Life on the Farm

*Note:  I originally wrote this post waaaay back in April of this year.  However, when I tried to publish it online, I received an error message and have been unable to post anything in the last 4 months.  Thankfully, I finally fixed my technical issues today, so I am officially back in the blogging business!  So even though this post is terribly out of date, I decided to go ahead and share it with y’all anyway.*

Hey, y’all.  Remember me?  I know it’s been months since I lasted posted anything on this blog, and I feel just awful about that.  I could spend a lot of time apologizing and giving excuses and filling you in on the last 4 months, but I won’t.  Let’s just talk about the present, shall we?

Thanks to the arrival of my favorite season, spring, our family has been spending a lot of time out of doors lately.  We have all been enjoying the warmer temperatures and longer days.  I just don’t know how people who live “up north” deal with all the cold.  I need heat!

So what have we been busying ourselves doing?  Well, like all good country folk, we’ve been hard at work gardening and farming.  And by “we” I mean mostly the Tool Man and occasionally the monkeys and rarely me.

The last couple of years we have taken a break from gardening.  The Tool Man was just too busy to keep it up.  But with a new job and schedule this year, he was eager to dig in once again and exercise his green thumbs.  In an effort not to overwork ourselves, we decided to keep our garden small and simple.  We planted six short rows of our favorite vegetables – one row of potatoes, one row of tomatoes, one row of squash, one row of peppers (for pepper jelly and salsa!), one row of zucchini, and one row of snap beans.

When it’s time to hoe or weed, the monkeys magically disappear, but when it’s planting time they are super excited to work in the garden.  They love digging their fingers (and toes) into the soft dirt. 

Even little Tacy Mae was eager to get some dirt between her tiny toes.

You might can tell from our wardrobes that these pictures were taken a couple of months ago.  It’s just taken me that long to write this post.  Our garden actually looks nothing like these pictures any more.  It’s now lush and green with huge squash plants and head-high snap bean vines.  We’ve also harvested our potatoes and have planted a couple of watermelons and cantaloupes.

We’ve had several new animal additions to our farm this year.  I’ve been begging the Tool Man for a goat for years now, and he finally gave in.  Back in January we bought this little pygmy goat when he was just 2 weeks old.  My super creative monkeys decided to name him “Goatie.”  How original is that?!  We just love Goatie.  I guess you could say he is a free-range goat.  He can push through his gate, so he comes and goes as he pleases.  Honestly, it’s a bit like having another dog running around the yard.

Of course we have several new feathered faces strutting around our yard this spring.  In addition to a dozen more chicks, our coop now houses 1 turkey, 2 rouen ducks, and 3 geese.  Whew!  That’s a lot of birds, but we sure do love having them around. 

The only negative to having all the birds is that the ducks and geese were wreaking havoc on our garden.  They mowed down an entire row of peppers and zucchinis, so we were forced to build a fence around our garden to keep out our feathered friends.

Thanks for hanging in there during my absence.  Hopefully I will get back into a regular blogging schedule soon.  I do miss sharing memories with y’all.

Lindsey

Long Time, No Blog

Surprise!  It’s me again.

I know. I know.  It’s been so terribly long since you last heard a word from me.  Poor dears! You must be crushed!  I have the best excuse ever, though. 

My computer died.

Yep, it kicked the bucket.

Bought the farm.

Winged it’s flight to worlds unknown.

You get the idea.

Actually it was only the tangible computer that keeled over, not the brains of the machine.  The hard drive is still perfectly healthy, along with all of the priceless information stored on it.  So while I’m in the midst of transferring everything from my old hard drive to a wonderful, new machine, I thought I’d take a moment to let y’all know I haven’t abandoned blogging.

So what’s a girl like me to do when her computer is down and out?

Get outside and enjoy spring, that’s what!  Y’all know how much I’ve been looking forward to spring, and I’m so happy that it’s finally here!  For weeks I’ve been itching to get out in this winter-weary yard of mine and spruce it up a bit.  Thanks to the longer days and the warmer temperatures, the Tool Man and I have been able to tackle quite a bit of outdoor work around here.

The biggest chore we’ve completed so far has been to get our pool (a.k.a. Redneck Oasis) up and running.  The water is still far too chilly to go for a swim, (just ask Lucy who wouldn’t take my word for it) but at least it’s all set up, cleaned up, and ready to go.

