New Year of 2018

Hello and welcome to my 2018 blog posts!
We've had an interesting few months so let me catch you up.
1. First and foremost we had to say goodbye to The WOF. She developed a rare type of skin cancer. We tried several treatments but weren't going to do anything too extreme due to her age. It eventually caught up with us so we made the call and stayed with her for the last moments. She was with us a long, long time and I have to admit it was one of the hardest things to do. But she's better off now.
2. Christmas: My sister, niece and her husband spent the holidays with us. We had a good time although interesting for the cat as two new dogs were traveling with them. They left on Christmas Day back for WV. December 26th I got the same virus I had the previous year. On the couch for three days before I was able to move again. I didn't wait this time and sought our treatment from the emergency room. A long wait later and I had a few meds but not anything over the top. I made it to work that Friday, the same day my boss made it back in from his illness. As of today I'm still on the mend with a bit of a cough and congestion. Trying a few new OTC meds now and they seem to be helping. Hopefully get through this soon.
3. First snow of 2018. I drove into it in South Carolina. I was coming up from Alabama at the time. Took me 12 hours total for a 9 hour drive. People in the south can't drive in snow.
4. New WOF. Much to Amy's hesitation I had to have another WOF in the house. Her name is Bailey. She's a 6 year old lab mix we rescued from the SPCA. She and the cat are having their rounds but I think they'll slowly work it out. I saw her on our local county animal control website early Thursday morning, called 3 times before I got through to someone. We went over her history and I told them my son would be around after lunch to check her out. He calls me and says that the dog was moved. We found her at the neighboring county SPCA so I spent Friday afternoon tracking her down and finally got her. She looks like she has part greyhound or whippet in her. She has seemed to taken over the WOF torch for the farm.

Well that's the Cliff notes version. As far as the garden this year I still have to repair/replace the garden beds and plan everything out for this year. Tomorrow I plan on testing some seeds I saved from last year. More on that Monday. Also have a list of things we need to get updated around the house. We've lived here since 2012 and haven't done any updating so now it's time.

Quick post so I'll see you soon.

Miss Bailey.

Im memory of The WOF.

Harvest Monday; June 26, 2017

Hello and welcome to Harvest Monday from WOFdog farms. It's what we call the place. :)

Been a fairly good week here on the farm and aroundabout town too. Amy and I went to the farmer's market Saturday morning to look at a few things and pick up a few things. Peaches and corn are the big items selling right now. We picked up some tomatoes, white sweet potatoes, beets, peaches, salsa, and bruschetta from our bruschetta guy. Yes, we have a guy.  And it is good.

Now that's a sweet potato!

Little bird came walking/hopping by as we were getting our salsa like he owned the place. 

Farmer's market selfie.

Got home later in the day and got the garage cleaned out. It needed it.

Sunday was food shopping, cooking, prepping, and gardening. I got the Roma tomatoes planted out and planted 6 habanero pepper plants a neighbor gave us. Same neighbors that gave us a box of corn earlier in the week. Nice to know farmers. Amy picked green beans and few more cukes. We've been getting a steady supply of cukes all week.  I planted 2 rows of pole beans to show the critters I can do it. 

Romas planted out.

There are some watermelon in that pile.

More peppers>

Amy got this bed cleaned up.

Getting bell peppers now!

Amy's flowers by the pool.

Growing that propane tank. Getting big now. 

Caught some butterflies having some fun.

Moved the light stand into the garage which made Amy happy. Had to get it out of the office. I started broccoli, cabbage, leeks, brussel sprouts, spinach, and celery. 

Pickings from Sunday. 

Here's the weekly totals. 

WOF of the Week.

Here she is looking all regal behind the flowers. She loves her sunshine. Harvest Monday is hosted at Our Happy Acres. 

Harvest Monday; March 27, 2017

No harvests to speak of. I never planned on growing anything over the winter and with our schedules I never saw the benefit of trying anything this spring. This doesn't mean that I've given up. I do have some spinach plants started that I hope to have in the ground next weekend along with some onion starts maybe. I say maybe as I've never had any luck starting onions from seed. In the mean time I have transplanted my Roma starts and as of last night transplanted the remaining tomatoes starts I have. Off the top of my head we are growing: Roma, Solar Flare, Better Boy, Mortgage Lifter, Box Car Willie, Rutgers, Grape, Rainbow, Katja, and Red Pear that I got from Seeds of Italy. Except for the Better Boy seeds, the remaining tomatoes are from my saved seed. Pretty happy about that. The Red Pear is a new try this year, based from Italian seeds. Interesting to see how they grow. I also bought some onion and flower seeds from them. Here's a link: Seeds of Italy.

