It’s not much - but it’s also not all I got. There is one more picture I just can’t get to it today.
Unfortunately I am back in nowheresville with my computer. I have broken yet another one. My personal belief is that this is a virus that is following me around from one cpu to the next. I tried to explain that each time they build me a new machine they image my entire hard drive and essentially paste it into the new computer. Makes since to me if you copy a virus and paste it somewhere that as soon as it can it’s going to do what it’s built to do, right? Well- it’s MY theory anyway. IT’s theory? It changes daily. Last week it was the electrical wiring in the wall – who knows what this week.
BACK to the garden. Tabasco peppers are VERY abundant right now, but nothing else is. Nothing else can take the 2+ weeks of rain that we’ve had. Let me state for the record I’d LOVE a nice sunny day soon, please? Even my Okra isn’t putting forth nearly as well! Not really complaining, but at the same time…. I’m trying very hard to let one of the pods go to seed on the strongest plant. It’s hard though. I keep forgetting and cutting it. J Time to tie a ribbon to it. While I don’t need tons of seeds I do need a good couple dozen in case I plant too early next year, or get irradicated by a fleet of grasshoppers or other such not so nice bugs. It’s been known to happen!
It’s also very difficult for me right now to continue to be vigilant as there are so few harvest that I am finding myself down about my garden. It’s coming around but very slowly. I did some planting last week. More (the last) corn, tomatoes were transplanted, burgundy beans and French filets, Cantaloupe seeded, reseeded the broccoli - the rain wiped out the little bitty seedlings, pulled up some of the cowpeas that are drowning to make space for fall plantings. The cowpeas have taken this rain the hardest. It is prime time the past 2 weeks for them and instead they offer me little to nothing. It’s despairing compared to the spring crop from only half the plants. They may rebloom, but I’m doubting enough and in time to keep me from yanking their butts out and replacing with something else. Thinking next year to give crowders a try. J
Until next time~
Barbie
My dear, wonderful husband asked me last night, “Are these limas the ones from your garden?” *No, honey* ‘Are these tomatoes from your garden’ *No, Honey* ‘What good is it?’
I’ll tell you what good it is! It is the pot of beans simmering on the stove so that tomorrow night’s dinner will be done without hassle. Yes, the snaps and beans are from my garden, and there are more beans in the cupboard awaiting me. It’s the vegetable soup I made this week that fed us all and will feed us another entire meal this weekend. It’s Okra in the freezer that I can pull out at a moment’s notice to toss into a soup or stew, it’s the squash on your plate that maybe wasn’t the best ever, but it was food. It’s the promise the seedlings that are rising from the ground bring with them. It’s the constant blooms that soon will be setting fruit to be enjoyed well into the fall. It’s the intense love of feeling the soil under my nails and knowing that soon enough the bounty will begin again.
My favorite thing right now? Purple fingers. When I’m done collecting a colander full of beans and the girls and I each take turns freeing them from their pods - we giggle because the pods have colored our fingers a beautiful shade of purple. At 3 I’m sure this is about as thrilling ad catching the lizard by the tail and watching the tail wriggle in place long after the lizard has left it behind.
It is unfortunately also torturous in the bug defending category. It’s not easy in this heat and rain to defend my plants and keep them mostly bug free. The bugs have taken full advantage of 2 weeks of rain. They have procreated. Their numbers are increasing and it’s all I can do to crush a few or slice them in half with my shears between rain clouds. The black turtle beans that we love so much are mostly little twigs now and I see no bugs that are leaf eaters out there. Several Nearly half of the little plants will not live through the assault. It’s really getting to late to start more so now I’m left trying to figure what to put in its place.
I love my garden even with all of its faults, it centers me. My children are learning the fundamentals of survival and how the garden (Earth) cycles. IT IS GOOD.
No, he didn’t mean it that way. He was making fun of the fact that I’ve been out plotting, planning, and planting for the last 2 weeks and there is a lull at the moment in production. But, it certainly got me thinking!
Until next time~
Barbie
Picture of the girls enjoying helping shell beans. They will fight (as pictured) over who gets to shell the last bean pod. :-) Love that they love to help me.