In addition to prepping the pool, the Tool Man and I have spent some time giving our flower beds a face lift.  We’ve pruned shrubs, pulled weeds, relocated plants, and added some new flowers here and there.

Since we don’t have time to tend to a real vegetable garden, I decided to add a couple of tomatoes and jalapeno plants to my backyard bed.  I’ve also got a little collection of herbs growing:  rosemary, basil, lavender, and sage.

The sage bush was planted last year and is still going strong.  I believe it’s doubled in size in the last month alone!

It’s leaves are so big and beautiful; just the other day I plucked a few and added them to a chicken salad.  Yummy!  I don’t know about you, but the smell of sage always makes me think of Thanksgiving dressing.

The rosemary was planted last year as well.  I’m channeling my inner Martha Stewart and desperately trying to train the rosemary into topiary form – crossing my fingers I’m doing to correctly.

I’ve successfully grown a rosemary bush before but never once tried to prune it.  It grew to a monstrous size – at least 3 feet tall and twice as wide!  I finally had enough of the beast and got scissor happy with it last summer.  Now the poor plant looks like it’s been beaten with an ugly stick!  It’s gnarled, woody trunk grows at a wonky “60-ish” degree angle and bushes into an awful upside-down, squished pyramid shape.  I’m only keeping it around until my new plant is well established.  Fresh rosemary from an ugly plant is better than no rosemary at all, right?

I have more spring fun to talk about, but I ‘m not going to put all my eggs in one basket (pun intended.)  I apologize again for the recent blogging drought.  Hopefully, I’ll get all my computer woes ironed out soon.  Thanks for being patient!

Happy spring!

Lindsey

Spring Things

I don’t know about you, but I couldn’t have been happier with our winter this year.  Or maybe I should say our lack of winter.  I mean, did we even have a frost this year?

Maybe one or two.  Maybe.

As a girl who does not like the cold, bleak winter months, I sure have enjoyed the early arrival of spring.  It seems like the trees and shrubs put on leaves overnight.  Everything is looking so green.  I love it!!

The weather was so sunny and warm this Sunday (almost hot even) that I was inspired to take some pics of the new plant life around our yard.

What self-respecting southerner would be caught dead without at least one azalea in their yard?  Even though they are not all open yet, our azaleas are loaded with blooms.

The crepe myrtles, another southern favorite, are just beginning to put on tiny little bright green leaves.

In the shady areas, I’ve got some white hydrangeas budding out. I just love the paper white blooms these plants will produce later in the season.

Now, I have to admit that I don’t remember the name of this plant, but I still think it’s pretty.  So tropical!

Of course I’d be lying if I let you believe that all my plants were lush and green and gorgeous.  Here’s the sad truth about my camelia bushes…

Ain’t it awful?  And to make matters worse, there is a matching pair.  I fully intend to dig these suckers up and replace them with something else soon.

Let’s move on to the back yard, shall we?

This year, the Tool Man and I made the decision not to do a garden.  I know, I know.  Sad face.

But after seriously considering our schedule, we knew that we just didn’t have time to devote to gardening.

Here’s all that’s left of our garden, a rosemary bush, some irises, and a salvaged steeple.

Nevertheless…

The Tool Man and I really, really wanted to grow some tomatoes.

And we are absolutely the best jalapeno farmers, ever!  So we decided that we would do a little container gardening on the back porch.

This weekend we took a trip to Lowe’s and purchased a couple of tomato and jalapeno plants.  I can’t wait until harvest time!  I double dog dare a squirrel to try to steal my tomatoes this year.  I’ll pop a cap in him faster than you can say “scat” with your mouth open!  Grrrrrrr.

Looking off of our back porch, we have the best view.  You can’t tell it at all from this picture, but our land slopes down a couple of times right into the creek.  And look at that!  I even had the good fortune of capturing a picture of a big buck passing through our yard. Ha ha.

Ty had some fun playing in his pop-up blind after church this afternoon.

He finally convinced his daddy to get in the blind with him.  If you look closely, you can see the Tool Man’s foot sticking up in the blind.

Two other people who are excited about the early arrival of spring this year are Ty and Lucy.  I couldn’t be happier for them.  Nothing gives me more pleasure than to kick these two monkeys outside. Ha ha!

