Garden Stuff

I did not do the big vegetable garden this year. Instead I have been depending on the Farmer's Market and a local co-op store that sells fresh produce from nearby farms. Walmart produce has been 'worser than awful'. 

I am going to purchase some veggies to freeze and dehydrate later this year so I will be set for our winter crop of veggies.

However we have three tomato plants in some rather ugly containers on the pallet garden.

In the slats in front there are cosmos and some other flowers for later fall flowers. On the other side I have Verbena. It doesn't like this garden as much as I hoped but next year I'll try something else.

The ugly green tub is a delight. I have coleus and a really beautiful geranium that I've never seen before [pointing up]. The leaves are beautiful in two tones of color and the flowers are very delicate looking.

On the porch I have some hen and chicks in this neat pot given to me last year for my birthday by my neighbor. I thought the hen and chicks died off over winter. Surprise!

I have hen and chicks all over the place and they are all doing this neat reproducing thing. I might just have to make a hen and chick garden somewhere. I have them growing in stumps and several other rather drab containers.
I even packed the holes in the stumps with dirt and then plopped the hen and chicks on the wood. I have so many that I will have to make some plans for next summer.

Below is another pie plate garden. I found an old pie plate and tossed some nice dirt in it. The little plants were over wintered in the house and replanted this spring. I need to pick some more moss to use as mulch. 

Oh! I see a little dragon peeking out from one of the geranium pots!

My first garden 'statue'. A T-Rex eating garden gnomes. And...then garden gnomes napping just below T-Rex. This just makes me chuckle.

Another very large pot on the porch with stone crop sedum and that beautiful delicate geranium. 

I took nasturtium seeds and planted them in the bare spots between the bugleweed plants that were devastated the winter last year. Lack of snow cover allowed so many plants to die. However, right now they are making a very strong come back.

I planted these for my friend in Mobile AL. When she lived for a short time in Massachusetts she had a garden with so many of these. She misses them now as they don't do well in her hot climate. I take photos of these and text them to her. They started to blossom on her birthday.

Tired of it yet? Her is my Lego person I named Mirth. Her smile is infectious!

I love her stocking cap and pigtails. She looks happy holding that bright nasturtium!

I'll stop here because I don't want to bore anyone!

The Happy Table is coming along, I have to wait for another dry day to try a light white wash on it and then top it off with a polyacrylic sealer. The photo below is after I started working on this side of the table. I did some free hand drawing in pencil and then filled it in with black paint.

I had coffee and breakfast out here the last couple of mornings. 
So nice to have a pretty outdoor spot to relax and eat!

Have a safe and fun weekend everyone. We will be staying home and enjoying our home and gardens. Most of the yard is done and the rest can wait until the rain is done and it dries off again.

Just for fun instead

Enough of all that talk of doctors, medications, and whatnot. For right now, I'm putting it out of my mind and will focus on some fun things.

How about the twins I watched the other morning? We stood and watched each other for about 8 minutes. They obviously couldn't smell me or we have seen each other often enough that they are not wary of me.

I could be all wrong, but I think these possibly could be the very same twins I've seen off and on for two years. That said? They could be different. I'm just hoping and wishing they are.

Here is Sven our goat working on trimming around an old tractor tire that hubby insists stay where it is at. I have a notion to roll it somewhere and make it into a garden. It sure would keep hubby from mowing over it!
Sven take the dandelion blossoms first and then works on the weeds, and lastly trims the grass about 3 inches tall almost perfectly!

I have the place where I dug out the BS to clean up. It should be cleaned up with the skid steer, but I thought I could build a pen for Sven to eat all the nice grass and all strip the nettles. I wonder if one day I can dig that pile[s] up and put all that good dirt somewhere. [Gosh, thinking outload with my fingers on the keyboard!]

The pallet garden! 
I found a Lego storm trooper checking on my succulents. The 'car' he is in is an old brass ash tray! Another treasure found!
The planter is no planter, but an old pie tin I found buried in a junk pile in the woods.

