My wife says its my midlife crisis

I say its my new farm hand!

Flowers

All kinds of flowers. Don't mind all the weeds in the back ground.

Tom

Tom is big! A couple more months! Sorry for quality of pic.

Bird house supplies

While splitting wood I used the log splitter to try and split thin pieces of wood. I was thinking it would make some cool rustic looking bird houses, if nothing else I'll use the hatchet and turn it into kindling wood.

Firewood

Its that time of year!! Firewood it warms you about 6 times. Once cutting it, twice loading it and unloading,, three times splitting it, four times stacking it, fives times carrying it into the house, and the sixth time, finally burning it!

 

 

salsa

The fruits of my wires labor yesterday. Isn't she just awesome! As she reminds me the bestest wife I ever had!

Eggs

The girls worked hard this morning!

More mater sauce!!!

Oh ya more mater sauce!

Salsa Time

Salsa made from tomatoes and peppers from the garden.

Eggs!

We got some new layers!! Thank you girls!

Grass

Ok so I posted a couple of days ago, how I don't like mowing grass, it has taken me more or less a better part of two days including a tractor break down just to mow the font yard, and rake up all the grass because I haven't mowed in about a month. Here is my front yard. I am looking for ideas on what I could do with it besides mow. All the maple tree roots are exposed so its very bumpy also. I was thinking about planting understory trees like dogwoods and redbuds, then fill in with shrubs and bulbs. Turn it into a woodland lot. Any ideas?

Todays Harvest

Todays Harvest!

Grass

I don't know if I made anyone aware of this, I hate mowing grass. I don't hate anything such a nasty word! But I hate mowing grass! What a waist of precious time. I have 2 acres here. The front yard is probably a third of that. There is a row of pine trees along the road, then there is a row of silver maples after that. So road pines, maples, house. So the front yard is pretty much shade. I wonder if my neighbors would get mad if I planted understory trees like dogwoods, and redbuds then fill it in with some shrubs and a boat load of bulbs like daffodils. Kind of like a woodland lot. (I honestly don't care what the neighbors say, I always say if you don't like the way I look, don't look at me. But I do my best to keep the peace)
Then the back yard is wide open. Over the years I have kind of divided into thirds. My garden, chicken coops and pens are on 1 third, and other 2 thirds have the pig run, a incomplete hoop house, the bee yard and a grape arbor, with a few trees here and there. There is still alot of grass to mow. I want to turn the whole back yard into garden, flower beds, fruit trees etc, with paths walking through everything. I would rather spend my time weeding and mulching them mowing. And no I don't have a barn for sheep or goats that could mow for me. But when I am rich and famous that will be goal, yeah a barn. That would be so cool!
Anyway that's my rant on grass, I guess I will go fix the damn tractor!

elder berries

Elder berries are ready!

saving seeds

All the veggies I grow are heirloom, when I harvested tomatoes earlier this week I saved some seeds.
Black plum tomato, Jasper violet tomato and Martina tomato. I am not to impressed with the Martina, I was excepting a sandwich tomato, but I honestly don't remember reading the description in the catalog, so don't judge them on my account. I will still save the seed to trade with someone.

Peach Cobbler

Look what the bestest wife ever, made for dessert! We don't have peach trees but they are from a local orchard and not the supermarket!

 

 

Sunflowers

You have to love sunflowers, they are easy to grow, all bees love them, and if you leave them up in the fall and winter the birds have food.

wildflowers

This is my lousy attempt at planting native wildflowers. This is the second year for them.

Tired Thursday

I just don't feel like doing anything today, I have the Thursday tireds. I went down and fed and watered the girls. We had some stale bread, they love bread! The bees are flying like mad, which surprises me, it's a little on the chilly side.

Here is a pic of the bee yard, and all the over grown weeds. If the weather cooperates we should get honey this year.

If you like insects, check out this group  www.xerces.org. Just awesome!

Tomato Sauce Time

Mmm...good

Critters

Well I got my egg thief, sorry for the bad picture, but I wasn't getting any closer. It's a skunk as I figured.

Nothing new

Nothing new today, just got home from that bad 4letter place(work). Went down and checked the critter trap, nothing new there either. We are leaving to go see our sons new house so no garden time tonight.

Here is a pic of the girls enjoying some compost or what I like to call chicken treats.

Bees

I checked my hives a week and a half ago. I scraped all the burr comb off of 5 hives. I let it set for that about of time in a colander. I got a pint and a half of honey and a pound and a half of wax. All just from the burr comb.😊

Garden

So I am slowly turning my traditional row garden into a raised bed, no till, no compact, square foot garden. My beds are only 4inches tall because I have been building up my soil for the last 8years or more, and I want to continue using the existing soil.My soil is beautiful here, it is a sandy loam mix. It is almost to the point where I can turn the soil over just using my bare hands. Like I said I am also doing square foot gardening. So my beds are only 3 x 10, so my short little arms can reach from both sides. And then I won't have to walk in the beds which means no compaction, which means no tilling.

Critters

Something has been eating my eggs in the coop, I don't thing its any of the girls. Just the top is bitten off, and the innards are eaten. I had a skunk doing this last year. I have not been closing the coop at night, I guess I am going have to start doing so. Although that skunk last year would go in the coop during day time. Imagine opening your coop and find a skunk in there eating eggs. I always opened the door with the hose in my hand, and would squirt the heck out of him, he would always come back until I caught him. So I sacrificed a few old eggs in a trap and we will see hat we catch.

Sauce

Black Plum Tomatoes Sauce...mmm...good!

Todays Harvest

Lots of tomatoes, brown cucumbers, zucchini, and some cabbage.

Volunteer milkweed

I accidentally mowed it down once. When it blooms it just full of bees!

Chicken pen done

The chicken pen is weed wacked and no chickens lost there heads!

one of todays projects

Believe it or not this is a chicken run, I need to weed wack badly.

Yeah!!!!

I figured it out!!!!

Gardening vs Computer stuff

I am getting fed up with computer stuff already I am going to go play in the garden, maybe I can figure it out later. I'm trying to figure out how to share this with all my friends on Facebook. I don't see a share button anywhere.

where is the manual

Ok I must be an idiot, I am trying to figure out how to blog.