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The progress may be slow on the cabin, but meanwhile at home there is a lot going on...

The travertine tile we chose arrived. it was 5 crates and just enough room to get it into the garage and still be able to pull the mower in.







After we got the delivery we went right into destroying renovating the house. While some parts were fairly easy, just time consuming, like pulling up the carpet and the tack, Other parts were quite a bit more difficult.











After several days of back breaking work trying to lift the old tiles out with a hammer and a chisel we finally rented this machine. It was kind of a mini jack hammer and that make the work much easier. Not that holding up a 40 pound jack hammer and chipping away tile is easy, but it was better than the weeks that it would have taken us to do it by hand.

Unfortunately once we got the tile broken up we found a few things that we were not expecting....at all! First and foremost the concrete was not poured evenly. For the most par this was fixed with varying the amount of mortar used under the tiles that were affected. In one instance we were left with a 'hollow' tile. That isn't pleasant sounding and may last a long time, but will be more susceptible to cracking and breakage in the future. Unfortunately at the double doors you can see in that picture there is a 6-8" gap that will have to have concrete poured in. Thank goodness for the easy DIY self-leveling stuff at Home Depot. We haven't done it yet but it's one of the next things on the list.

We have already laid the majority of the living/dining area (first picture w/couches) It's not complete yet, but getting there. It looking like another 2-3 weeks before it will be complete. Because the tile is being laid in a pattern I can't go tile the bathroom from the back forward and you can't tile from the front back because you are not supposed to walk on the tile. That means I have to do about 4 ft in and then one side leave it until the following time I can spend on it and then fill in around the toilet, bath, etc and only walk on the side that is set. There are a few areas like this otherwise we'd just work through it and finish this weekend.

  after dark

daylight

I like the variability of the tile and when we are finished laying it all it will need to be grouted and sealed. The sealer will enhance the color. I imagine it will make it look more like the night time photo once complete. The grout lines are super fine as we abutted the tiles as much as possible but there are also small holes that will need to be filled. I think I'm dreading the grouting more than I did the demolition.

Needless to say the garden is still sitting on the back burner. I'd love to pay attention to it but there are not enough hours in the day. Of course right now even if I had more hours, I'm completely exhausted so I wouldn't be accomplishing much else anyway. The lemons and limes are coming in steady and nothing else is producing right now. I pulled up all the sweet potatoes. We had such a wet summer that most of them rotted. The ones I did pull up are already gone. I didn't let them cure this time, just ate them.

Tonight I go to a play my sons been working on N3RD and tomorrow the birthday fun begins for my twins. They will have the classroom cookies/cupcakes and a fun night of BINGO at school. Saturday will be spending dinner and the evening with the BFF and Sunday is church pick up pizzas & cake and then their party. 

Call me late for bed! It's only just after lunch and I'm pooped already. *sigh*

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 1.5.15

It's 2015 now, and this is the first Harvest Monday of the year!

The last few weeks have been super busy here. I'm sure it's been busy for everyone but here the last 2 weeks of the year are crunch time. Time to fill the freezer with red meat and the pantry as well. I keep finding some good pickings out in the garden and keeping up is not even possible. So for now "m playing catch up and will get ahead again sometime in February when I start preparing for tomatoes and warm weather veggies.

This weeks harvest from the garden:

Loads of greens and some citrus.

We harvested 2 gallons of pecans. Meager pickings compared to years past. Enough for a few pecan pies and really, what more could I ask for? Also pulled the sweet potato bed up. I harvested an additional 4 gallons worth of them. Weight wise I have no idea, but my 5 gallon pail was almost filled to the top. That of course feels great after pulling what I wanted out of the bed all summer it's a pretty nice haul.

Unfortunately sweet potatoes don't cure well here so they don't get nearly as sweet. However, the good to that bad news is that they make truly fantastic chips. My mandolin and I will be good friends the next 2-3 months./ :-)


See you soon!
 Barbie~

Harvest Monday 2/10/14

It's harvest report time! 

This week the picking have been somewhat meager, but when you can harvest anything in January and early February I consider it a lucky draw. 

This weeks harvest looks much the same as the last few weeks...

Lemons grace my table again. There is one single honeybell orange that is almost ready to pick soon and a couple limes. I keep thinking the citrus fest will end and yet it continues... (I am so not complaining!)

