A foot of snow!

Very unusual for us to get much snow at all during a winter, and winter hasn't even officially started (according to the calendar).  Yet, we have a good foot of snow on the ground...  and on everything else.

He has spent a lot of time clearing snow off the greenhouse, shoveling snow away from the greenhouse, clearing snow off of the solar panels, clearing the ramps, etc.  

Along with our snow, we have had very cold temperatures.  It was 7 degrees out when I got up this morning.  We were ready for the storm.  He had a lot of firewood in under the porch roof.  He always does, but he brought up more just in case.  Luckily, we didn't have a power outage, but we were ready for that too, in case it happened.  I hope this is the last big winter blast we will see for a very long while.  

11/17/2013

I guess that getting my Heritage card and getting my deer tags for the last couple of years has been a good thing!  I was one of two women standing in line to get my tag, although the line was a long one.  I should have gotten it well before deer season but waited until just a few days before it started.

Anyway, This is what happened yesterday:

This deer is all processed and in the deep freeze now.  Sister came up to help, so we sent some of the meat home with her also.  Processing was a chore by itself, as it always is; but I'm happy.

11/14/2013

Been a busy month around here.  He has been working on getting firewood up to the house for the furnace here.  I think he believes you can never have enough firewood.  I think we might have enough to last a few days.

He also had a nice indoor project to work on.  Since he decided he's not going to heat the greenhouse all winter, he wanted someplace to put all the house plants that we've accumulated in there.  As always, he came up with a solution and built places for them inside the house here.  

I think we have plants in every room of our house now, except for the utility room and the pantry.  They look nice, though, and I'm glad we won't have to heat the greenhouse for the houseplants AND we won't have to give up the houseplants.  I've been happy to have a mostly quiet month without having any extra travel thrown in, other than our normal shopping and lab appointment days. We'll be getting ready for holidays pretty soon.  Fortunately, no travel plans there!  

October 19, 2013

September turned out to be a good month with some not-so-good happenings.  It all turned out okay in the end, though.  My mother came up from Florida to visit for the month.  We picked her up at the airport on 9/5 without any problems.  She did look exhausted, but she had been quite sick in August at her home.  She felt recovered enough to get on the plane, anyway.  We brought her home and thought she was feeling better.  Then she got to where she was having a hard time breathing.  We finally convinced her to go to the ER, but only because I had an appointment at the hospital for lab work anyway.

They admitted her to the hospital with acute congestive heart failure, brought on by whatever virus she had come down with in August that apparently had not been adequately treated.  So, she spent 3 days of her vacation in the hospital.  They did put her on some new medications and some oxygen.  In fact, they sent her back to our house with the oxygen.  She did well on that, even if she didn't wear the oxygen quite all the time.  She was supposed to go home on 9/29.

Somewhere, the wires got crossed with the company who provided the oxygen for her to come back to our house with.  They were aware that she was getting on a plane on the 29th.  They sent her with portable oxygen tanks, instead of a portable oxygen concentrator.  When we arrived at the airport, they told us the oxygen tanks are not allowed on the planes.  Yet, since she showed up with it, they wouldn't allow her to fly without oxygen either.  AND she needed a form filled out by a doctor to allow her to fly with the oxygen or without the oxygen.  Come to find out, the oxygen company didn't even have a concentrator device available for her to rent.  They said they could order one, but it would take 2 weeks to get here.

After spending 3 days trying to get several different doctors to sign off that she could fly without the oxygen, without any luck, we finally decided that trying this any further was pointless.  We had already made up our minds that, if the doctors didn't come through on the form, I would drive her home.  The airline very nicely refunded the unused portion of her air fare, since they wouldn't allow her to fly home with it.  So, we packed up our suitcases, loaded up the Blazer with oxygen tanks & paraphernalia, suitcases, plants, and plant starts -- and Mom and I took a road trip to Florida.