When I watered the tomatoes before it rained....I found a shady character tending to the plant!

Seems I have a lot of helpers with the different tomato plants I have!

And for some more fun.

Hobby and Squatch continue to search for relatives in the woodlands and forests.

Hobby: I still think there is one out here! Haven't you heard of a Big Foot sighting?
Squatch: No.

Big Foot gathering mushrooms ~ no wonder he is so hard to spot!

Squatch went out to the rocks to take a shower after the recent rains.

Then he went looking for oyster mushrooms...

That's it! In spite of the things we face in the world, having a positive attitude can certainly help.

I'll just keep finding things that cause me small joys.
Small joys can add up to large Joys.

Pallet & Container Garden

Building this garden is turning out to be fun and a matter of using what is at hand to make things work.

The plastic under the pallets are old round hay bale covers that farmers used before they started to use the wraps. The old tubs have holes in them from being bashed around.

I added chunks of wood and a small bit of squished goat bedding to the bottom of each container. A tiny version of Hugelkultur gardening. The manure, leaves, sticks, and tiny pieces of wood break down in the bottom of the container and provide the soil with nutrients.

This is all an experiment afterall,...so why not?

The dirt. I am digging it from an old pile of Bull manure from the pen we kept our Dexter bull in years ago. Under the grass and weeds is a fine textured soil. It has been perculatin' for about 6 years, so it should be good for garden soil. It will contain weed seeds, but I am prepared for that. I haul it by bucket loads in the 4 wheeler's cart. 

Rich made a comment that I was going to use Bull-hit to make a garden.

😲

Rich also voted that I use the green bucket. It is ugly! I may go find a black lick tub that isn't so garish. I threatened to spray paint the green plastic tub but that would only make it look worse!

I'm sure I can find a black one that somewhere in the weeds behind one of the sheds. But in the end, it doesn't matter much about the container other than can IT hold dirt and can I grow a nice plant in it?

Sunday's project is to bring in two more pallets to have a fun little garden between the house and the LP tank. This is a pain in the arse to mow, so with the pallets, I can have flowers and walk through 'the garden' on the wooden slats!

It seems that my Lego People really like the pallet garden too. It is always good to have extra help.

Miss Molly dropped in [we never even heard her!] and jetted out to the shed where she promptly cleaned the rest of Sven's pen and then cleaned Lil' Richard's pen. 

Sweet! She and I fixed Sven's pen [say that 3 times fast] door so it would open properly. She visited with Rich and then helped him with the gates so he could dump manure with the skid steer and mow the one pasture we had made last week.

Today, if the timing works out, she'll come over and we will go riding together in the woods.

In search of ...Fungi and Fun

Finally we have had some rain! It was hard to go out and find one of my favorite things to photograph because it was SO dry! So I went to the creek before the scheduled rains and looked around for...

Fungi....
Mushrooms.....
Tiny stuff found on the forest floor.....

I did find some extremely tiny fungi growing orange and red on moss...on a log in the creek. I actually could not see the individual forms without using the Microscope Mode on the Olympus Tough camera.

These were smaller than the point of a lead pencil!

This is what I found:

Ahhh, here is the totally cool Fungi I found! I love how they lined up on the log and there is a slug that seems to be visiting!

Fungi Family:

The supervisor was checking things out from the log above me:

Of course this was before the weather turned absolutely awful. The temperatures are in the 40's and there has been a bone chilling rain for 24 hrs. .

I pulled apart our cabin heater and cleaned it thoroughly, then got it started to warm up the house. 
Brrr! I cut up a small batch of tomatoes and some apples to dehydrate.
My loyal little soldiers are protecting my lids and jars so when I start making jelly from my summer haul of berries, I will have lids.

The tomatoes are slowly ripening and not many at a time right now.

So there it is. A very dull day. But I got a lot of indoor work done. Including attacking the cob webs downstairs. 

