Tuesday's Tomatoes

The secret is in the mulch. For years we have read about, watched others, done the work for others, and tried our best to mulch our garden. It keeps the weeds at bay, amends the soil, and looks neat and tidy. Mulching, that is. Yeah...it also takes a good source from which to get the mulch and a way to haul it. This year we finally had a way to haul it (old truck was running), a place to get it free (AC horse farm), and made the time to put it down (in the heat and humidity we just made it happen). We've decided we'll mulch for several years and then take a break and lay plastic. Mulching is a lot of work if I haven't convinced you of this by now!

http://www.ssawg.org/dawson-photos.html#

For words that match the beating of my heart, go here...http://www.ssawg.org/dawson.htmlf
"And, if you get bored, I truly understand. I will not hold it against you," said with a smile. One of my favorite lines about his weeding techniques is..."he uses a wheel hoe and hand hoe, with hand weeding as a last resort." Amen. I'd like you to chuckle along with this "farmer" about the fact that we do not own a single hoe. Huh? No hoe you ask? Why not? Weeding by hand keeps us humble. We've decided humility is over-rated. Anybody got a hoe? Wait, don't answer that...we'll just go to Lowe's.

S'mores, campfires, family that are truly friends...what more could we ask for!?





We made our first batch of salsa on Friday. We thought it was pretty good. Our friends Jon and Heather came over for dinner and liked it too. So, that clinched the flavor factor. Jon is such a great friend...he helps us fix all of our breaks here at the farm. I guess we should call him Dr. Jon. And, Heather is so sweet...she is one of the funniest girls I know. We break stuff just to have an excuse to have them over.

Our little man has finally learned to read by himself for more than a second. We all sit around reading our individual books or magazines...or tractor calendars, as the case may be. We hear lots of mumbling about "turn key on, get up on tractor, get down, ride tractor, daddy ride tractor," and so on and so on and so on.

Big news here at 272 Brenda Way. Mommy has not slept well for awhile now. Between John waking at least once in the night (not SO much anymore, but toddler dreams wake him now), Charley snoring and rolling and flailing, I just don't get more than an hour or two of consecutive sleep each night. I guess that's been going on for years now... Anyway, we made a decision to have Charley sleep upstairs for a few night while I tried to see if I could get more sleep. And, it's worked! I slept 6 consecutive hours on Friday night. And, last night I slept for 9 entire hours without waking up once! Maybe my crankiness, irritability, ill attitude, and there are more words I can use to describe it but won't, is waning. Could it be possible that this was the answer all along!? I do have to add that I am trying a gluten and lactose free diet. I've been "free" for about a month now. I can honestly say it's made a difference. I don't have excema and do feel less irritable. Hopefully, with these changes in my life I will feel more balanced and "normal." No laughing, folks. Oh ok, you I have my permission...I love self-deprecation.

Thanks for listening to me ramble about life. Who knew I would ever be one to share myself online. I guess motherhood and a little growth did that for me. Oh, and did I mention gardening, fresh air, naps and plenty of loving animals around?! Ok. Enough.

And, one last picture to hint at the fun we had with family...isn't my sister-in-law beautiful?!

We'll be back with more soon!

Love to all.

Family Affair

My mom bought the fabric and Charley's mom sewed! We love 'em. The "hammie" had to say "cheese" and get in the second picture.

Gardening Part deaux

Our first tomatoes and bell peppers of the season have arrived. We are going to start on salsa soon! Mmm...my personal favorite of the garden. Some people can't stand to have their foods mixed on their plate, this girl loves to blend it all up...it's all going down the same way anyway, right?!




Check out these tobacco hornworms. Ick. We discovered them several Saturdays ago on our potatoes and tomatoes. We salvaged some potatoes, but most of those plants are eaten. And, we are picking one or two off the tomato plants every other day or so. The farmer up the hill grows tobacco...apparently, these worms will grow into huge moths. Our bug zapper on the shed will most likely die at the sight of one of those. I don't really know much about this pest other than the fact that they are BAD! We have discovered lots of lady bugs *good* and evidence of parasitic wasps on the tomato plants. The parasitic wasp evidence is in the form of white egg sacks hanging from tomato leaves. We believe lady bugs leave yellow eggs in this same form, also. We picked them off the first time we saw them and then read that they are good!


And, above are blue~green Americauna eggs and our other brown eggs from the two hens our neighbor gave us last year. Needless to say we've felt the decline in our grocery bill recently! However, we should take out stock in watermelon the way that my husband eats it. Ours aren't ready yet and he's a little impatient. We found sweet corn at the grocery the other day - 10 for $2!

I know, shocker...2 posts in one day when I haven't been around for weeks. That's my life. Take it or leave it, love me or leave me.

Happy summer friends!

Gardening

So, we have a bounty of cucumbers currently and we decided that we could not possibly gorge ourselves on fresh cucumber after cucumber morning, noon, and night. That led us to the conclusion that we needed to plan our first canning session of the summer. We haven't pickled cucumbers in the past. We've tried black raspberry jam from the berries down the hill from our house. That was delicious, thanks to Charley's expertise. And, we've canned tomatoes in the past, many years ago, from our small garden in the backyard when we lived a neighborhood. This year we have attempted to grow our largest garden to date. We only have about 6 cucumber plants, but just those few will allow us to eat, can and share cucs all summer. Below are pix of our process. We picked, cut, chilled on ice, and canned 9 jars of cucs last night. We put 7 jars in a hot water bath...we can store those jars for up to 1 year. We kept two jars out to refrigerate and eat this summer. In the midst of canning we began discussions on our goat pen and how we must reinforce our fencing before kids arrive in September. Ahhh...the joys of farming. It's wonderful and exhausting all at once! We wouldn't trade it for anything!

And, when I woke up this morning, this stay-at-home mom was greeted with a kiss and a congratulations! I was confused, as I don't refer to the calendar often except for John's dr. appointments, etc.! My dear husband reminded me that it's June 30th today, our anniversary! Oh dear, how time flies. So much has changed since that day 9 years ago when we wed on a hot Saturday and flew down to the Gulf coast of Florida for our honeymoon. I have to find our wedding pic! Next post!