We left on Friday, October 4th, and arrived at her home in Florida Saturday afternoon.  We did spend one night in Dothan, Alabama, on the way.  I spent Sunday and Monday at her house visiting and resting up.  She loaded up the Blazer with plants and other stuff that she was sending home with me, and I left there Tuesday morning to drive up to Ocala, a place I had never been before.  I spent a very pleasant afternoon and evening (and well into the night) visiting my friends, Pam and Jerry, that I had not seen for several years.  I loaded Pam down with lots of plant starts, too!

Around noon on Wednesday, I reluctantly got back in the Blazer and headed northwest once again.  I made it back to Dothan and spent the night there once again.  On Thursday, 10/10, I drove a little over 13 hours to make it back home that night.  I was so tired, I didn't even eat any supper.  I was so glad to be home again and out of the Blazer!  I spent the next 3 days "resting up", and then went back to the hospital for my monthly lab work.  Afterwards, we did our monthly grocery shopping.  The day completely wore me out, proving to me that I wasn't as "rested up" as I thought I was.

I spent all of this last week alternately "resting up", doing laundry, cooking, cleaning, and the usual household chores.  The house was clean and looked wonderful when I got home from Florida, by the way!  He had done an excellent job on cleaning while I was gone!  I did finally get everything unpacked, washed and put away.  I also went through the stuff Mom sent home with me and found places for all of it.

In the meantime, Lee has been working around the place, as usual.  On top of critter chores, he's been building nest boxes for bunnies.  He has hauled 3 ranks of firewood (a cord) up to the house for the outdoor wood furnace.  He had some excitement while I was gone trying to light a fire, only to discover a bird had made a nest in the chimney pipe!  After cleaning that out, it was good to go once again.  He built a cold frame cover for one of his big raised beds today.  This is a 4' x 12' bed of cabbage plants.

Closed for a cold night

Back fully sealed up

Cold frame open

September 2, 2013

Happy Labor Day!  

Our August weather finally turned into normal August weather.  We've had our share of normal Missouri summer heat now.  He finally got the wasps nest torn off of the license plate.  After 2 more cans of wasp spray.  We did have to get some Hot Shot spray.  

He harvested Sugar Baby watermelons, some of which we put down in the storm shelter for winter.  He harvested pineapple melons.  They are sort of like a cross between a cantaloupe and a honeydew melon.  He doesn't like them, but I do.  We've passed several of them out too.  

We dehydrated an Excalibur full of cucumber slices, then powdered them in the blender to use in dips and soups.  I made some cucumber dill dip with the powdered cucumber and some dry dill that turned out pretty good.  We did get enough tomatoes to run a canner load of pint jars of tomato juice and sauce.  He's brought me enough tomatoes that I could probably do another canner load of juice and sauce.

My mother is flying in on Thursday for a nice visit.  She hasn't seen the new house yet.  We're really looking forward to seeing her.  She'll be here almost the whole month of September, so we're excited about that.  

We made a trip to Baker's Creek yesterday.  They had their monthly festival.  He bought about $20 worth of seeds for fall planting, greenhouse planting, and some for spring.  He's still been working on projects, including installing the front screen door.  

Hopefully, the heat will mellow out pretty soon and we can have some nice fall weather.

August Fun 8/9/2013

This is what the green bean high tunnel looked like in June

and this is what it looks like now:

We've had a lot of rain this summer.  Our August has, so far, been more like April weather.  I think we have gotten 12-14 inches of rain so far this month.  I think we're safely out of drought status now.  The pond is pretty full, so that's unusual for August, for sure.  We've been keeping ourselves busy.  This is a puzzle that Katy and I started and Isaiah and I finished:

The hummingbirds are emptying the big feeder within about 24 hours time now.  They take a little longer to empty the medium sized one.  They have their favorites.  We have counted as many as 12-14 hummingbirds around the feeders at once.  It's hard to count them since they move so fast, though.  Our plantings are all taking hold pretty well.  Not sure about some of the fruit trees, but the landscaping stuff all seems to be doing well.  

He found a nasty surprise this morning, though.  When he went outside, he spotted a wasp nest on the back of the camper:

He used a whole can of wasp spray on it.  Luckily, he didn't get stung at all.  Must be a good year for wasps.  Bet he won't be able to remove it whole from the license plate, but that's okay.  I just hope the wasps don't live through that whole can of spray! 

