Hello to 2017 & To You This New Year

Hello and a late welcome to 2017. Ole TD here has been a busy bee since last post in November (yes November) so I wanted to catch you up on what's happening.
Seed catalogs: I have a lot of them, ranging from Baker Creek to Territorial Seed. I even have some from businesses I've never heard of. They may be good companies and I did peruse the catalogs but? I don't know. I am making my final seed list after this post though! Gotta get moving.
Garden planning: Yes, I probably should do this before the item above but as usual I will will come up with a basic plan and switch it up on planting day. And on a side note, the raised beds are starting to fall apart so there needs to be repairs or replacements happening this spring. They have built a few new houses in our neighborhood and I am eying the extra block left. Need to find out what they are going to do with it. I am definitely rebuilding with block no matter what. If I can't get it I'll keep my eye on CL or the Restore.
Facebook: I had an account on FB for some time and recently my wife and myself just decided to deactivate them. Tired of all the hassle and mess and idiots on it. I did start one for tossing dirt a while back and didn't do too much with it. I did a few updates on it this evening and plan on using it for my gardening, hiking, golf, etc. stuff. Check it out.
Chewy: We sadly lost our buddy on January 12th. We had previously decided that if the cancer came back we'd let him live out his life as best he could. It came back a lot faster and more aggressive than I had anticipated. I was out of town the day it happened so Amy had to deal with it by herself. He's not in pain anymore and we are happy about that. Our other dog and cat do miss him like all of us do.
Posts: Well with my Facebook dismissal I am aspiring to post more here. I'm not sure about the audience for bloggers anymore but hope to keep it strong.
Off to finalize my seed list!

2016 And Here We Go

Well let's see what 2016 has in store. I hope this year will give me a chance to lay back some and quit working all of the time. I've purchased a golf membership the last two years and used it a total of maybe 5 times? Rarely played paintball last year. Haven't gone backpacking since I don't know when. Bought a new pack 3 years ago and haven't used it once. It's nice too (it looks nice.) Heck, we didn't even go anywhere for vacation last year. Used maybe half of my vacation days last year, most at the Christmas Holidays.
After typing all of that and reading it, I do need breaks more often!
I know I haven't been posting a lot lately, been busy. That and lack of ideas too. But here's a good one.
List of things I've got going on:

• Still working on the upstairs of the house. Got the other main room and a half bath framed out. Need to do some wiring, insulation, etc. Also got to run main power up there too. I'll take some pictures for you later. We'll discuss this more....... quiet.
• We put in a pool last year. Still got to stain the deck though. 
• I also have to stain the deck on the back of the house. 
• Paint the front porch.
• Hah! Still haven't fixed my wife's bathroom ceiling! But now she wants tongue and groove wood on the ceiling (probably after seeing my sheetrock finishing skills upstairs. Hey, I can build it.) That and she bought some paint for the walls. 
• Laid out for some tile backsplash in the kitchen. Left it up to the wife to get it. So far she hasn't. 
• Work. At my job. Still do that.
• Finish some small furniture projects.
• Do some misc repairs and painting around the house. Starting to look a little rough. 

Smaller list than normal but the upstairs work entails a lot of things! Doors to cut down and install, electrical rough-ins, hvac units, carpet, etc. I keep busy. 

I injured my back December 4th and am now almost pain free. Almost wanted to get back to working out (my injury cause to begin with) but I figured I could wait a few more days and ease back into it. I've been taking steroids and muscle relaxers. Also got some pain meds but don't really affect me. My wife and I also joined a gym. She's been going and I believe is going to work with a personal training for 20 sessions. I joined for the cardio machines and a few leg machines. I have a bench, curl bar, free weights, and pull-up bar in the garage. I need to pick up some weight plates and a straight bar for the new program I'm doing. Ease back into it I say. And I have to admit I miss working out. Looking forward to get back into it. 

We cut the TV cord a few days ago. Had Directv for the time living in this house and it was nice except for a few big downpours. But with the cost going up I decided that was enough. I upgraded our internet and we have been streaming everything now. My oldest has a netflix so we've been using it and have successfully binged through Longmire (all four seasons), and have started Hell on Wheels. I signed up for a Hulu Plus free trial ($8.00 a month with commercials) and have started watching Vikings, Wings (old TV show) and currently watching Bob Ross. Yes we don't have live TV and will miss things but that's OK by me. We may get a digital antenna so my wife can watch the news in the morning. There's enough stuff out there. BTW, Longmire season five starts Septemberish.

