Mowing in May

So we decided to mow the pasture today. Lately I have not been having good luck with the mowers. Hubby wanted me to use our old tractor. I was a little rusty since middle son has been doing the mowing since he got here. Hubby helped me get the tractor started, I was heading out and noticed the left rear tire needed air. Then I had to look around to find the tire pump end of the air compressor. Couldn't find that, but youngest boy remembered where the portable air pump was.

Got that done and about a third of the 5 acre pasture mowed (with hubby's help on his tractor), when my tractor just quit. Shut the PTO off, let it sit a minute, tried again, nothing. Did this several times. Hubby came over. We tried a few more times. Nothing. We'll look at it tomorrow.
He told me I could use the riding mower. Got started on that, and the front right tire needed air. Then after some more mowing it needed gas. Got it filled, and it wouldn't start. Tried several things, then realized it was operator error, haha. Forgot to shut off the mower deck when I shut it off to fill the tank. Ugh!

The best part about mowing today, was we had as many as 15 helpers eager to fill their tummies. These egrets are not afraid of mowers. They will walk and run in front of tractors ten times the size of ours, if it means a meal. And it usually does!

And we had a little lady who just had to get in the way.

But as you can see it was a gorgeous, if windy, day.

In 2011, I ordered two hazelnut trees from Stark Bros. Nursery. Only one survived and decided it was going to be a bush instead of a tree. I did some reading, and this is normal for hazelnuts. Hubby kept thinking about pulling it out, but procrastination won over and I may finally get some hazelnuts this year!

We did get the pasture mowed, which was nice as we may get some rain tomorrow. Just in time for it to grow a few more inches. :)

You all be safe and God bless.

No Chickens Yet

But I planted some borage. I kept reading that it was good as a companion plant and that chickens liked it.
It reseeds itself.
Bees like it.
It's other name is starflower.

Just let it grow where it likes. It puts trace nutrients in the soil.
If you don't like where it grows, just pull it and toss it in the chicken run - unless they free range, then they can eat it at their leisure. It supposedly tastes faintly of cucumber and has a lot of 'medicinal' uses.

I'm here to tell you, nowhere in what I read, did it warn me that the older leaves are FULL OF LITTLE STICKERS!

Wear gloves if you want to pull established plants.

It completely outgrew the pansies planted with it. the TWO plants I planted in the tires survived all the other plants I put other places.

It does have pretty flowers.

Hope you are all doing well. God bless. ♥

Happy Mother's Day.

A little late. Went out and planted some more corn. Only one row survived the 'flooding' of March and April, so we planted more. We'll see if it was a good idea or not.

As you know, hubby didn't like the new broccoli we tried. It went into the compost pile, bush beans took their place.

A couple years ago, Linda over at Colorado Farm Life sent me some of her red canna lilys. This is the first one to bloom this year. ^_^

We are trying a new tomato this year, too. Burpee's Bush Steak tomato.

Crossing my fingers to get some good ones from them this summer.

Hope all the mothers out there are having a wonderful day. ♥

The garden seems to have survived the rain

fairly well. I thank the Lord for that.

Pictures are courtesy of our son Robert.

The broccoli is a new hybrid variety by Burpee. Royal Tenderette Hybrid. A new variety for 2016. Hubby has decided over the last year or so that he prefers the broccoli stems to the heads (I think I mentioned this before, but I am saying it again, anyway). A complete 180 from how he used to like his broccoli. Ah well. I spotted this variety in this year's Burpee catalog and figured it was a sign, since it has long, thin stems and smallish heads.

The weather has been dry enough to work the rest of the garden. Rain tomorrow, Thursday and Friday. Remains to be seen how much.

The other plants are different varieties of basil. Planted as a sort of companion plant in hopes of repelling unwanted bugs.

Hope you all have a Blessed Easter Sunday. God bless. ♥

No matter where you live

Thank a farmer for what you eat.

And on another note, we here are fine. I thank the good Lord for that.
Our garden plot is underwater, but the raised bed has saved the broccoli and basil. I think.
The broccoli was not happy with its first day out from under the row cover I've had over it for a couple weeks, but I think it was time.