August 2, 2013

Photos of his pantry and utility shelving project:

North Wall of Pantry

West Wall of Pantry -- Lee's indoor workshop area

North wall of utility room

And these are the two vertical can rotation racks he built from the shelf scraps from the pantry and utility room shelves.

Large-can rotation rack, southwest wall

Small-can rotation rack, southeast wall

I am still moving stuff to the pantry from other places in the house, and rearranging other cabinets.  It has been fun, and I may change my mind a dozen more times before I get it all exactly where I want it.  In the meantime, I'm very happy with my pantry and utility room.

7/29/2013 -- Summertime!

Lots of summer projects this month.  The first part of the month was pretty hot, but we finally did get some rain here.  It has cooled off quite a bit for the last part of the month.

Lee took the opportunity to build the shelves in the pantry and had enough lumber left over to build shelves along the north wall of the utility room also.  The pantry now has pretty much wall to wall shelving on all four walls.  He saved the last wall in the pantry (the south wall) for a special project.  I have posted a page with photos of his building process and how it turned out:  http://sugarmountainhome.blogspot.com/p/can-rotation-rack.html

Or just click on the link at the side bar.

In the meantime, I've already unloaded 13 cases of home-canned goods into the pantry shelves.  I will post some photos of the pantry and the utility room within the next few days.

One summer project of mine has been using the summer produce.  He made a batch of old-fashioned brine sauerkraut, which is still in the fermentation stage.  It'll be interesting to see how that turns out once it's finished and canned.  We have been dehydrating cabbage.  The last load (for this round) is in the dehydrator now.  It's interesting how much cabbage you can fit into a half-gallon jar.

We've been blanching and freezing sugar snaps (snow peas), green beans, broccoli, and even a bit of cauliflower.  I have found new and different ways to use up lots of zucchini and summer squash.  One new way was something called Pizza Boats.  This turned out pretty good!

6/24/2013 Summer is Here

The last month has been a busy one around here.  He has been working on getting all the garden stuff in, picking produce out of the greenhouse, and putting in fruit trees, berry bushes, and all kinds of landscaping projects.  Then there is the job of watering and taking care of everything he has planted.

I have been working on clearing stuff out of that old trailer.

In the meantime, we've had visitors that have enjoyed the pond (and gardens) as much as we do:

Plus visitors who enjoy the porch and the porch rail as much as we do:

 and then we spend some of our time just enjoying the beauty around us:

and what a difference a month and all his hard work has made in the raised beds and the gardens:

We got a new dryer, so I've been working my way through a lot of the winter clothes and bedding that was still over at the trailer.  We also got a new deep freeze for the kitchen, an upright Fridgidaire, that will be delivered on Wednesday.  I'm happy about that, as I won't have to go shopping in the garage any more.  We made a trip to visit some friends on Saturday and also picked up a feeder piggy from them while we were there.  It really has been a busy month, but summer is finally here!

5/26/2013 Garden and Orchard

Well our 2013 garden is in, and he has been busy!  Here is a list of what's been planted:

6 hills cucumbers

2 40-ft rows okra

3 40-ft rows turnips

6 20-ft rows sweet corn

24 cauliflower

24 broccoli

24 Brussels sprouts

3 hills zucchini

4 hills summer squash

Pole beans on the high tunnel

36 heads cabbage

2 30-ft rows of Danvers half-long carrots

12 jalapeno peppers
6 habanero peppers

12 Marconi peppers

24 California wonder green peppers

72 assorted tomato plants

2 - 4' trellises of sugar snap peas

1-4'x4' bed of carrots

4'x8'bed of carrots

4'x4' bed of lettuce

4'x4' bed of radishes

4'x4'bed of spinach

Orchard:

100-ft row of thornless blackberries

Granny Smith apple

Gala apple

2 Montmorency (homestead) cherry trees

2 Georgia Belle peach trees

Bartlett pear tree

We also ordered some trees from the Arbor Day Foundation.  We are waiting on fall delivery of:

Oriental pear tree

Methley plum tree

2 Pecan trees

Our order came with 2 forsythia bushes, a red maple tree, and another redbud tree for free.