Oh we got a cat. Not sure I told you that? 

Leia (Goes with Chewy the dog)

Took a trip through the garden Sunday during the windstorm and pulled some turnips. Cabbage still coming end but it's demise may be coming next week. Garden needs a good weeding. 

Garden is definitely going to be smaller this year. For sure. I couldn't keep up with it with everything else I had going on. Farmer's Market idea never materialized (thankfully.) I need to get some good compost (add composter to my list above) for the beds. They don't start selling manure around here until May which is after I plant. Need a source. 

Ordered some flower seeds for my wife but I don't think I'll need but a few things this year. Maybe look for some different squash and a new tomato. I've said before that I saved a lot of seeds from last year. A lot of different tomato varieties and we were given some pepper seeds in trade for some of the Solar Flare seeds. And I am definitely going to get my onions started from seed this year. I don't know why but I seem to fail at this.

Getting late and Bob is almost finished the third episode so I'm out for now. 

Happy Trees!

 

Making Progress or Not

Welp, didn’t get as much done as I wanted to get done this weekend. Worked like crazy Saturday until about 5:00 in the afternoon and pretty much overheated myself. Guess I’m not used to the heat yet  Got up early Sunday and started again until the rain came early in the afternoon. I managed to get all of the strawberry plants I ordered from Gurneys plated after tilling up a new area for them, planted out some sweet banana and chili peppers, weeded, planted eggplant, weeded some more, replaced some onions, mowed, burned a bunch of crap, etc. We actually did some research on the strawberries and found the correct ones for our region. Junebearer is the type that is the best for our region. Ordered about 100 plants because The Wife wants a lot of jam so there you go. We’ll see what we get off of them this year.

Good looking pepper roots.

Peas. Need to get supports up!

Cabbage, Bok Choy, etc.

Bees LOVE this.

Spreading out some.

Speaking of bees, our wonderful addition from a few years ago, Chewie, loves to spend his time outside trying to catch them. I have no idea why he likes to do this but he will jump and run after them. Here he is on patrol after losing his last attempt.

Chewman.

As I said I got the peppers and strawberries all planted in, mostly. As I type this I realize I still have to work on some bell peppers.

Strawberries.

Chili and banana peppers.

Weekly view.

I have a good selection of plants for the sale we’ll be having soon with more coming. The local farmer’s market opens May 9th this year. We’re still on the fence about trying to join it this year.

Plants for sale.

Busy week ahead. Hope to get everything else planted out this coming weekend. Got to get back on the room upstairs. Have a good week!

May the Forth Be With You!

I hope it is for you. We all need the 4th now and then.

Busy on the homestead today, trying to get some things done before I headed out of town for a few days (back to that grind again :( )
Yesterday evening I tilled between all of the potatoes and bush beans to get the weeds down, then proceeded to till the whole patch where I "started" corn. Nothing was coming up save for maybe two plants. Maybe I got anxious and started them too early so I replanted some new seed from the store yesterday so we'll see how this works out. Strawberries are really coming on now and it looks to be a bumper crop this year. I meant to pick up a couple more plants as we seem to have a dead area in the bed but that will have to wait for the weekend. Also spent some time tying up some tomato plants and starting a few mellons. Let's take another tour shall we :)

I picked up some bags of mulch at the store and started to do all of the beds. I obviously didn't get enough as I wasn't really in the mood to carry too much that day. I also have been adding more signs to the garden, not so much for knowing what's where (except tomatoes) as for dressing it up a little. I even try to draw a picture on them. 

I got the line hooked up and sprinklers ready for the pole beans. Probably be looking at a few weeks before setting up the netting. 

DIL's herb garden. It will be a few weeks before this really starts setting out. Fingers crossed. 

All in all looking pretty good so far. It's early, I know. 

Front beds. 

Amester (she was tired of The Wife) was good enough to get me some stakes Saturday at Cameron so I started making more signs. After the glue is set up, on to paint then into the garden. 