I don’t understand their reasoning, but the monkeys are firm believers that shoes and clothes cannot be worn out of doors.

Here’s a little craft I whipped up for my back door this spring. 

Bunnies and chicks are cute and all, but I really wanted to make something that reflected the true meaning of Easter.  When I saw this burlap cross hanger on Pinterest, I knew I had to make one.  Best of all, I already had all the materials I needed to make it, so it was absolutely free.  As my grandmother used to say, you can’t beat that with a stick!

Lindsey

Dear Ol’ Dad

Ty definitely inherited my love for arts and crafts.  He really enjoys drawing, painting, crafting, and creating.  So it was no surprise that he wanted to give his dad a handmade gift for Father’s Day. (Which probably was a good thing, since I told the Tool Man that I wasn’t buying him a Father’s Day gift until he bought me a Mother’s Day gift.)  

Domestic disputes aside, Ty decided to make his dad some plant markers for the garden.  I helped Ty by writing the names of the plants on cardstock, and he drew pictures of the vegetables and colored them.  Then we laminated the cards and glued them to dowels.  We used hot glue, of course.  Ty is a firm believer in hot glue.  Hot glue and scotch tape.  Instant adhesion!  He’s far too impatient to wait for glue to dry.  He’d never make it in traditional school with Elmer’s white glue!  I don’t know, but I think the teachers might frown if he came to school with a hot glue gun.  But I digress…

Here’s the Tool Man and the monkeys with his gift.

Lucy had the Cindy-Crawford-Mole-on-the-Lip thing going on.   I’m pretty sure it’s just a brownie crumb, though.

O.K.  These pictures just make me sick!

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If you know anything about Ty, you know he loves fruit.

Forget the chocolate chip cookies, cake, or ice cream.

This boy would rather have strawberries, grapes, or…

Watermelons!

No, he really didn’t, but it’s a good picture isn’t it?

Chicken Farming

Thought ya'll might like an update on our chickies.

They've reached that awkward teenage stage.  You know, they're not cute little fuzzy chicks anymore, but they haven't grown into their feathers yet either.

Now I'm not an expert on chickens by any means, so correct me if I'm wrong, but is that a rooster comb starting to grow on this chick??  So far only two chicks have these.

We moved them outdoors a couple of weeks ago, and their coop is over near our garden.  The Tool Man usually lets them out every evening so they can explore the yard.

Speaking of the Tool Man, he has become quite the chicken farmer!  Yes, I spent months pestering him to get me some chickens.  Now that they are here, he actually enjoys taking care of them.  He's out there with them every morning and evening.

Here he is with the coop.  And surprise, surprise........he's on that blasted phone. (I do hate that phone!)

The Tool Man got this baby backpack for his birthday a couple of months ago.  Lucy loves hanging out in it while her daddy is tending the garden.

Reese B. was in town this week, and he came over to check out the chicks.  I think he's trying to catch one here.  Have you ever seen chickens run?  Quite entertaining.  Those little girls are fast! 

Well, he got one, and now he's releasing it back into the "wild."

Some garden goodness.........

Fall Gardening

A friend recently divided some flowers in her yard and graciously gave some to us. We actually had a hard time trying to find a place to plant them all. Some daisies went into the beds around our house, the gladiolas found a spot in front of our new shed, and the irises were planted around the steeple in our garden. I know, I know...a steeple in the garden, but the Tool Man is a church builder after all, and I do like finding new uses for old items. Anyway as you can see we had a beautiful sunflower voluntarily come up this fall. Right as I snapped this shot the Tool Man jumped right in it. He couldn't have timed it any better. Now that all the flowers have been planted, the waiting begins. That's the hardest part for me. I want instant results.

Garden Visitors

We were outside this morning enjoying the warm sun when Ty noticed a bunch of butterflies in our garden. Ty quickly explained that these were monarch butterflies, and as far as I can tell he's right. I thought I might be able to get some good pictures of them, and I quickly discovered that butterflies are a whole lot easier to photograph than unwitting children. Ha! The butterflies, the flowers, the warm weather...made me think of spring this morning rather than fall. I hate to think that the colorful flowers and leaves will soon be giving way to bare branches, but "to everything there is a season."