Meanwhile, if the weather stinks...

I'll look for things to do inside....while I wait for it to warm up later this week!

Tomatoes or Toomah...toes?

 

First off, I needed to have some fun with the tomatoes. The toys were already in basket on the porch and I just decided to spend some time after picking the 'maters  to have some fun.

I know, childish, but there you go. It also let me practice using the auto stack and auto focus selection on the camera. There is an option for in camera focus stacking on the red pocket camera and the Oly OMD M5iii. Basically it takes a photo shot in macro and takes several shots to pull more items into focus when using a short focal length of 1.8 to 2. I know, gibberish to some, but practicing makes it easier to use when I get out to the woods and want to have some Fungi shots.

The 25mm lens is incredibly clear and will quickly become my favorite to use in the woods along with the macro lens which will actually do IN camera focus stacking. Love the computer chips inside these newer updated cameras.

Ok. I got off track again.

Tomatoes, yippee for canning! Here is yesterday's loot along with the sauce we had for supper which I froze all the extra with mushrooms and sausage for quick meals later this year.

Marigolds...a bowl of them!

Zinnias...I love Zinnias.

Each week I pick a plastic bottle or a can and fill it with Zinnias and drop it at my neighbor's bench. She claims to have a brown thumb and flowers are still a mystery to her. Though she is doing very well with her little green house.

Tomatoes on the porch....

They are the next ones to get ripe and canned. 

However I am setting aside Thursday or Friday to get out with my pal Bill and go hiking. 

I do put my foot down on getting OUT to go somewhere with another human and spend time hiking or biking. This is part of my self care. Bill is willing to hike in all seasons which means we can continue through the winter months. It is something I look forward to a LOT each week.

I started the Veteran's Administration CareGiving class yesterday. More on that later.

My sunflowers are just about done and I toss the stems to the mules. The flower heads I leave out for the birds.

And last but not least. August 31st had an amazing sunrise.

I leave you with that today.

Until tomorrow.

Be well, stay safe and healthy.

Lucky me

I am pretty grateful for having such an interesting upbringing. All summer we stayed at a  small cottage. No TV, no hot water, we did have a toilet that flushed but weren't allowed to use it during the day.

Grandpa wanted to conserve electricity and not burden the pump. I think he was under the impression that we kids would flush for fun? I have no idea. 

My Grandparents had a tiny house not far from where we stayed. Our tiny house had two halves. One half was a room that was the kitchen and everything else room. The other part of the tiny house had 2 sets of bunk beds shoved together to sleep in. And the toilet with a curtain for privacy. It was built for Grandmother's parents to live out their lives in. The floor was wavy, uneven, and fun to play marbles on. 

We spent the summer surrounded by my Grandparents' huge garden. Only now am I coming to realize that they didn't just raise items for themselves and to sell, but they also raised enough food for to always have extra. I can recall their cellar be lined with home canned goods. The floor was dirt and there was a 'cold' room.

My own family had rows upon rows of home canned goods also. I never ate any jelly or jam that was factory made unless it was at a restaurant. I actually still don't as I've only once purchased grape jelly for grandkids when they all visited for a week during the summer and they all wanted grape jelly and peanut butter for snacks.

So why am I so lucky? I learned how to preserve and garden as a kid. A skill I was sure I would never use, ever. After all, we are the land of plenty right? I mean I can go to the store and pick up whatever I want when I want.

After swearing off vegetable gardening for many years, but growing flowers, I decided to experiment and mix it up. Flowers and green beans along with leaf lettuce.

Soon the garden grew larger and included all the basic veggies that Rich and I both loved. I had continued all along to make jellies and jams from foraging in the woods and picking blackberries, raspberries, and seeking out the wild apple trees to make apple jelly.

I went to the store after the Covid-19 #SafeAtHome order came to our state. Imagine my surprise in March when the land of plenty became the land of empty shelves. 