4oz of broccoli this week. I did catch Savannah out there chewing on some. I will never know how much because she wont even admit that her mouth was full when I caught her! 

Another pomegranate graced our table as well. This one was hiding on the wrong side of the fence. These are the best poms because they escape my notice until they are at the bursting point. SOOO juicy and delish!

I lucked out and managed to keep one single tomato plant alive through the several freezes we've had. Turns out it's a roma and I'm now rather anxious to get some of the fruit ripened and on the table! I could use some fresh maters right now.

It's nearly Spring here and our temps lately have been getting into the 80's again. I am hopeful that it means our freezes are over for the year and I really want to get some more goodies in the ground. I did plant out a 3 or 4' section of peas, mostly sugar peas and some snow as well. They should be peeking up above the soil line today or tomorrow and that makes me HAPPY! :-)

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 1/27/2014

Sad as it is to say this is the first Harvest Monday for the year. It's not that I haven't been busy in the garden. It's that I haven't had access to my blog or emails until this past week. It's really amazing how dependent you are on the providers. Even when you think you aren't. I rarely used my Yahoo account or gmail either. But, when they went down simultaneously I discovered that a lot of my other accounts are based on those not only existing but functioning. My email server on my phone, this blog, facebook, my address book....etc. So even though I only used each account minimally it still affected me in a big way.

Now that I have a new gmail account things are looking up again. This harvest report is long overdue. So I will show you what I can!

Woah- turns out the picture uploader has changed since I was here last, too. WOW. That was much faster than the old way. LOVE it! 

So loads of fruit, and a few veggies, too. 

Pomegranates are absolutely beautifully sweet this time of year. Just the right balance of sweet and tart. They are darn good in the summer, but the winter ones are sublime! Lemons continue though the tree is looking bear now and I'm almost ready for it's annual trim-a-thon. The tree is still suffering form greening but the aggressive pruning and fertilizing seems to be keeping it going.  Once this tree succumbs I will not replant citrus outdoors. I have a few indoors (Key lime and red lime) That will have to do for now. Our area is just too infested with this disease. 

Purple sweets were pulled after the first frost took the vines down a notch. The one featured int he photo by itself? Monstrous. That sucker weighed over 2 pounds!

I harvested a head of broccoli at 6.8oz... so deceiving to see something so large be so light weight. Unfortunately my hens harvested 3 heads of broccoli as well as 2 plants of just forming brussel sprouts. They did some damage to the cabbage plants but nothing that will ultimately affect those harvests. (lucky for them!) 

Figs are coming one at a time every 2 or 3 days. It's a small harvest, but a sweet one. I have a new (purchased a few months ago) Celeste fig that will be added to the fruit trees this year. I waited to transfer it as the plant was having some serious issues. Wilting being the most worrisome, even right after watering. Once I decided just to up-pot it I found the problem. The root ball combined with the crappy soil in the pot was shedding the water faster than concrete, so water I might but the roots weren't getting anything to drink or eat. Now that it has had it's first re-pot it hasn't wilted once so I am now quite hopeful. I'll be looking into propagating figs soon, as we really want some in Alabama as well. Oh! Speaking of which, we planted out the first 4 trees into the orchard there. I'm so excited I could pee myself... oh wait.... *nevermind*

;-) 

Believe it or not I still have one tomato plant hanging on. The frost cloth has been wonderful for it - even though the rest of the plants have all succumbed to the cold. It's a toss up on if the cage is helping more (allowing the cloth to barely touch the plant) or if it's the location (in the high beds) of the plant. Either way I'm not complaining! The fruit may be small, but they will be ripening soon and I'm all for home grown tomatoes!

WOW, that's long. Sorry for the length. I guess after being gone for so long I had a bit to tell y'all. I'll be back shortly with pictures of my boy.

See you soon!

Barbie~

Harvest Monday 9.30.13

It's still September, and no- I haven't dropped off the face of the Earth. It just seems like it. Linking into Daphne's Dandelions. (Sorry I missed y'all for so long!)

My harvest? Well they have been many but my brain refused to remind me to take many pictures. The last few weeks I've harvested green beans, (YIPPEE! They're back!) black eyed peas, lady peas (ha, that sounds dirty, doesn't it?) loads of sweet potatoes, a few leeks, some strawberries, (WAHOO!) lemons, limes and... I know there is something I'm forgetting here. Eggs. Yes, eggs. How could I ever forget them?