The other bed you see has been covered with diatomaceous earth. I am trying to use non-poisonous methods to kill off the fire ants that came with a truck load of garden soil we bought, and then mixed in with our compost pile unknowingly. Hubby had not mixed all of it in, so discovered it was in the garden soil, and not our original compost. Yay?
It is frustrating. If we have to use poison, we just won't be able to plant there till fall. I was glad that hubby decided to use the raised beds this year, finally.

However, his corn didn't fare so well. Fortunately he only planted one row before the rains came.

Other areas of Louisiana and Mississippi were not as fortunate, so keep them in your thoughts and prayers, please.

The Ides of March give us in America one week till our taxes are due. We got hit this year, but the Lord will see us through.

Hope you all have a wonderful, blessed week. ♥

Drying out

Saturday and Sunday, we got another 4 inches of rain. It could have been more, but the little rain gauge said four, so that is what I go with.

We had almost two and a half inches last week.

So almost seven inches in two weeks! Needless to say, it is still quite wet in the pasture garden.

The cucumbers are only doing so so now. The beans are no more, as are all but one of the eight tomato plants I put out.

We bought three new tomato plants and put them by the house. The two regular size tomato plants I picked 8 tomatoes from yesterday. I did not take pictures. Between the rain and heat and humidity, even though none of them was completely ripe, they had all split to the meat. Makes me glad hubby doesn't eat as many tomatoes as he used to. They all went into the compost pile.

The Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes are slowly producing fruits. One has sort of survived in the pasture. The other is mostly doing okay in the tub I planted it in.

I'll take a picture sometime.
All the pole beans I replanted have grown taller than their supports. Now if they'd just flower!

Stay cool and dry, wherever you are! God bless. ♥

Wouldn't you know it?

While our garden has been drowning, middle son found this while doing some weed eating along the needs-to-be-repaired back fence line.

Cantaloupe vines. With melons!

Hope you all have a blessed weekend. ♥

Monday musings -- could be disturbing to some

Found in the garden.

A 1919 Lincoln wheat penny. Sorry for the quality of the pictures. It was completely blue when I found it outdoors, and I only cleaned it up enough to figure out what it was. The garden is where the old chicken coop used to be.

Middle boy is cleaning out the outbuilding. He wants to fix it up for a shop or something. Most of the hay that was in there (don't know why it was there) had to be tossed because of too much broken glass and other stuff. But some we were able to put out in the garden. I was raking it out, and found this in it.

Hubby of course was curious and started an internet search. He decided it most resembles the skull of a Collared Peccary.
Strange thing to find, as we have never seen them around here, to my knowledge.

It got up to almost 80 today!

Have a blessed week all. ♥

Google and Blogger are both brats

Hubby has new hearing aids, courtesy of the VA. At least one of us will be able to hear good now.
The dentist also told him it was a sinus infection and not dental related, based on 2 x-rays they did today.
While going out to the truck, I tripped and fell (yes, I am so coordinated). I was worried that, at my age, I might have broken my wrist. I still can't grip with it, and it still hurts, but not as bad as fifteen minutes after I fell.
According to the VA, I just bruised it severely.
We are blessed. :-)
Hope you are all doing well!



P.S. Hope this isn't too jittery....

A little update

When I first saw this yesterday, I thought it was a mushroom and went about my business. A while later, I realized two things.
1) There is probably a fire ant colony in the mulch of this watermelon hill.
2) It was not a mushroom, but a turtle egg; because now it was covered in ants helping themselves to the unexpected meal.

Turtles from the bayou come over to lay their eggs in the pasture or yard if we let the grass grow much. Crows and ravens are quick to dig the eggs out. I am guessing that there were probably two crows fighting over this egg and it got dropped on the watermelon hill.
Today, it looked like this. All cleaned out.

Found another eaten egg out under the Stewart pecan tree.

Don't think we've ever seen any of them hatch; but if they hatch at night, we wouldn't see them anyway.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

P.S. Blogger is being a brat and not showing me any blogs. Going to try clearing my cache and hope that works...

