Over the Fence Chat for Today - 5/31

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Well, better late than never, I guess. There are just so many things going on all the time this time of year that I can't fit it all into that tiny "brain pan" space in my head :-)! How are you folks? Hope all is well with each and every one of you! We're doing pretty good here, all things considered. We have each other and we have our health and most days we have peace of mind - all of which I am very thankful for.

We finally got all of our garden planted. Had to till some rather damp ground (which I don't like doing, but ... ) to get the melons and pumpkins planted befrore yet another round of rain kept us from the garden, but we got it done. And we've got potatoes bloomin', little green 'maters on the vines, some peppers starting to show up, and the fresh green onions and radishes have been VERY tasty :-)! I can hardly wait to sink my teeth into a fresh, vine-ripe tomatoe right from the garden! Just not much better, IMO.

I don't have much more time to write on this today ... have to get out and hook the stock trailer up and get Harley (our boar) loaded and off to the sale. He hasn't done his job with the gilts we have and though he's a good natured ol' cuss, off he goes. And since our freezer is REAL bare right now, the two gilts (about 400 pounds now) go to the butcher shop on the 10th of June. We plan to buy several feeder pigs as replacements and just fatten them out for now. Not nearly as labor-intensive, and we still get to keep pigs on the place. I'll get to the point sometime where I can devote more time to starting our "pig herd," but now is not the best time. Life on the farm .....

On that note, I will get this posted and look forward to hearing what the rest of you are up to when you have time! Hope you are able to enjoy sunshine and laughter in your lives today!

-- Phil in KS (cshomestead@planetkc.com), May 28, 2002

Answers

We took advantage of this long weekend, and got many projects that were "in the works" completed.

We went to the cemetaries and placed flowers and cleaned around the head stones Early Sat. morning, we wanted to beat the crowds.

My husband works four 10 hour shifts, with Monday being a day off, since the holiday falls on Monday he will get today off paid as the holiday.

We finished planting our garden also, put in our peppers,more cabbage and a few more tomatoes. Our neighbor behind opened up part of his garden for me because we have run out of space here. We are still in the city limits but have 1/4 acre. On this 1/4 acre is our house w/ attached garage, 28x30 shop, chicken coop, my clothline poles :o) and our garden which is 25'x50'. The neighbor likes fresh vegtables but doesn't have the time to maintain a garden, so I worked out a deal if he'd open up a garden spot I'd do all the planting and maintaining in trade for fresh veggies. He gratiously offered his water( from a well), this way I don't have to drag 200+' of hose. In his spot I planted my potatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers, more cabbage, and a few tomatoes just for him.

Our mama hen is doing a fabulous job raising her chicks(15),it amazes me that she just, knows what to do, she was raise by me :) Everyone have a wonderful and productive week. Blessings, Kelle in MT

-- Kelle in MT (kellemt@yahoo.com), May 28, 2002.


Mornin' Phil and the rest of you folks! My life is finally calming down a bit, so I have some time to spend in front of the computer.

My Jessie graduated from high school this past Friday night; so I had spent a lot of time getting all of us ready for that grand event! We had a post ceremony party at her Daddy's; then some very close friends had a hog roast for her on Sunday. My fingers are still numb from peeling potatoes and apples and cutting slaw! We all had a really great time, getting to visit with old friends from as far back as her preschool days - funny that after 15 years, we still can all find things to talk about!

Then Pop's girlfriend's little girl, Bailey, turned 3 on Sunday as well; so we had to stop by her party on the way to the hog roast. Hubs and I are in deep doo-doo with her Mama right now - she loves to play in the sand under my grape arbor out here, so we got her one of those turtle sandboxes for her house in town. She wouldn't get out of it to come eat her birthday dinner; and barely got out long enough to open her other presents! Nice to know when you've made the right choice of a present, though! We may have to go down by the timber and wrassle an old tractor tire up out of the underbrush, and haul it up to the yard to fill with sand for her out here; since I put the sand in under the grape arbor with the plan of putting down a floor of some of those cement tiles in there so I could set a table and chairs under it...guess we'll see what happens with that!

I've been busy in the garden as well. We got a freaky late frost that killed off all my home grown pepper plants; so I had to go in to the farm store to purchase more (broke my heart to have to go look at plants; it did! I swear I don't know where that salvia and mint and those nicotiana came from!) Glad I didn't have the beans out yet as they would have just rotted in the cold, wet soil. It frosted some of the leaves on the tomatoes, but didn't kill them; and did the same to the zinnias; so yesterday I took my scissors out and trimmed off all the dead growth and was happy to see that they are putting out new growth to replace it. I tied all the tomatoes in the garden up to the fence posts while I was trimming them; the ones planted down the edge of the berry patch will be left to sprawl and be mulched with straw after we till down the sides of them a couple of times. They are starting to bloom and the radishes are almost big enough to eat; I still need to plant green beans and okra and some heat resistant salad stuff - I can plant some salad stuff late if I hide it on the north side of the okra, I've found that it shades it nicely! I've got broccoli heading out on small plants that will need to be picked soon - can't believe that it's heading out on plants that are that small! With all the rain and the late cold weather; my carefully drawn garden plan has been tossed to the corner and we are putting stuff in hither and yon! I guess it all tastes the same no matter where it's planted!

Uncle Ivan planted the sweet corn and sunflowers yesterday while I was piddling in the garden; and Aunt Susan and a friend wandered in the berry patch and managed to find a couple of ice cream buckets full of berries; then Pop came home and picked us a couple of quarts - must remember to add whipping cream to the shopping list today; already have the stuff for pound cake and shortcake! We all like our strawberries on different bases - pound cake, angel food cake, sweet biscuts and, Pop's favorite - broken up pie crust!