   The citrus is from the tree that I am treating for "greening disease" Following the protocol of antibiotics and an overabundance of fertilizer this tree did not produce edible fruit last year, but this years fruit is once again edible! I'm shocked but also aware that I am only prolonging the inevitable. I'll lose the tree eventually and if the replant any of the dead groves around me I'll take my tree out so as to not reinfect their new stock. Meanwhile though, I'm enjoying fruit again this year!





The leeks are a few representatives of what I pulled out of the garden over the last couple of weeks. These were destined for stir fry and some soup. I wasn't feeling well this past weekend and soup was just the thing for this Mamma.

Poor Dusty. I miss my little (OK, LARGE) girl. She had gotten down to a single tail feather and one side of her neck feathers were completely replaced already. She was looking rough, but really coming along nicely in her molting process. I think that within just another 10-15 days she would have been completely feathered in except the tail and ready to rejoin the flock again. It was nice to see her turning back to white. It was so strange that her down was grey. I don't know why I didn't think it would be. I have checked her thoroughly for mites time and again but never noticed that. Go figure. See that her feet had completely feathered back out again?

I now know why she passed away. She was murdered. It was an act of carelessness really. I did it, and I feel completely terrible. I didn't realize that her food dish in her isolation pen was holding water. It had rained every day that week, and her food had gotten moldy. I'm a bad chicken Mom. :-( Moldy food can kill a chicken quickly. She didn't act sickly at all. I spent a good hour outside with her as she preened and hunted up some grub the night before and she was acting completely normal so I know she went quickly and didn't suffer, but it still hurts to know I was responsible.




 Large eggs this week, and limes, too. The next round of seedlings are almost ready to go into the garden. If the rain will hold off for just a couple days it would be nice. The seedlings tend to do better with a watering rather than our crazy rains when they are first transplanted.

I pulled up a little more than half the sweet potato bed. Remember that this is the half I just harvested last month. I have continually harvested from this bed all year long as I needed them and yet I still had a decent yield. This bed is almost 4' square. After providing spuds all year long it gave me 4 taters that were unusable thanks to the rain (splitting) and 8 pounds of beautiful usable delectable sweet potatoes. These spuds are going to the crock pot to be used this weekend for my Father-In Laws Memorial. Well- for afterward when we all gather together.




Funny how funerals and food go together hand in hand. I guess that it's just a way to comfort ourselves.  We find comfort in each other and in food that we are familiar with. I'm going to put a crushed pecan and brown sugar crust on them. I'm hoping I'm not the only one that finds them soothing and comforting. TO me sweet potatoes always remind me of family coming together for the holidays and this is no exception. It may not be a holiday but we will all be coming together.

The other half of the sweet potato patch will be allowed to continue on until the first frost. The night before I'll go out and yank a few of the vines and keep them in a vase in the kitchen so I will have good starts for the next year. Sometimes I don't even need them!

Well- I think that's it. I'm busy with guests and arrangements and still trying to get the garden ready for those little seedlings. It's going to be a wild couple weeks. Hopefully things will settle down soon.

Be back soon!

Barbie~

(Not Quite) Harvest Monday

Well Harvest Monday fell on Labor Day and I'll be darned if I didn't slack off on my day off!
We swam, and had a cook out. We relaxed and yes I did do some gardening too- but NOT MUCH!

 

I did harvest this week though. Broccoli as a matter of fact. 1.2 stinking ounces of wonderful yummy *tiny* goodness. 1 lb of limas, a couple limes, a lemon, a pound of dry beans,  a cup and a half of mulberries, 2 cups of basil which was about 3 ounces maybe.... and some hot peppers for our burgers, an onion... when you are cooking out sometimes things just jump out of the garden at you (like those limes, for the beers)
I also made the yummiest, moistest, most delicious cake with one of my packets of pumpkin. One of my neighbors who swore up and down that she didn't like squash or pumpkin was there to give it a try, boy did I show her.... She liked it! :-D Her kids all gobbled it up and they don't eat any veggies so we definitely have a winner! (We didn't tell the kids. teehee)
There will be no pictures of this cake because, well it was devoured while still warm. While it was cooking all of us were drooling over the smell of it. Once it came out it was game over!
See you next Monday!

'Till next time!

Barbie~