Because I can

Spent 2 hours waiting for hubby to see a doctor at the local VA hospital. Not too bad. (It was the emergency room after all.)
And another 5 hours to get a 2 hour antibiotic IV. We thought he had a sinus infection, but now it seems it may be a tooth problem, since they gave him a referral to see a dentist there.
Time will tell.

Our first potato. :-)Haven't dug it up yet. Need a potato fork, maybe?

Found it while doing some aggressive weeding. Covered it to hopefully keep it from turning green like many of the potatoes in the store...

Bell pepper...

Little pea and grape size tomatoes...

The joke is on me, haha. This plant is one of two that grew after I planted a couple of heirloom seeds I got a few years ago.
I thought they were going to be regular tomatoes. But when I took the time to actually research them, turns out they are 'cherry' or 'currant' tomatoes. (Whatever currants are...) The variety was labeled Tess's Landrace Tomato. Hence my confusion. I figured. Okay. Tomato. But when I Googled it, the name is Tess's Landrace 'Currant' Tomato. They are supposed to be small like cherry tomatoes though, and real good to eat raw and on salads. Time will tell!

We had a crazy thunderstorm last night. About three inches of rain. Nice for the garden. It was all needing water.

I have a question for those of you who use compost. How long can you keep compost before it goes... 'bad', if there is such a thing? Hubby likes to use it as soon as it turns dark. That's all fine and dandy if we have someplace to use it, but right now we don't. I told him we can leave it age, he said 'but then it just turns into dirt'.
Isn't that the whole point? He likes to use it while you can still see what some of the compostable items were. I expect this is okay, but can't you keep these piles for months before they get used?

Hope you're all having a great Tuesday!

Slow but sure?

I keep telling him he makes the garden too big. I know some of you have much bigger though. We are keeping up a little better with the weeds, but the fire ants are starting to move in and that is annoying...

Canteloupe vines are flowering.

This particular variety of watermelon seems to be doing good, but the name escapes me right now...

A shot from the other side of the garden. I know it looks like a lot of beans, but we planted them mostly for a green manure. It was more out of desperation to get that row planted. We still have some space that didn't get planted, but I was thinking I'll plant some seeds for fall harvesting.
And yes, we need to hoe the grass. Just been waiting for the garden to dry. A lot of the dirt is green from all the rain and humidity. Temperatures of less than 90 make it easier to hoe, too. ;-)

Hope you all have a wonderful, safe weekend! &heart;

Beware ugly bug!

It's a spider, but I took so long to take photos you can't really tell.

I have been planting potatoes in the pasture garden this year (along with herbs that I will probably never use, and marigolds); and today I planted some onions.

While unwrapping the hose from it's winter spot on a t-post, I found this ugly... spider. I didn't get good pictures, sorry. (Almost didn't get any because I HATE BUGS and especially SPIDERS.

I think it is some sort of jumping spider? But I haven't been able to identify it because I don't like to look at spiders. Ha!

Our pecan trees are blooming.

My train of thought has derailed, so that is all you get for now. Have a good evening and a wonderful Friday! ♥

Not much to post about

Trying to do a bit of catching up today, blogwise.
Had a few friends over yesterday who hadn't been able to make it to the reunion. We did a small crawfish boil for them, with a little of our sweet corn that we managed to save from the 'coons...

I have a new respect for small farmers, that's for sure. :-)

We still have Wisteria blooming.
The cicadas are starting to make their noise music.


So, tomorrow I will be another year older, haha! We're going to see Despicable Me 2! Some days I start to feel it a little bit. Especially with all the changes to our lives this last year. I'll be... wait for it.... 29. Haha!! Sorry. Not really. I'll be 61. Gosh. Where does the time go?

And this Saturday we celebrate our 39th anniversary. We're thinking of going out to dinner. Want to do a few things we won't be able to do after hubby gets his shoulder surgery next Thursday the 11th. He's ready for it now, as he says it has been bothering him more and more.

For those of you who celebrate it, have a Safe, Happy 4th of July. ♥