Really? We're Drowning Here

 OK. Not complaining about droughts again. It has rained pretty much everyday in July. Yesterday and last night we got close to 4". It gets hot during the day, then rains which makes it even more miserable since it does not cool anything down. Oh yes, the humidity has been through the roof too. Just not a fun summer so far. Matilda does not like the storms at all. She gets nervous and paces and pants. We got some calming pills from the pet store but they don't seem to help. This makes for sleepless nights for us. 

The garden has suffered, especially the tomatoes. They grow through the day then get hit with 2" of rain, then they crack. And it seems there's not any time to work on it. As soon as you do it rains. This past weekend I had to fix the weed eater, lawn mower because it wouldn't steer and change the wife's oil in her car. Also mowed the front lawn and cleaned up the chicken's coop. Got done around 1PM and was spent. 

Now we seem to have a leak on our west facing wall of the house. Every time it rains we somehow get a small leak inside by the fire place. That will be this coming Saturday's job. always something. 

No pictures of WOF of the Week. Coming this weekend. 

Sky Water Did You Say?

 Finally! As I type this is is lightly raining. Took the pups out in it and of Course Benjamin did his thing and ran back into the garage. Matilda? Rain doesn't affect her. We walked the yard and then some. We had a real good rain earlier in the day. 3" according to the rain gauge. We definitely needed it and then some. My burn pile is high but for fear of setting the county on fire I have been letting the set. We are expecting more rain this coming Tuesday so maybe next weekend we'll get that pile down. 

Ms. TD and her friends went to the antique market in Charlotte Saturday so I talked the new front steps handrails and post caps. I didn't have all of the materials to finish everything and one of my boards for the handrail spindles was warped badly so it didn't put it in. I got the top rails in and one side bottom. I got the top caps cut and installed. Routed out a nice cut back on the caps, cut 2 small 4x4 pieces to hold the new light Ms. TD bought and set the lights in place, I thought they screwed in but apparently you have to use outdoor adhesive. Finishing up the stairs for good will be this coming weekends' job. I did some weeding in the garden afterwards but took no photos. I got overheated as it was horribly humid out so called it a day. Ms. TD and I have a four day weekend coming up so hope we can get a lot of things competed. 

We got another small harvest from the garden earlier today as well. Cucumbers are really producing this year. Tomatoes not so much right now. 

That's about it for this post. Hopefully more to come this weekend. 

Harvest Monday, July 15, 2013

Good Monday to everyone. I am happy on one front as we have no rain forecasted for the next few days, and sad on another front as the garden has either drowned or been eaten alive by squash bugs.

We did two pickings this week and canned Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoon. Here's the updated totals.

Another good picking of the tomatoes this past week which means we have passed the century mark on those and now up to 119.46 lbs for the year. The plants are looking pretty bad though so there will be some changes upcoming this weekend. I have some Early Girl plants that I am putting in place of the Romas. We also got a smattering of green beans, peppers, and a big eggplant. One thing that has continued to do well are the peppers, They must love all of the rain we have been getting, which is about 9-10" above normal where we live.

 

And this is not all of the canned products we have done! Bigger stove!

 

 

 

One thing I did get this year and has been totally worth it is a new tomato processor. Not the most fancy but it works great.

 

This past Saturday after moving the kids I broke down and mowed the yard in the rain. Sunday was 10% chance so I waited until about noon and hit it again and got it looking somewhat decent. If I'd waited any longer I would have had to bail it.

 

And of course with 10% chance we still got rain. Can't eliminate squash bugs when it rains all of the time. 

 



WOF of the Week. It's been a while for these showings but I will make an effort to do them more often. Like I said we moved the kids into their new place near his base and we had an old kitchen table that Amy used for scrapbooking, one that we were giving them. We took the legs off of it and set it down in the living room until we needed it for loading. Look what we found.

 

 

Be sure to visit Daphne's Dandelions to see other Harvest Mondays.

 

Until next time keep your wood down kids.



One Down

Finally got one almost completely out of the house. Rented a Uhaul trailer and moved them and their stuff to their new apartment. A lot of stuff but thankfully he had help lined up when we got there in the form of two of his military buddies. They made light work of the stuff saving olde TD's back mostly. All in all they seem pretty well settled in and their apartment is nice as well. Oh to be young and starting off in life. Someone said that  they wished they had a time machine to use to go back in time and change things that they wished they'd did differently. I don't think so. That's part of the journey, good and bad.