Peppers are another story. I have great germination of bell peppers but nothing else. I meant to start more last night after the tomato work but was just too tired to get that done. Maybe tonight. 

See what I mean. Two rows of peppers out of the whole tray, sans a Cayenne pepper plant. I watered them really good last night and will give them a few days to make an appearance then it begins again.

Overall view of the growing stand. The onion starts are on top. 

WOF of the Week. The cat makes her first appearance in WotW. She lives the back porch. 

Short and boring, just like me :) Honestly, I'm not that short. Anyway check out other Harvests and people actually growing and harvesting things at Dave's site, Our Happy Acres. 

March It Is

With the weather from a few weeks ago it seemed summer had arrived in February, but alas now we are back down to where we should be. 60s daytime highs and 40s at night. Still not too bad but it does kind of suck after you get 3-4 days of 80. So into March we go.
I haven't really had anything to post for Harvest Mondays so I don't link on Dave's blog as of yet. We are hoping for a good harvest this year so I am going to really concentrate on proper feeding and soil composition. I know this should always be done and I do it at times but with our schedules its hard to really get it done. I have already started a tray of roma tomatoes, peppers (which still haven't come up), onions and flowers. I hope to get everything else planted this weekend. Well, it has to be done this coming weekend or I'll never get anything in the ground this year. I like to do my main garden planting Easter weekend. It would be nice to try to get some stuff started in the evenings but when I get home from work, we eat and socialize for a time, clean kitchen, then I go change and hit the gym. By the time I get back from the gym it's bedtime. Thinking of going back to morning gym routine.
Well enough of me rambling.

Romas you say? Yes and for a while I didn't think these things would germinate but they did. This is 2 year old seeds I used. And I got my soil block maker out for a run.

Princess Leia had to go on her first vet trip and wasn't really happy about it. 

But she does have her favorite blanket at home!

WOF of the week. Meal prep Sundays. This is THE Official food tester. Got to make sure that chicken, steak, eggs, etc. are safe for consumption. May take a few pieces to be sure. 

HappY Mondays!

Hey everyone, happy Monday!
Finally did some work in the garden yesterday, setting everything up for spring plantings. I weeded out all of the beds except for the strawberry bed and 2 others where the wiregrass has literally taken over so much that nothing will be able to grow in them. I have a lot of work replacing those two plus rebuilding the rest as they are all starting to fall apart. Add that to the stuff my wife wants done. Anyway after meal prepping in the morning and a short nap, here's what I did.

This is the elephant garlic that I thought was a dud purchase from Amazon.

Weeded out the volunteer onion bed. Speaking of onions, I did start some from seed but they aren't doing too well. I must be the only gardener that can't grow onions. 

Overall view of a nice, sunny day. I'll be tilling up the ground right in front of me for tomatoes this year, giving the raised beds a year off from them and cucumber and peppers. 

As I said above I have started the onions and that's it. I believe I'll start the spinach and peppers next weekend. Tomatoes, etc will have to wait until first week of March. And with the new planting season, my son's girlfriend bought herself a good- sized greenhouse that we helped put up last weekend. I finally have someone near me that gardens too. 

On the exercise front everything is going good; haven't hurt myself in a while *crossing fingers, knocking on wood.* Still meal prep

And I have an awesome gym photo here for you.

Yes, that's my feet. As I said everything is going good but mid section being a little stubborn. 

Finally WOF of the Week. Until next time. 

Harvest Monday; November 13, 2016

Happy Harvest Monday to everyone.

Spent some time in the garden this afternoon. Used the air compressor to blow out all of the water lines to the beds, pulled the bell pepper and hot pepper plants, which now only leaves turnips in the ground. Still getting a few good ones here and there and surprisingly got four green peppers when I pulled the plants.