And speaking of Pop - he is heading in to town for his morning coffee at the Red Barn and is grumping and complaining because I have sent him on a search for the elusive Sur-Jel in the pink box since my friend can't go with me to the Amish store today. I don't think he has forgiven me for last year's search yet! He's also muttering about the birds eating us out of house and home - he's filling the hummingbird feeders morning, noon and night (he COULD put out a couple more feeders..) and he did finally hang another thistle feeder since the goldfinches, house finches and indigo buntings were emptying the other 2 so fast. He can't believe how many more birds we have since we started planting an acre of sunflowers every year!

Guess I'll just have to piddle in the garden today since Jon can't go to Arthur with me. Looks like it will be mostly pulling weeds - darn it - since we got a couple of rains yesterday. A brief but spectacular thunder boomer at about 6 pm that dropped a 1/4 inch or so on us; then a long pounding rain after I went to bed that brought us up to about 2 inches total - Gee, I love my raised beds! Hmm - maybe it will dry out enough that I can set my poles and plant my pole beans this evening... And it's not too wet to haul some more wood chips for the pathways, and the perennial bed could use weeding again, and I've got those 75% off dahlias and lillies I bought at Wal- Mart the other day that need to go in the west perennial bed as soon as I can get them in, and....Gee - what do folks who don't garden do with their time!? (Though I guess I COULD clean up my kitchen, which looks like it should qualify for disaster aid after this weekend!)

You folks have a good week out there - remember to take time to smell those flowers that you're planting!

-- Polly (tigger@moultrie.com), May 28, 2002.


Evenin' folks. Figured I'd finally get around to posting on what's happening here in the mountains.

To start, I did what I absolutely hate to do today. Shopping. Had to go into town and find something for Laura's teachers and a graduation present for my niece. After about 4 hours!, I found everything I needed and happily went home. That'll be my shopping for a long, long while. I was looking for something particular and of course I had to go into about every store to find what I needed. Since this is Laura's last year, I was wanting to get her teacher and the assistants a present and was looking for a rosemary plant, (for rememberance), and I finally found some at the 4th place I stopped. Glad that's done!

Weeded the garden and flower beds yesterday and everything is coming right along. In two beds I planted flowers this year and I bought some summer bulbs for it. They're coming right up and I'm anxious to see what the flowers will look like. I've never planted summer blooming bulbs before. I planted some hollihock seeds in the same bed and there popping right up there, too. The hard rain the other day drove some of their leaves in the ground, so I had to loosen them out of the soil and do a little dusting off of the leaves while weeding. Can't hardly wait to see them all in bloom.

Dave's mom has been having swelling in her legs, so he took her to the doctor today. The doctor gave her a dieuretic, said it wasn't her heart causing it, thank God, and Dave and I are feeling relieved tonight. After last year, I don't think I could stand any more bad news.

Well, I'm going to try and get to bed at a decent hour tonight. Want to mow the yard early because it's been getting hot in the afternoon. (Stan, I'm not whining about the hot weather....no gloating!) :)

You all have a great evening, sweet dreams tonight and plenty of sunshine for the 'morrow.

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), May 30, 2002.


Hello, all. I have been busy trying to plant a garden here in Saskatchewan, but it's hard to know what to plant in a drought. It's at least 18 inches before any type of moisture. So far, I have only planted potatoes, corn and beans. I plan on putting the peas and remaining seed out tomorrow if it's not too hot or windy. If it is windy, I can always start rebuilding the rock wall around the fire pit,(although there is a fire ban in effect right now) or pull off some of the old barbed wire off the fencing out front. DH wants to re-do the fence so that would help him out quite a bit. We have a lot of rock around here, so I can start to re-build the stone wall I had started for the herb garden too. Sigh...so much to do, so little time.

Okay, now that I am exhausted thinking about tomorrow's chores, I'm going to bed. And since it is my birthday tomorrow (05/31) I might just try to sleep in, too. He, he.

Wishing you peace...Judy

-- Judy Hill (hillsacres@sk.sympatico.ca), May 31, 2002.


HAPPY BIRTHDAY JUDY!


-- Phil in KS (mac0328@planetkc.com), May 31, 2002.


Judy - Hope your birthday has been all that you wished it to be!

I've been working like a DAWG this week! Clearing a new garden area, where I planned to plant asparagus plants and comfrey, digging out all the shale dirt, and planned to refill with compost, and composted manure. Some really big rocks in there, so now I might make it a swimming hole! ( Just kidding). There were big rocks though, and glass bottles from where it was apparently the "dump". Everything was rotted but plastic and glass. Nothing old enough to be worth anything, sorry to say. That little job has now turned into a major physical endeavor. Ugh.

Still working on trying to get the barn(garage/workshop) cleaned out and organized. Had to do some major carpenter work there. Not me. Bob, the builder.

Landscaping project still under way. I plant. . . they die. Not everything, not always, . . . . but I am still working on being a gardner when I grow up.

Bought two new trees for the "orchard". I plant the orchard EVERY year. So far, not one piece of fruit. Either the goats destroy the trees, or the cows get in there. I have one Granny Smith holding on for dear life.

It has been a productive week, days have been nice and warm and sunny, so I'm happy. Love to be outdoors working.

-- Granny Hen (cluckin along@cs.com), May 31, 2002.


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