Rain, rain, rain. That's all it does anymore. I finally broke down and mowed the yard this afternoon, and of course it started raining again. The last time I mowed was June 27th. I honestly believe it has rained everyday since then, save Saturday the 6th when we weren't in town. I just set the mower on the highest setting and went to town. The grass was so high it still tried to clog up the mower. Will hit the yard again tomorrow if there's no rain. Not counting on it though.

On the garden front everything is in shambles. I believe the plants are downing. Those that aren't are being attacked by squash bugs. Sad thing is I haven't been able to do much about the bugs because of THE RAIN. Hopefully get that taken care of tomorrow too. The Roma's are just about done so I picked up some Early Girls to put in their place for the rest of the year. It looks like we have green beans to pick and Amy harvested more tomatoes earlier in the week so we've been canning fools. I'll have pictures of this for Harvest Monday. In the mean time I think I'll take a break and enjoy some peaceful TV time with my British comedies.

Well.........Guess What.....

It doesn't stop. And as I type this, it's raining again. More effiing rain! I have to admit that it's get old. 

Spent a lot of time in the garden Saturday. As previously mentioned I pulled out the remaining potatoes as they were starting to get eaten up too much by the beetles. Spent the better part of a couple of hours but harvested another 37.4 lbs. Not all of the were big but will make good soup that can be canned later. And while doing this Amy came out and asked me about the onions. I told her that the tops needs to die down some more but she went ahead and pulled a couple up to check and found out that one was starting to rot off. My guess is due to the abundance of rain we've had this year. So we pulled a few more and decided ready or not they had to come out too. We found a few more of the rotten variety but most were of good size, except the yellows. The biggest were the whites followed in a close second by the reds and the yellows pulling up last. As far as quantities; yellow, red, white. After getting everything out of the ground in these two beds I threw in some cow dung, spread the straw around and tilled the hell out of them. Took me about 2 hours to get everything the way I wanted as the straw kept clogging up in the wheels. 

That's 56 lbs. of potatoes. 

And now the back deck smells of the wonderful aroma of onions. We'll let them sit out here for some time then I''ll trim them back and store them away. And give some away too apparently. Total harvest of onions is  52.87 lbs. (yellow 23.26, red 17.63, & white 11.98.)

Ready for fall crops. 

We were able to harvest some more tomatoes, a few cukes, etc. and that will be in tomorrow's post for Harvest Monday. I was worried about doing that but dumbass me found out you can set for when posts occur so I'll get it typed up this evening. And as I finish this, it is still raining. Storming too so the dogs are freaking out now. And I have another post about earlier in the week madness. It seems to never end here. 

Keep your heads above water kids (blurb, blurb, blurb........................................................)

OK.......Rain..........And More Rain

So I made the mistake of saying 'Boy, I'm not complaining about it raining." Well I am now. Mind you we all like to see it rain from time to time. Seems like we are getting downpours that last hours. And hours. And hours. It was raining pretty good and Tropical Storm Andrea came up the coast and dumped more. Now that she's gone there still rain forecasted until next Wednesday.

I did have a quick chance to slosh out to the garden and take a look around. 

That's it. My Yellow Crookneck Squash and salvaged Daylily from the old house. 

That's more like it. And one more thing: When did gutters and downspouts become options? Hate not having them but my neighbor gave me a good lead on a cheap guy. 

That's it tonight. Maybe something tomorrow. Oh, changed the header too. 

Stay dry kids. 

Mid Week

I'm here. A little sore but I am here just the same. This exercise program has been kicking my butt but hopefully it will be worth it in the end. A couple days ago it hurts to type.

Today we are looking at a chance of rain as well as tomorrow. Beside yesterday it has rained pretty much everyday for the past 6 days. This weekend it is supposed to be nice so hopefully those peas are ready to come out. That and I want to get the green bean fences put in as they are ready to climb.

I can't quite put my finger on it but this spring seems to be a little off. A little cooler and definitely more rainy. I could stand this year- round. I cruised the garden when I got home last night and besides having to cover one of the potato plants, everything seems to be in good shape with all of the rain coming down. I even picked up a few more tomatoes on the vines. I did do some looking around and am still considering expanding the garden in a few places. Still on the fence about corn but I may add another row of beans and a few more pepper and tomato plants. We'll see when Friday rolls around.