Here are some photos of the new raised beds he built also:

High tunnel for pole beans in back.

raised beds on south and east side of greenhouse

raised beds on south and west side of greenhouse

This does not count any of the "pretties" he has planted this year.  This is all just the food part of his gardens and plantings.

5/5/2013

Well, let's see.  We had a cold front move in along with some rainy weather.  Last Friday May 3rd), we even got some snow.  They were big flakes and really coming down, but it melted pretty much as soon as it hit anything.  I believe that's the latest we've ever had snow here.  We did get our shopping done Friday, though.  We picked up some mulch for the trees and blackberry starts, plus some potting soil to mix in with the raised beds.

We had a fairly quiet weekend, although he still worked on a lot of stuff.  He moved the rest of the dirt into the raised vegetable beds, unloaded feed, and we ended up moving all the flowering baskets inside due to the frost warning.  We were worried about the hummingbirds but looked it up.  Apparently, they're more hardy than we thought.  They must be, as we left the feeders out; and he counted 14 of them on the porch at the feeders that morning.

Today, he moved all the flowering baskets back out to the rail, plus he added his three topsy-turvy tomato planters, and all the cucumber baskets.  He planted broccoli and cauliflower in one of his raised vegetable beds today, plus replaced a few cabbage plants.  He also got both apple trees and both cherry trees planted.

I cleared a bunch of empty boxes out of the guest room and took them over to the mobile to help in finishing packing up that stuff over there.  I brought over a plastic 3-drawer cart and got it cleaned up good to put in the guest room.  Isaiah will be here Tuesday to spend his summer with us.  I moved some toys out of there and put them in the toy area out in the living room, and I went through and organized most of the video games again.  I believe the guest room is ready.

Hoping that the warm-up continues and nicer weather is on it's way to stay!

4/28/2013

After a few days of rain, we finally got some sunshine today.  He has been taking advantage of that.  He started out with planting marigolds in the corners of the flower beds out front and petunias in the little diamond boxes.  He potted up some larger wandering Jews and some airplane plants.  We re-potted the lemon philodendron into a hanging pot with a drip tray.

Back out to the yard, he then planted 3 wisteria starts around the oak tree in back along with some homestead day lilies around the base of an old stump out there.  I think we may plant some sedum in the top of the stump.  The day lilies have bulbs that are edible, and the flowers can be battered and fried.  At least, that's what we're told; but we'll have to wait till next year before we could try the flowers.  We want the bulbs to spread in the meantime, so it'll be a while before we might sample those.

Now he's working on a 100-foot row of thornless blackberry starts.  We figured the Indian peach tree for the same row as the rest of the flowering trees, just past the mimosa.  The Indian peach does produce peaches, but it sure is pretty when it blooms.  The foliage is more red than green, though.  That whole side of the driveway will be beautiful blooming trees for spring, and the mimosa blooms should last through the summers.

We kind of have an idea where the cherry trees will grow, out back on the other side of where the back yard fence will go.  The violas (which are also edible) will start out in front of three of the bigger flower beds out front.  They can spread to cover that whole little hill and be a nice ground cover for that area.

4/26/2013 A 3-hour tour.

Yesterday, we took a 3-hour (or more) tour of the greenhouses and gardens of some friends of ours up here on C Highway.  We went over there to pick up some fishing pole bamboo and some thornless blackberry canes.  We took Sis with us, and the Blazer was so full of plants on the way home, she was almost crowded out of the back seat.  We came home with two old homestead cherry trees.  These are pie cherries but not too sour, he said.  We've tried other kinds of cherry trees from different nurseries but never had much luck with them.  They have several of these trees in their yard, though, and they are prolific in this area.  Hopefully, they will do the same for us.