Kate got bit by a spider last night. Not once, Not twice, THREE times!
So there is her foot this morning. The blue mark is where the swelling was last night. Kept her on benedryl both topical and by mouth to keep any histimines from interfereing with the swelling any farther. Now I'm at the place where I'm not sure. The redness and swelling has definatley grown since last night, but not exponentialy. It's not any worse than that picture now, and that was taken 6 hours ago. Do I take her in now? Wait until tomorrow? Get antibiotics profilatically? I guess that is the big worry that bites like this tend to be somewhat nephrotic... skin deadening. I don't want the little puss pockets (which I have opened up twice and need opened again now) to turn all gross and then end up getting a secondary infection that could lead to an abscess or.... yeah - this is where having all that medical stuff stuck in my head is suddenly not so useful. I know what COULD happen, and I know that the antibiotics profilactically may or may not prevent it - but I also know that if I DON'T give her antibiotics and it does happen how incredibly horrible I'd feel. And if nothing comes of it and it goes away on it's own the next few days then I'd feel guilty for giving her the meds. AYE! This isn't supposed to be the types of decisions we mothers make! It should be Ham or turkey, macaroni or potatoes. GAH!
Well, My littlest babe of all – she’s been fever free and not sick at all since her surgery in June. As of last night we can’t say that any more. As luck would have it this is playing out just like all of her other ear woes. L I’m not happy. Not at all. Fever over 103* no other symptoms makes this a FUO. Just. Like. Always. Joy.
She was perfectly fine last night when she went to bed. 2 hours later she was screaming and shaking and poor little baby was hallucinating, and burning up, like steam coming off of her hot! I stripped her down, got the ibuprofen, wet a washcloth and got to work. 20 minutes later 103.4. I can’t imagine how hot she was when she first woke up. Poor little B girl. She’s down when she first gets meds, then screeching hot again 2 -3 hours later. Praying for some relief tonight for her (and me, both!) and that tomorrows dawn brings her fever down and her body healed. If not we are heading to the peds for an ear check and urine check.
On the gardening front I have a lovely little bag of seeds that really needs to get into the ground. But, every afternoon like clockwork about 20 minutes after I get home the sky opens and we get rain and or enough lightening to keep the kids away from the windows! The seeds patiently await the promise of the new day on my kitchen counter. Seems that new day is going to have to wait even longer. Hopefully this weekend I’ll get caught up with what I want to get in the ground. The filet beans, the purple beans, the rest of the limas, the corn, the onions all need to go in soon. It will be too late if things don’t get in quick like. Well, for the longer season things like corn anyhow.
Soon all the autumn seedlings will be racing time and I’ll be ever so Impatiently awaiting their harvest. Meanwhile, I check my mail eagerly for the next seed catalog so I can diligently drool over all the varieties that are still out there to be tried. Somewhere in those scrumptious pages lies my perfect tomato, pumpkin, winter squash, bean, broccoli….you get the picture.
On the shed front, the county has officially sent us a summons. We took the stupid thing down within 24 hours of speaking to the code enforcement guy and called him twice more to make sure he knew it was gone. Yet, somehow, someway he managed to lose our paperwork. Grrr….rrr… I’m not happy at all. I’m also beginning to wonder if there is a county ordinance against roosters in the garage? Teehee… THAT would get the attention of our neighbors who turned us in for that tiny little lawnmower hider. Now, seriously! Just what am I supposed to do with my lawn equipment? I can’t keep it in the garage as the kids playroom and Troy’s room are right above and the fumes from the gasoline penetrate the walls. UGH! I’m also considering picking up a used and busted lawnmower to let sit in my yard to show whoever decided they didn’t want me to have that little shed what it was I was trying to keep out of sight. Let that bad boy rust on my front lawn for a few months and I bet they’d be GLAD if I had a little shed again. Sheesh!
OK rant over, for now.