Got a good picture of our Grand kitten, Gunner. I think things are settling down in the house now, thank goodness. He likes spending time out on the back porch. 

WOF of the Week.

It's been a while for a W.O.T.W. I know, but how many pictures of horizontal dogs can one take? 

Chewie says "Hey Baby" (in the voice of Barry White of course.)

That's it for now as a long week awaits. Keep your groove on kids. 

One more note. Birthday of one of my favorite actresses. 

Past Week Review

My Staycation was last week and this morning on the way back to work I had a chance to mentally take stock of what I got accomplished.
Not as much as I wanted but enough.

Finally got the out building sided, painted, ramped, doored.

Saturday morning.

Sunday evening shots. Painted it to closely match the house.

I have to level out the ramp a little and secure it to the ground and build a step for the door. A lot of work when you do most of it by yourself. 

We also got our daughter-in-law moved out of their apartment and now she is a full time resident on our half acre. She brought her cat, Gunner, which likes to terrorize the dogs. Ginny wants to play and Chewie ignores him. They'll get along soon enough. 

I also built a berm bed for flowers at the north side of the garden. 

Speaking of daughter-in-laws, she has been good enough to start an herb collection this weekend, including planting out The Wife's herb bed I bought her. 

Tour some more.

Strawberries are finally coming in. We have a lot of sets on.

Two year old bush beans have come up but no corn sprouts yet. I did check to make sure the seeds were good. 

Blue Lake pole beans have also started up.

Garlic and onions.

Overall garden view as of Sunday, April 28th. 

Landscaping looking good after some minor clean- up work. 

Hope everyone has a good week!

Home Alone- 2

Well another day has sprung in NC and freeze warnings were everywhere. Sorry to say but I never got the chance to cover everything up last night as it monsooned all evening. I can handle warm rain, but not cold, 30 mph rain. When I left for work this morning it was 36 degrees so I'll see what happened when I get home tonight. Speaking of last night; go to walk the dogs as the rain lightened up some, Ginny walked outside and walked back in. Chewie had to go and of course as far as we get from the house it unloaded on us, then he proceeds to do something to his front leg and can barely walk back. Needless to say we were soaked. Wet dog and pissed- off Owner. Cat doesn't come out of room but is at least eating. Fell asleep on couch at 8:00, went to bed at 10:30, up at 5:00. Living the life here!
Turned webcam onto living room this morning and of course what do I see at lunch?

Smiling toy at the lower right. Almost like he's giving a thumbs- up! 

Interruption tomorrow as everyone is coming back home. 

Absolutely

a beautiful weekend. We were able to get a lot done on the homestead. Raided the big box store Saturday for some more flowers and we were off and running. After looking at our progress it was decided that 'another' bed could be put in the space between said new beds and the older ones. So my Sunday was spent building said bed, running new water lines to all of the new additions, setting out all of the drip emitters, and mulching around everything as we had a ton of the stuff left over.

I was lucky in finding the old lines pretty quickly. I also installed the valves I wanted to on each bed so I can control what gets watered when.

Strawberry blooms are coming on and we already have the makings of some berries already.

Wife's Confederate Jasmine smells great right now. 

The lettuce has really turned around so we might get some of it before it gets too hot. 

Current overall view as of yesterday evening. Just a few more thing and I'm done for a while. You can see that the potatoes have really come on now. In the new, long bed I planted Blue Lake pole beans. 

After toiling away in the garden I went out and power- washed the front porch and sidewalk to rid them of all of the pollen flying about. My sinuses can't take much more of this stuff. 

The Wife, Boy and DiL are on their way to WV for the week leaving me with two dogs, 4 fish, and a deranged cat. The cat belongs to said DiL and son, and since he's gone and she is with us, so is the cat. On his defense it's new surroundings for him. Chewie could really care less but Ginny seems to want to play and is interested in Gunner (aka: odd cat.) We think this because Ginny was brought up with cats. She doesn't chase him, just scopes him out. We'll see who lives through this week. 

Cold front moving in mid- week so hopefully that doesn't affect anything planted or I'll be covering like a madman. Hope your weekend was productive too!