they still have them, and hopefully I can figure a way to keep them until late fall, so we can plant them properly for next year. I want to put in garlic then too.  I have 2 celery ends too, that I'll put in to see if they'll grow. They've been sitting in a dish of warm water over night. Supposedly this works, and then you can harvest a piece or two at a time as you need to. Fun, huh?  Sounds like a 3rd grade science project. lol

  I bought a couple of hanging pots yesterday when I went to Dollar General to get a new hummingbird feeder (lost one to breakage last year). I'll get those planted with some petunias or something. I also have about 5 pots of Impatiens and Dianthus' all pinks and reds and whites that need to be put in pots out on the front sidewalk. I might get that done today.  If not, tomorrow will work too. It's a beautiful day, and the wash will be going to the clothesline. What I like about that is that it sets a nice steady slow tone to the day...something about those clothes flapping on the line...

  Hope you all had a Happy Mothers Day and that you're not suffering the overnight invasion of ants like I am.  WTH ????  The kitchen counter AND my desk are crawling with them..

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  My garden is looking good. The peas and green beans are about 3 inches high, the potatoes are going crazy. The squash is starting to poke through, the peppers and tomatoes are  thriving.  I just love this time of year. My kimchi is starting to bubble...and oh--I just ordered a book on Amazon that is about preserving food without freezing or canning. It's done by a collection of authors and Eliot Coleman is one of them. He has written several books on year round gardening (and he lives in Maine!!) one of which I bought himself for Christmas a few years back. But it's  a treasure trove of information on drying, salting, fermenting, etc. And I [finally] ordered an olive oil sprayer for my kitchen. No more aerosol cans. The only thing I ever bought in one of those damn cans, and felt guilty about it every time. lol

  Okay--I need to get moving.  Have a lovely Monday, everyone !!!

Namaste.

Tuesday tired....

This picture was taken in May of last year. It about what my yard looks like NOW, except that the cherry and apple trees there are full of flowers.

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  I mowed the front and side yards today. I didn't do much of anything else, because it almost killed me.  lol 

It was a beautiful day, in the low 80's, and sunny and clear. My husband took a day off work and spent the whole day working in the gardens, turning the manure under, spading it deep into the beds, which look gorgeous this year. We did have to tend to a chicken that is acting ill, and hopefully she'll live through the night and I can get some electrolytes and stuff in her tomorrow morning. She hasn't been laying, I don't think, and seems to have a poopy butt, so we cleaned it all up and she was amazingly docile through it all. The Irishman said he had to pick her up and lift her into the coop tonight when he went to shut them up.  Doesn't sound good...

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Ah, all in all though, it was a good day. And we had a huge breakfast and then didn't want much lunch and then were starving by supper.  I convinced himself that we should clean up and go to Mr. Curry's, a local Indian restaurant in Edwardsville that we like. He immediately brightened up and declared it a great idea, and off we went.  I really did NOT feel like cooking anything tonight.  lol  I had a Paneer Tikki Masala that was extraordinary and he had prawns tikki masala.  I absolutely love that sauce, all cream-and-tomatoey...

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  We're both sore and tired and he's in bed and I'm heading that way. It's always hard when you do the first hard days work in the spring, after having been on hiatus all winter. lol   I'm hurting in the places where I used to play...as Leonard Cohen so aptly put it. I just took some Alka Seltzer nighttime cold medicine, because I have this naggy little cough that's been bugging me all day, plus--it's loaded with stuff to make your poor stiff tired muscles feel better.  I could really use some of that.  I have a massage appointment tomorrow afternoon at 1...so that will help a lot. Thank Goodness!!

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I'm having a political conniption over all this Ultrasound crap and started to write about it and changed my mind. Maybe tomorrow. I don't want to go to sleep with THAT on my mind. Not to mention  that young boy in Florida that was killed. Not to mention ALL OF IT !!!!  The world goes crazier by the minute and I feel like [sometimes] nobody is paying attention ! 

 Sigh....

It'll be better in the morning, after a good nights sleep.  It always is. 

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  I made banana/black walnut muffins for breakfast this morning. Along with potatoes cooked in big wedges with lots of onions and stuff and fresh eggs. It was a feast, by any standards. Then I heated up the lovely French Onion soup I made the other day for our lunch, along with a little leftover salad that was hanging around the refrigerator, for our lunch at about 2 o'clock. Somewhere in between there, my son showed up to do a little fishing. He caught 4 or 5 beautiful crappie and said he could have caught more if he stayed. I took a break from the mowing to sit in the rocking chairs and chat with him--good timing on his part, as I was so ready for a break. He offered to finish the mowing for me, but I told him no, that I really need the exercise. He said--you're limping pretty bad, mom.  After I was finished, I iced 'er down for an hour...

  It hurts pretty bad.

