Another late one....

canning beans again. It's so much easier to do them outdoors on the propane burner at night when it's just a little bit cooler. Did four more quarts to add to the five quarts I did yesterday...not to mention the umpteen pints and quarts already done. Those beans are really producing, but are almost done. I will be pulling them up soon and replanting a couple more rows. Then it's time to get the fall planting started. The tiller needs a new belt though so until it's done it'll all have to wait.

Odds and Ends...

Thursday is normally our Spanish class, but it seems that the rest of the students are ill so the teacher has rescheduled for a two hour class next week. We had missed last weeks lesson with our dear friend's funeral going on. I was helping out with it and I couldn't be in two places at once. We really miss Billie and her husband, Son, who is now in Mississippi with his son and grandkids. They sort of 'adopted' us and we spent a good bit of time over there.

Yesterday, I helped her daughter at their home with cleaning out cabinets and the utility shed. K was so sweet when she introduced me to her friend that stopped by, as one of her mom's best friends'. She (and her brother) said that her mom spoke of us so often that she thought she had a sister, lol. Little Man loved to go sit with Son and watch Animal Planet on Wednesday nights while Tall Girl was at her church activities.

I headed back home after cleaning and spent part of the afternoon having the kids help me move the one old little loveseat that our friends let us have a couple of years ago, to make room for the sofa and loveseat that the daughter and son let me have from Billie and Son's home. I am soooo very grateful and I love the furniture. I used to tell Billie that I loved it. It is so simple and the fabric was nice. She laughed and had told me that it was so old, that some called it the 'ugly couch'. It was some of the first furniture that they had bought after they were married (some of the first that Sears had started making) and that she would have the cushions recovered over the years as needed. I like the fabric now that's on them, but it's nice to know when we want, we can just get them redone. I am heading out this week to look for some accent pillows to add to them. They are very sturdy and the wood matches what we already have in the living room. Steve likes them too and is excited to actually have a proper living room especially since he is planning on moving the TV in there.

I headed out to the garden, made a few more rows for the pole beans and plan to have the kids plant them today since we don't have spanish class to attend. I also wanted to get the peppers and tomotoes in, but those will wait for now. They aren't quite tall enough yet. We also needed to plant the marigolds. If you've never seen the seeds for those, they are quite interesting. They look nothing like one thinks a seed looks.

Gotta run...no new lambs yet, though the remaining ewes are really looking like they are ready to bust.

My helper for today...

Starting the seeds for tomatoes, peppers, squash, zucchini, and cucumbers.

Our seeds came up quick (2-5 days) with the exception of the peppers. Those took almost 10 days.

J wanted to help plant in the garden this morning. We managed to get a couple more areas tilled and rowed up for squash, zucchini, and cucumbers. He helped me plant those in the proper areas. He also put in the Roma Bush beans. We ended up with almost two full rows of those. I like roma's in soup and stews. They hold up well. I plan to put some in the freezer, dehydrate some and can the rest.

We still have to row the rest of the garden, put up trellises for the climbing plants, plant the merigolds all around (trying to help with the bug problem) and lay the landscape timbers around the main garden to help denote the edges for mowing around.

We still have Kentucky Wonder beans, canteloupe, pumpkins, winter squash, tomatoes and bell peppers to plant. The kids are hoping that our pumpkins do well so they can sell them this fall at the end of the drive. They won't go in the ground for a couple more weeks though. I told them that if they help and we have excess, then they are welcome to set up a sign and table out front to sell it and keep the money.

We shall see how it goes.

Yes he is learning to use the tiller. He did a good job and it helped that the ground is much softer than previous years.


Pushing the Roma's in...

Painting and landscaping...

Here are some before and after pics.

You can see some of the old paint on the siding-the original color was that mauve. The doors and shutters were evergreen. Now the siding is blue; doors and shutters are navy blue. All trim is still cream.

The only plants that were in the beds already were some amaryllis, a hydrangea bush and hibiscus. I did move all the amaryllis to a different area by the hibiscus. They bloom red and white, have very large blooms and are so pretty.

We get a lot of shade at the front of this house, but harsh late afternoon sun...it was hard finding plants that would do okay. We decided on some Indian Hawthorne in white and pink, some coleus' for the corner that gets almost no sun, the hydrangea bush is there. We also planted some very pretty french Hostas. We have some boxwoods in a few of the corners as well.

We extended the flower bed around the front porch and the hibiscus bush. In it is herbs (lavender, basil, thyme, lemon balm, rosemary, mint-in the pot, chives and oregano) and a sweet olive tree. There are some flowers that I can't remember the name of right now. They are the red ones. We also have some white ones planted elsewhere. Those reds ones have really bloomed. I will have to trim them back a little so they don't choke out my herbs.... I just liked them and so I put them up front to spill out over the stones. They are doing just that, lol.

And from the looks of it, it seems we grow kittens as well...not anything new around here, lol!

Gardening...

From this: To this (and they got even bigger than that!): To this: Lightly steamed with a little salt and pepper...
Our cabbages grew enormous!

I'm afraid we won't be doing much gardening this year....I may put a few plants out, but I have to rig up a good little fence up around it if I want anything to survive. The goats will eat it all or the dogs will dig it up!

This was some produce from our winter garden a year ago. Little Man and I loved the broccoli we grew...who knew it actually tasted like it did; sweet and not bitter at all. We all loved the cabbage.

I would like to put some bell peppers in, some cukes for relish, and we also grow some seriously yummy huge canteloupe. I plan to go to a local farm and pick tomatoes to can and blueberries since we can get them for a $1 a pound! I made so much jam last year, but it's almost all gone!

I will plant the big garden again, but that area has housed the pigs and now calf. We need that meat for the freezer and we're very glad that we're doing that since the prices of meat has really gone up.

Any suggestions on generators? We're purchasing that next. I will not raise all this meat and then lose it all during an outage!