Looking pretty barren now. I don't plan on any new plantings until spring next year.

This bed was empty next to the onion bed so I tossed a few of the onions in it that were less than desirable. So they proceed to take off. Hope they turn out good next year. 

My green pepper harvest. I believe I will save one of them to get seeds for next year. I don't have great success saving pepper seeds, averaging about a 25% germination rate.

Someone's been in my turnip patch. My FiL comes over and grabs some every now and then.

Our male dog, Chewy, had surgery on his upper left leg this past week and I brought him home Thursday evening. The vet said that it was cancerous growth on his leg so we decided to go with the surgery hoping for the best. After it was over she said she wasn't able to get all of it as it intertwined with his muscle. We are sure it will be back. It has been a struggle with him the whole weekend. His gait is that of a bulldog so his twisting walk- motion hurts him when he tries to move around. His next appointment is tomorrow so we will see what the vet says. He was 6 years old when we adopted him and he's been with us for 4 years. He is a sweet, kind canine with no mean bones in him and it does bother us when he suffers. In hindsight we aren't sure our direction was the best. If it does re-appear I don't think we'll elect surgery, letting him live out his days pain- free. 

The other WOF in the house, as well as the cat, has been worried. She did pose for me Sunday so here's the WOF of the Week. Harvest Mondays are hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres. 

Harvest Monday; August 1, 2016

Visit Our Happy Acres to see everyone's Harvest Monday.
I can honestly say I visited the garden once this week. Just been a busy week for this family. Working out of town, wife was not feeling well, hot, and our oldest just bought his first house. And with that last one we spent the weekend working on his house. There was a back outside room on the house that had leaked and literally destroyed the wood. So we tore into that Saturday and finished Sunday. It was a lot of work and really miserable outside with heat indexes of 107. But it was done. He and his girlfriend are repainting and refinishing a few hardwood floors. My FiL and youngest son tore out all of the bushes in front of the house Sunday too. Luckily the house came with a new roof, HVAC unit, carpet, and hot water heater. It's a lot of work but I know they can do it. Even his Mom came and painted Sunday. And she hates painting.
OK, finishing this up at lunch today as I was beat last night. That heat really takes it out of me anymore and I really didn't want to do too much. After I got back from his house, we lounged a while as the thunderstorm took our power out for a while (always does), ate some salad, then proceeded to sweep more on the &*#! pool. Third time this year adding flocculate to it. The weather has been hard on it and everyone else's too. Got to finish sweeping it tonight (hopefully.) If it rains I'll go to the gym instead. Leg day and not really digging that!
I took a few pictures of the garden this morning before I left for work. What a mess I have in front of me. Most of the tomato plants have given up, weeds need pulled, I still haven't sowed the second bean crop or lettuce, turnips, radishes, etc.

At least the Morning Glories liked the downpour last night.

As it was this morning. Plenty of red tomatoes left!

Here's this weeks spreadsheet. Notice I caught up last week but since I didn't pick anything except a few small items I didn't put anything in for this week. 

And the construction photos. 

It doesn't look like a lot of work there but trust me it was. No WOF of the Week this week. Sorry. Good luck to everyone and their harvests. Don't be like me. 

Muggy- ness

My word has it ever been muggy so far this year. Outside for 10 minutes and sweat just pours off of you. Hope this whole summer isn't like this.
Spent the majority of last Saturday weeding and there were a lot of them. Probably spent about 4 hours working on the beds. Got some mulch and mulched all of the beds except the garlic. Still have a few weeds coming up in one of the beds. If you don't get them out with the roots they come back on you. And the strawberries really needed it. Wow that was bad.

Before

After. Not as many strawberries as I'd hoped so may get a few more. May actually get some next year.

Tour.

First tomato. A Solar Flare. 

Pre- mulching. 

The Wife picked some marigolds for $0.15 a piece so I planted the around the tomatoes. 

A few apples are hanging on for this year. Hope they're good. 

My rose seems to be doing well. I planted it next to the building. 

Someone is going to be picking beans this year. 

Overall view. Lots of work. 

WOF of the Week. 

Well I cleaned the living room carpets Sunday morning so I stacked their beds in the kitchen. Princess here isn't laying on the floor like a common dog. 

Until next time, stay inside.