Here's a link on how to help to people of Moore, Oklahoma. Terrible what happened and help if you can.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/20/how-to-help-oklahoma_n_3308962.html

Being a Good Spring

Well after about 6 days of no rain, 1 of which I had to water, we finally got some rain last night and today. Actually while reading Tami's blog, a big strike hit near the house which resulted in a WOF making an immediate jump onto the couch with me (see below.) So with the exception of one day of watering Mother Nature has done me right this year. So far. I know summer is coming and along with that, HEAT and NO RAIN. But for the mean time, the plants are loving it.

I went out Saturday and got myself 4 bales of straw to cover all of the potatoes. I did spray some Sevin on them a few days ago (and all of the other plants just to be on the safe side) and got rid of most of the beetles that were munching on the leaves. Buried them pretty good so should be good until harvest time. Well, I might have to cover them up a little more later.

Also while I was there I backfilled against all of the onions to cover up the bulbs.

Got a couple more tomatoes set so the bees have definitely been around. These are off of The Youngest Boy's plants he did earlier this year.  

So for next few hours I clipped on all of the tomato plants, weeded (never ending), cleaned up, and watered down all of the straw and green beans. The last two rows I planted have started coming up. Have to get the trellis system built for them. The peas are looking like another week or so for picking. Those we are going to freeze.

As I said at the beginning, it stormed here this evening and I got a visitor. She hates storms. Even the Chewman jumped. 

Here's the sound I was describing last post. A chirp and two whistles. Please help!

Another thing from last post was my starting an exercise program. I have changed my diet quite a bit which is what you have to do with this program. I did start another blog about it. Check it out if you want some good laughs. Working on Working Out

Spring, Spring, Where Art Thou?

We go from cold, rainy weather to highs in the mid 80s. Spring just shot right on by for some reason. Looking at the long range forecast it might cool down some for next weekend but still, let's try to extend this out some. Please.

Did some work in the garden today and hopefully got everything off to a good start. Planted some yellow squash and eggplant. With that there are the peas (need fencing for them to climb on soon), one row of beans (next row gets planted next weekend) tomatoes (staked a few up and lost a few with the really heavy rains lately), cukes (made their appearance) the 5,000 onions, and the potatoes (finally made their appearance too.) Feels like I'm missing something though. Hmmmmm. Need to think on this.

Green Beans. 

Thought about planting corn this year just to see if I can get it to grow. I don't know if it will be worth the effort though. I also got a hose spigot hooked up to the station at the garden, installed the timer, and ran some water out of the lines. I have one line that doesn't have anything running out of it so that's on the list for next weekend too.

Still haven't figured out what I'm missing from my plantings. Hopefully by this weekend. Also got to measure out the property so I can try to get a building permit for the outbuilding. That and a dna sample is required. Pain in the a$$.

Until next time, keep the spring in your step.

Frozen Planet

Watched the Frozen Planet series yesterday afternoon and evening and I must say that it is good TV.

These are the kind of shows I enjoy watching. No reality TV for me. I also watch HGTV and DIY Network when I get the chance although DIY is on my list as Ahmed Hassan is no longer on Yard Crashers! And I can't forget This Old House. Never really liked Villa but these new guys are fun to watch.
Back to Frozen Planet. Now if you've watched any of the other Planet series you know that you're in for a big reality check. First, Man is not at the top of the food chain. I'd say we'd be around 6 or 7. Secondly, the efforts of the filming crews and the shots they get are outstanding. There's a lot going on that you don't know about. Third, you find out just how fragile this planet is and how the activities of some have devastating impacts on others, namely the wildlife and planet itself. Now, I've never been one to go around and loudly beat the save our planet drum or join Greenpeace but we have as a family in recent years began to do more of what is responsibly correct for the environment. We recycle all household items that can be recycled, donate to Goodwill old clothing that maybe go into the trash (and if they are too bad they become garage towels), I recycle the motor oil from the vehicles, fill my cans with rain water, but there is more that we can do. Once we get the move complete, there will be a couple of composting containers and rainwater barrels that I'm making from food grade 55 gallon plastic drums, I'll be looking at a smaller, fuel- efficient car for traveling in and leave the truck at the house, use one metal bottle for our drinking water and rid ourselves of those plastic ones for good, and continue with our recycling efforts. We have upgraded the appliances with high efficiency units and are considering the front loader washing machine and dryer. If I'm able to get the gardens going this year, I'm planting main crops that can be frozen and/or canned. Of course I've spouted about solar energy so this fall I'm going to have someone come out and give me hard numbers for a system.

There are a lot of good ideas out there, more that I want to explore. Watch the series if you haven't.