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  Looks like Miss Roxie is wanting something and I guess it's time for me to head towards the bedroom. 6 AM shows up mighty early around these parts, lol. 

I hope you all have a grand Wednesday and  it looks like they've changed the forecast for tomorrow. It was supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow, but that sky is clear as a bell, and they've changed the rain forecast for tomorrow too.

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Namaste.

Monday...barely

  Can you see the tumbler composter next to the little greenhouse? It was a reclamation project. lol Someone we know had moved into a house and "found" it in their backyard and didn't want it. So--we got it. (This is a picture of my lovely potatoes, as well).


  I wasn't going to post anything tonight. The Irishman came home and was here when I got home from work. He actually got home around 5 PM, and called me at work to let me know he'd made it, safe and sound.  I told him there was some leftover spaghetti and meatballs in the fridge for his supper, and he said he couldn't wait to eat some of my real food.  I love that man.

  Anyways, we spent a couple of hours catching up and hugging and kissing and then he was off to bed so he can work in the morning. I have been puttering around on the internet, looking for recipes/instructions on canning chicken. I found several. Also spent some time looking at Tattlers reuseable canning lids and rings.  Anybody used them before? I've been thinking of buying them ever since I first heard of them a couple of years ago.  Have any of you ever canned chicken? I think I am going to can boneless skinless breasts AND some leg and thigh quarters as well. It will be this Thursdays project, I think...one of the local markets has the breasts for .99/lb and another has the 10 pound bag of leg and thigh quarters for a measly .39/lb   Cannot go wrong here.  I'm not sure if I will do a raw pack or cook it first...(apparently you can do it either way).


  After this mornings deluge (which kept me in bed way too late) it hasn't rained any more today. Maybe we will get a break...supposed to be a sunny 83 tomorrow.  That sounds like heaven.

  Found out tonight that the husband of a woman I know has been diagnosed with cancer. He went in today for an exploratory, and they said it has spread so much there is nothing they can do. I am  stricken by the news...they are my age and really nice people.  I pray it will be a perfectly timed process that will allow them to make arrangements, but short enough that he will not suffer any more than necessary. God bless Steve and Mary....

  And life goes on, and my big grey cat Patches caught a huge mouse today and presented it to me at the front door. One of the younger kittens caught another baby grass snake. The pepper plants out in the garden are shooting up like rockets and the rest of the plants are looking okay too. The Irishman said after being gone for 4 days, it looks monstrous to him. lol

 Alrighty. I must go to sleep, it's after 1:30 AM. An old woman like me needs her beauty sleep.  :0


  Until tomorrow....


Be Blessed.


 

Rainy days and Mondays

 Years ago (and I'm sure I still have it somewhere, tucked away in a box or an old book)  I had a fortune cookie fortune that read  "THERE IS NO FAILURE: ONLY LESSONS."  I try to carry that in my heart all the time. It changes my attitude, it calms my anxiety, and it gives me the courage to try new things. Sometimes things work, and sometimes they don't. And then you just move on to the next thing. (And those are my inspirational words for the day!  LOL)


  It has been a busy weekend and I am tired. MissB wound up in the ER last night, her blood quantities are very low, which means that she's bleeding somewhere, but she says she's never felt better.  lol  When the ambulance was on it's way, she said--get my comb and lipstick. I never leave the house without my lipstick on !! lol  She's in the ICU and getting transfusions last night and today.  I think she's only in the ICU because she's 82 and they want her constantly monitored. And what the hell--it costs more.   (I know, I know...I am a bit jaded when it comes to the medical systems in this country). It all happened right after my shift...she hadn't been feeling well, but wasn't anything that hasn't been going on for a few days...tired and aching and pain in her hip. She suddenly started having severe cramping of her legs..and whoosh...off she went. A good thing they did.

  The Irishman and I had a lovely Chinese dinner out for our anniversary. We were going to make the drive down for the Thai but decided that we need to watch our $$ a little since it cost over 400 dollars to fix my car on Thursday. I nearly fainted. That brings the grand total for car/truck repairs in the past 3 weeks to over 700 dollars.  He has a family reunion in Wisconsin to go to the end of the month and so we just made the 17 mile drive to Edwardsville for some good food.  The Thai restraunt is almost 50 miles away.

  Sunday I went to a meeting in the morning and helped a dear friend celebrate 37 years of sobriety...I was 37 when I got sober. And I announced that it was my 21st birthday yesterday as well and that I was glad to be there. Alcoholics are a giddy lot once they stop drinking.  lol  It's not about the booze. I suspect that even when we're still drunk, we know it's not about the booze. It's that second chance, it's overs, it's one more reprieve.  To try and right the wrongs and relearn things and maybe hell, even learn things for the first time. To look at and admit my part in all the things that went wrong in my life, and stop blaming anyone else (or the whole world) for all the bad things that came down the pipe. To learn to form partnerships with other people.  To understand that we're not alone, that there's a different way to do everything if we'll just give it a try. Without the liquid courage.  To stand in the sunlight after being held prisoner by the bottle for so many years...when the only solution I had/knew for anything was to get drunk, to get high, to obliterate any shred of fear I had.  At least that's what I thought.  And all that has changed. And it started to change quickly, thank goodness. Or now, 21 years later, I probably would be dead.