I dug back into my childhood and decided the prepare for this coming fall and winter. I planted another vegetable garden with the foods I knew that we would use all year to make stews, soups, and meals.

This is the third batch of tomatoes. The other two batches yielded 8 pints of Pasta Sauce to use for Lasagna and of course spaghetti this winter. I used to hate canning tomatoes, especially the peeling part.

Not so much any more. I use a food mill that separates the skins and most of the cores from the tomato. Easy Peasy.

It all comes somewhat naturally to me as I reach back in the memory banks to kid-hood. Grandpa's habit of saving things that could be useful in case of a shortage must have stemmed from living through WWI, the pandemic, the depression, and the rationing of WWII. Now I get it.

My Grandparents weren't idiots, they'd seen a world they hoped I would never see.

Yes I am Lucky.

Not going there...and other stuff

I got baited yesterday while working on tomatoes and stirring things and waiting for a medication delivery.

I noticed that someone I knew stated that our state was like living under martial law because we had to wear masks and that South Dakota never had any issues with Covid-19. I simply noted to them that SD had a 10.7 person density per square mile and our state had 107 per square mile and in the cities it was something like 6,000 per square mile. 

Uff. I should have ignored it. I was ashamed that I even tried to point out to someone the difference between states. Oh well. I will smack myself on the head a few times and repeat my mantra [scroll past, do NOT comment]. Conclusion: Don't comment on Meme's that so many people post thinking they are real info.

In other great news! I got the Firestick working well for hubby. He is now getting used to asking Alexa or as he calls her Hey Alex...to find programs for him to watch.

It has been dry dry dry here. The humidity is way down so that is a bonus. It gets warm in the afternoon however the slight breeze is nice.

So with the new Firestick, I finally got rid of the ancient computer we were streaming with. Years ago one of the grands slipped an SD card into the CD/DVD drive.

So I decided to see if I could retrieve the SD card.  Have you ever taken a laptop apart? Well it isn't exactly easy, but I didn't have to take care doing it.
And I had help.

I think they were looking for 'intel' and they found it!

I went for a walk to look at the back fence, the forest ground in that area is so barren and dry. Whew.

However the moisture near the creek keeps things green and growing. I did stop and stand in the creek to admire some filtered light.

I cooked up pasta sauce and canned it yesterday. Today I am cooking up a fresh ham with instructions on how to make pulled pork.

Here is hoping for some rain and a few days break from processing tomatoes. Huh. I don't think that is going to happen!

And I did retrieve the SD card and it wouldn't work. The photos were from October 2013.

Spam spam, who likes spam?

 Well certainly not me!

All comments from here on out will have to be 'approved'. Really, I am not interested in the size of your parts nor do I want to do the 'nasty' with you...whoever you may be.

But as gross as that is, why is it done? I mean really? 

Okay in other news.

Yipee! We finally got a Firestick and Remote! Very slick. Now Rich is totally unprepared. He doesn't like it. Just an off and on button and some symbols on the remote. And I showed him how to ask for Western Movies and Alexa showed us so many! 

If it were that easy, right? Teach an old dog new tricks?

It will be interesting.

So, yesterday was a pickin'/freezin'/cookin' day. 4 dozen ears of corn, blanched, frozen, and dehydrated.

Tomatoes cooked in a crock pot to make pasta sauce. Right now the tomatoes are coming in a few at a time. When I get enough to can, I will be doing that. 

Last but not least. Yesterday morning I walked to the neighbor's place to drop off a bucket of sweet cantelope. She had given me two plants for my garden and my garden is producing them like crazy whereas hers wasn't.

Share and share alike. I also picked a couple of zinnias to go with the drop off.

I am giving myself a one day break from canning/cooking/freezing. Well, I think I am. 

And to you spammer person! Ewwww! I'm glad I changed my comments again back to having to be approved. 

Last item, some art for you to appreciate. My Diversion Art:

I mean, who doesn't love unicorns???