Barbie
Well, it’s not Monday but here are a few pics of this week’s goods from the garden. It’s been decided that starting with the fall crops that I am planting now I will measure what I bring in to try to keep a tally of the types of veggies and fruits, the days to harvest and the weights of harvests. I’d like to get some true comparisons and see what types of veggies do best for flavor , vigor, production. Right now production is key because we will be stocking an entirely empty freezer. But, next year I believe that flavor and production will be a battle. J
These pictures actually span about 10 days. The Sunflower was brought in and dried first. The carrots are pathetic, I just needed the room and finished clearing out their space. Loads of okra, some PEPH trailing in still, the new plantings will be putting on soon as well so I expect that harvest to ramp up this month Tobasco peppers come in 10 or 12 at a time every couple days, and a cucumber every few days as well. Sometimes they go into our salads and other times fridge pickles. J
Speaking of freezer… So my freezer is on the fritz. It’s an oldie, but a goodie. It’s an old 6’ stand up with the wire shelves that have the refrigerant run through them. We bought it not long after we got our first house, and subsequently boat. Original purpose for it was bait, fish filets, crab. It’s been repurposed a few times now. I have fixed it twice on my own. Once was a simple reset fuse thing, and the other was a problem with the seal. This time I’m just not sure. In 4 months it’s completely iced over. The freezer used to vacuum seal when I closed the door and for the past 2 months it hasn’t been doing that at all. Then the past 2 weeks it started doing it again! I don’t know what to think. I know the freezer is somewhere between 12 and 15 years old – I know we should probably just go and get a new freezer lest we lose everything at once. It’s happened before. Twice. Once fully - completely stocked, with venison, beef, chicken, veggies…it was devastating. I can’t imagine that happening again. Thankfully it was due to a hurricane and not the freezers malfunction but still! Ah, but there is this extremely frugal side of me that says just defrost it again and see what you can do with it. I’ve also recently heard that a ‘frost free’ freezer won’t keep meats and veggies nearly as long. I need the dependability of keeping our meats for a year. We hunt only in the winter for deer, and while we might take a hog in the summer we certainly do not count on it. It’s just to blazing hot to be sitting on stalk. We don’t have our dog anymore so we can’t go to the pigs, we have to wait for them. We tend to also only purchase large quantities of chickens in the fall/winter as their production slows down so we are able to swoop up 40 chickens for $60 or $70 – cleaned! So anyone with info on the whole freezer thing- I need help! LOL
Ah, that brings up something that I’ve been longing to do. My old crab traps are long gone and I didn’t really realize that I missed them until now. Actually the ocean itself. That salt air, the sticky sweat, the slime of the fish, the stench of the mud…. Oh so delightful. It’s time for these old memories to be made with my children. At nearly 4 years old the twins are well past due for the first squeals of delight that a blue crab scuttering away bring. Of course I’m well aware that with that comes the inevitable screams of terror when after telling them for the millionth time not to get too close they get a finger pinched and it scares the living daylights out of them… teehee. Yes, these are the memories I want to make with my kids. We’ve found a nice little fishing spot this summer that we frequent. It’s time to expand their horizons a bit more. I’m thinking this fall we may just need to make a little trip out to hangover island. It’s time to do some good old fashioned camping, FLORIDA style! :-D
Just making sure. This can sure come in handy. I’ve had to worry about certain sites being taken away from work lately. Which, in all honesty I don’t really mind. I do prefer to keep up with certain people, and I have specific places I visit but I don’t have internet access at home. So, I know full well that there are times (*ahem* like right now) that I take advantage of the system and do things at work that I really should be saving for my own time. Thus it seems only right that the Company is closing down certain sites. FB and MS are missing among others. So – if you manage to find me you know why I haven’t been around those parts. Not that I post much on FB or at all on MS but I do keep up with people there.
At any rate – I’m setting up email capabilities now so at the very least I can post and know that others can find it even if I can’t find them.
the county came out. LOL - It made Rich upset but I was grinning ear to ear when we were told to take it down. Priorities differ I suppose. We will need something to house the lawn mower and such after all! (here it is all the way to the right. So now the area from the wooden playhouse to the fence will be my vining patch. I've learned my lesson. No more vines over 4' in the main garden! I was devestated when I lost my pumpkins a few weeks ago. I've started fresh with them, but the wait is sure to do me in. They'll never be ready before the girls birthday. *pout* Oh well, I should still have them before Thanksgiving! :-D