  I need to be working on the canning booklet/instructions/reading list for my upcoming workshop, but I've been procrastinating like crazy. Not sure why...want to chalk it up to LAZY. But, this time of year is always so busy with getting the gardens in and everything that goes with it. Maybe BUSY is better than LAZY ???  lol

  Okay...I am going out to lunch today with a friend and have to stop by MissB's and take some Kibbles and Bits over to her neighbor who is dogsitting. She called this morning saying she is worried...the little guy is not eating anything...I'll go by and see him and sit for a minute before I head for lunch.

  Maybe I'll get some work done on the booklet today too. At least get it started so I don't feel like such a wank. I need to go look in the freezer and find something to make for supper that isn't chicken.
Then I'll quickly shower and get on the road. It's almost 10 o'clock now, so it is time to get a move on.


  Have a loverly day y'all.



Namaste.


 

Busy days...

  But never too busy to put cut flowers on the table...these gorgeous irises (or "flags" as my granny always called them) are from my yard. I got them for free from someone tearing them out of their yard and were going to throw them away. The stems are so long  many of them leaned over to kiss the dirt or broke, so I cut them and brought them in the house. I found the gorgeous vase at a thrift store. It's perfect for these daddy long legs!!

  It's been strange weather around here, finally warming up to about 77 today. The humidity is high, so it feels even hotter. They keep predicting rain, but so far we have seen none of it.

  The Irishman got the tent out and went through the camping gear today. When I got home tonight, the tent was set up in the front yard. He says he's airing it out, getting ready for our big camping trip. It looks like the circus is in town.  lol   (Which , of course, reminds me of something I heard years ago in an AA meeting...."Just because the monkey's OFF your back, doesn't mean the circus has left town!") to explain how crazy we can sometimes be, even though we have put down the drink and dope.

  No word yet on the autopsy findings. My friends young son came by yesterday and we hugged and he cried...I told him to come out anytime....it is all so sad...


  On the bright side, we got the sweet potato slips on Friday and got them in the ground. Put in 2 dozen plants. Beauregards.  And everything else is coming up nicely. Trying hard to keep the sprouting potatoes pulled up from the tomato bed...bad call on my part--volunteer fingerling potatoes coming up all over that bed. Tomatoes don't like potatoes. Sigh....The green beans are already about 2 and a half inches tall!!  And the corn is up and all the salad stuff is going gangbusters already.(Have I said how much I love gardening????) lol



  Going to check out a new church tomorrow, I think. It's in the town where I went to high school, about 15 miles from here.  Or I'll sleep late and miss it.  lol   Either way, I'm sure my day will be grand. I am not really a church goer, but sometimes I feel the need to sing.


  Time for me to hit the hay. Tired to the bone tonight for some reason. Yesterday I made some wonderful veggie burgers for supper, with homemade hamburger buns. I will never buy hamburger buns again. These were so simple and outrageously GOOD!  For the veggie burgers, I was going to make them southwestern, with black beans and salsa, but instead, I started with a Nature Burger (do you know what this is???) base and added chopped onion and leftover pinto beans, to finish those up. Then I finely chopped some celery and added black pepper, garlic and celery seed. I had a leftover ear of corn on the cob...cut the corn off and threw that in too.  They were so good....I sauteed some mushrooms and onions to put on top and we were in hog heaven.  Today for lunch I just made some old tuna salad for my husband and sonny boy (who came by to fish a bit) and we all had a nice lunch of sandwiches, blue corn chips and homemade salsa. Yum.

  Alrighty. I am off to meet up with Mr Sandman.  Catch you all later....


Namaste.

A day in the life....

Whew....

     Okay,  3 gallons of edamame in the freezer.  Tomatoes, bell peppers, okra and jalapenos picked this morning. Garden is winding down now, and the harvests are smaller.  There's still about a row and a half of edamame out there, and the Irishman will pick it when he comes home.

I have about 6 more gallons already picked, waiting to be blanched and shelled, but this is about all I can do in one day.  My legs hurt from standing at the sink, lol.  I have the beginnings of something pork-ish in the crock pot, with chopped onion and whole garlic (about 8 cloves), and a few spices. It will probably be carnitas, depending on how it looks before I have to leave the house at 2:30.  Cooking is a real adventure at this house lately...lol.