We also came home with a bunch more cabbage plants, which he immediately started putting in one of his new raised beds he built for vegetables.  We also got some Wisteria (which I've missed).  We just have to figure out a place to plant it where it can grow up something.  Maybe the old wedding arbor can be fixed, but I guess we'll have to see about that.  We also brought home a lemon-colored philodendron that we didn't have, some caladium, some old homestead day lilies, all kinds of things.  On top of all that, we forgot the blackberry canes.  We did get the fishing pole bamboo, though.

He went back this morning to take them a few helpful things and pick up the blackberry canes.  He brought back some violas and apple mint and 50-75 thornless blackberry root stocks.  These particular friends have a 2-story main greenhouse and several smaller ones that he called "quonset huts" around the property, along with cold frames, flowered planting areas, and beautiful landscaped areas.  Their gardens and planting areas are exquisitely beautiful with paths, retaining walls, rocked areas, a little pond for water lilies, even a sundial on a rock pedestal.  The greenhouses are packed full with all different kinds of cacti, succulents, so many plants I could not even begin to name them all!  I greatly enjoyed the 3-hour tour, although I am definitely taking it easy today.

I love plant sharing.  Landscaping a yard out of a bulldozer pad becomes a whole lot easier that way.  We have some things that we had set out in the yard over at the trailer that he's already harvesting starts from for the yard here at the house.  It'll really be beautiful when it's done.  Of course, sometimes it seems that finding pretty things to plant is never really done.

4/23/2013

We went up to the post office in Norwood today.  While we were in town, we decided to run to Shetler's too.  We found some nice-looking dogwood trees, so we got a pink dogwood and a white dogwood.  When we got home, he planted a row of flowering trees on the other side of the driveway in front of the electric fence.  They will be quite visible from the porch swing without blocking the view of the pond.  He planted pink dogwood, white dogwood, the Redbud, and the mimosa tree.  He has done quite a bit of landscaping so far this spring with more yet to go.  He has got 2 more good-sized raised beds built beside the greenhouse with more planned.  With all he's done already and all he plans to do, the yard is already beautiful; and it will be even more beautiful every year that goes by.

4/20/2013

While he went over to Ava to pick up a laptop stand for me this morning, he also went to the Farmer's market and ran into one of our neighbors who is a horticulturist and master gardener who gives lectures at the university extension over there in Mountain Grove.

Anyway, he came home with the laptop stand plus a Blazer full up with several pots of bushes & trees. There is a double bridal wreath, 3 Goldmound spirea, 2 forsythia, 1 flowering Quince, a Redbud tree, and a Mimosa tree. All are in pots.

Wednesday, we're going to go back over to our master-gardener friend's place and pick up some fishing pole bamboo to plant around the lagoon too and a 55-gal drum of thornless blackberry root stock. Now just to finish deciding where it's all going to go -- and see if anything else he has catches our eyes while we're over there Wednesday.

It's almost 70 here today, and it's been a beautiful sunny day.  I probably should have done some laundry and hung it out, but I never got around to it today.  I really like my new laptop stand.  I'm glad he found it for me.

04/13/2013 - Another project finished.

He brought home the flower bulbs in nice biodegradable peat pots today.  Then he filled the new flower beds up, and we planted the flowers - pots and all.  Now, we have daffodils, hyacinths and tulips.  We will add marigolds to the boxes when they're ready to plant too.  Should provide us with nice flowers from spring to fall that way.

First he lined the planting beds all up and filled with dirt, and then we started planting.

It's been such a nice pretty day outside at 72 degrees and sunny with just a light breeze.  It was a great day to plant flowers.  Once we are past danger of frost, we'll hang flowering baskets from the rail above, so we'll have flowers above and below the porch rail.  These smell so good too!  

Planting Projects - 04/12/2013

A few more finished projects:

The plant bar installed in front of the front porch for hanging baskets of flowers and food:

Plant bar installed

Shade cloth on the greenhouse:

Shade cloth on 4/7

Pre-Flowers:

Pre-flowers 4/7

Add a few geraniums:

Add another shelf, some chains, and a few more geraniums, then some petunias:

and in the meantime, he has been building raised flower beds to go in a row between the house and the main drive.  The dining room table is also half full of bedding plants.