   As for me, I am tired. I have been sitting with MissB 7 days a week, even though it's only 4 hours a day, it breaks my day up and makes it a challenge to get things done. The house looks like a tornado hit it, especially the kitchen. The work counters are clean, and the floor gets swept every day, but the island is where all the jars, just picked produce,  canning supplies, etc., all get stacked. It's right in the center of the kitchen and so of course it's all I see. lol  There are some days when I do nothing but vacuum and dust and stuff, but then I get on a canning/freezing roll and let it go for 3-4 days and it's a nightmare again.  sigh...oh, well.  I have to remember there is light at the end of this tunnel and things are slowing down, at least in the garden. I have 25 lbs of garlic I need to get busy on, and have 25 pounds of beets coming any day, so I'll be pickling those too.  OH, yeah--and okra.  May not get a lot of jars of that though....but any little bit is good enough.  Pickling is a bit easier...a little less muss and fuss.  I'm debating about buying some more peaches before they are all gone...mine are all frozen, but I wouldn't mind having more in the freezer. I still have a lot of bell peppers in the garden...yellow, red, green and ivory...and am hoping the weather will hold up for them to grow a bit bigger and ripen nicely. I want to freeze some of them whole and stuffed with a rice mixture. We'll see. Might just have to freeze them whole and then take them out and stuff as needed.

   The potato beds haven't been harvested yet either. Red pontiacs, fingerlings and sweet potatoes. I think the sweet potatoes will be the very last thing to come out of the garden, since the plants are still lush and gorgeous.

  Re-reading this, I sound like a whirling dervish.

  I'm gonna go throw a steak on the grill and sit down for a nice lunch.

  I deserve it.  LOL

Namaste.

Sundays Musings

These cranes are beautiful in flight....

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It's been a lovely Sunday, and I am nearing the end of it. Got up at a reasonable hour this morning and made Spanish Omelets for breakfast.  The the Irishman and I sat down and went through the garden seeds. We decided to trash the Heirloom seeds we got last year. The germination rates were terrible and the yields even worse.  We decided what we are going to plant this year, and where we are rotating things to. I got a new journal started for the garden, as the one I have been using since my gardens of 2002 is falling apart at the seams.  I just happened to have another one to use. We are indeed going to tear up another piece of the front yard.  Yippee!!  (Less I have to mow). 

Then late morning, we headed out to the backyard. I started clearing out the patch where we will plant edible pea pods and  bell peppers-red, yellow and green, of course!  It's time to get the peas in the ground, as they cannot tolerate the hot weather around these parts. They will be finished by mid-June. I spent the better part of the afternoon cleaning out dead stuff, turning over the earth and raking the clods out of it. Clod-buster, that's me. lol  The Irishman took on the more daunting task of doing the same to the potato beds. We aren't going to mess with the fingerling potatoes this year. We'll plant trusty Red Pontiacs instead. They store better and yield more per plot. We moved the cold frame to a new location at the end of the potato bed, and I'll use it to store garden stuff this summer. I think I will put my seedlings in it as well...they'll germinate better out there than they will anywhere else, I think.  I found 4 dozen peat pots that I bought at an end of the summer sale somewhere. I will start squash, tomatoes and bell peppers in them, and maybe okra.  The green beans will go directly into the dirt, as will peas and the edamame when it arrives.  We're planting cabbages, beets, green beans, peas, bell peppers,  carrots, tomatoes, okra, swiss chard, collards, corn, squash (winter and summer varieties), potatoes, onions,  sweet potatoes, garlic, spinach, lettuce, radishes and cucumbers.

The fruit trees are in bloom and beautiful. The apple and cherry both just burst out in flowers, the peaches have been for awhile. The lily of the valley are coming up and my giant hostas are poking their nubs up through the ground. Spring is definitely here...although in one of my journal entrees from 2005, I wrote that we had a hard freeze on April 30th...have to be so cautious about not jumping the gun on planting.

Thank you, everyone, for your kind words after that last post.  I feel much better now, and immediately felt my spirits lift when I read the comments you left.  There are a lot of blessings in my life today too, and each one of you is counted in that.  I guess sometimes a person just has to experience the lows, and then walk on through them back to the mesa. I'm back.  lol

It was close to 80 degrees here today. Beautiful-- and I got a suntan on my arms and legs.  I made sure to wear a broad brimmed hat out there, and I was sweating to beat the band. It really felt good to be active and to feel the sun caressing my face. The birds were singing like crazy and all the critters were out back to help. It was a really nice way to spend a Sunday...just my partner and I doing the things we love, on our property that we love, with the person we love. We cooked some brats and grilled some thick cut potatoes and ate supper outside on the deck. I made some coleslaw to go with it and we feasted.

Time for bed.  Wishing you all the sleep of angels and dreams of the highest order.

Namaste.