Garden Bounty

I have been busy the past couple of days canning pickles and freezing squash. Our neighbor brought over a bucket almost half full of cucumbers last night. I guess they must have planted alot but didn't need to can anymore. I went over to their house on Sat. and Joe's wife Jan was canning pickles. Canning is something that I have never done. She gave me a jar of sweet pickles that she put up last summer and boy were they good she also gave me the receipe. So I have spent the last 2 days canning pickles. I went out and got a canning pan with rack yesterday and its alot easier and it holds 6 jars at a time. The pint jars take 5 minutes and the quart 10 minutes to process. I also made some sweet zucchini pickles. Walmart sold packages of the kosher dill, reg. dill and bread and butter pickle mix. I don't care for the bread and butter mix so will use Jan's receipe next batch. The kosher dill and regular dill turned out good. I found a receipe in my canning book for dill pickles and made a batch today. Hope they are good. Now to find a place to store them all. I plan to make some pickle peppers to. Our daughter and 3 grandaughters are driving up from FL on Monday and they all love the dill pickles and daughter likes sweet pickles. My husband doesn't like sweet pickles. Can't wait till they arrive it will be fun to cook for all of them and the grandaughters want to learn to cook and sew. I hope that they will stay longer than 2 weeks though. I haven't seen them since Thanksgiving.

We have potatoes about ready to harvest plus our neighbor has given us a bunch of red potatoes from his garden and green beans, onions and okra. We pulled some of the onions which still need to grow and the radishes are about ready. We only have 2 cucumber plants but are getting plenty of cucumbers. Lots of yellow summer squash and yellow crook neck squash and even have had some cherry and regular tomatoes and some cabbage. The peppers are slow growing as is the egg plants. The garden is doing well because of all the rain that we have had. I am surprised things grow this well in the hard clay ground. When the potatoes are done plan to put some greens, spinach and winter cabbage in. I think the garden will do even better if we get a load of top soil in there before the spring.

Garden Bounty

We are already getting vegetables from out garden. This week it has been yellow squash, red and green lettece, romaine, zucchini and cucumbers. We had so much lettece we shared with friends. Picked head of romaine and red lettece yesterday. Chuck brought me one cherry tomatoe yesterday hopefully, we will have some tomatoes soon. We hope to plant some fall crops as well, like greens and such. The potatoes plants have flowers on them which means we have some potatoes to eat soon. The neighbor brought us some red potatoes from his garden nothing like fresh potatoes! We have a good variety of veggies out there to enjoy all summer. Fortunatley, we have been getting rain on and off and don't have to water the garden. We have city water here believe it or not. Well thats all there is for this time.

Hummingbirds

The hummingbirds are finally back again. They showed up as usual in early spring but then they just dissappeared. Not sure but maybe they were nesting away from here. This didn't happen last year - they came and stayed. Oh, well. We had to get two feeders - one for the back porch and another for the front porch. When too many get around they tend to drive each other away from the feeders. I took these pictures standing about 3 feet away from the feeder. Once they get used to you being around, they just carry on as usual unless you make a sudden move. They're neet to watch. They make all kinds of noise and they do have a song - of sorts. We have about 4 different Hummer families and they're all of the Ruby Throated variety.

This 'n That

Well, decided last week to go looking at trucks just to see what was out there and wound up with a new chevy truck. We paid less for this one than we did our last truck and got more truck to boot. The garden is slowly coming around. This is the first year that there has been a garden in the yard and the clay is almost like concrete. We put some top soil down to mix in but apparently not enough. Will remedy that next year. We have potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, beets, radishes, pole beans, peppers, squash, egg plants, okra and onions. Recognize the thing that looks like an old outhouse. That's a toilet paper holder. The door opens and you can store up to 4 rolls of paper in it.

Garden is Done

We finaly got the vegetable garden and the herb garden planted. We still have to plant the onions and we have packets of seed to plant radishes, beets and carrots. Chuck worked all day Saturday on raised gardens out in front of the porch and the side of the house. We got railroad ties to use to enclose the garden then put down weed cloth then put in the top soil. Chuck went and got a load of top soil and got it all in and the left over soil went in the veggie garden. Tonight we planted Caladenian bulbs. We had planted some our first summer but they didn't come up last Spring. Maybe the clay ground was to hard or the cold weather affected them coming back up. They should be pretty when they come up. Hopefully, tomorrow I will get some flowers for the side garden. Still have some more planting beds to clean out and replant. I will post some pictures later on.

We are still working on the house inside. Our next big project is cabinets for the laundry room and tile for both bathrooms. This summer Chuck will put a metal roof on the out building since it is leaking badly. Alot of the shingles are off the roof we do get some strong winds here on the mountain. Always many projects to do when you own a house. Well thats it for this time.

Spring has Sprung

I haven't posted in awhile been busy with company March and April. In March or son visited from Fl. We hadn't seen him since we moved from FL in Jan. 2007. He is pretty busy managing a busy Hooters in Port Richey, FL but had 2 weeks of vacation to use or lose so visited us for a week. He flew into Nashville, Tn on March 31st. We had to travel 2 hours to pick him up. Stephen liked where we lived here in the mountains, but wouldn't want to live here himself, to remote. He did say it would make an excellent vacation home. He did get some rest while here and we all went out to dinner on my birthday to my favorite place, Red Lobster! The visit ended to quickly. He said that he would be back again and bring his finacee next time.

Chucks 2 sisters from IL were here for Easter. They arrived on Thurs nite and left to go home on the 13th. Diane of course had to work while here she brought her lap top and her fax machine with her. I managed to get my work done as well. She has her own business and if she doesn't work, she don't get paid! Thats her only source of income. Diane's son was visiting from CA he was buying a car in the St. Louis, MO area and came along with them. We had a big dinner on Easter Sunday and not alot of leftovers either. We all do like to eat.

The weather here has been rainy on and off we did have one sunny rainless day while they were all here. Its still kinda cool and the heat still comes on at night. Its cool so far today and probably more of the same tomorrow then it warms up into the low 70's. Its been so rainy we haven't had a chance to put in our garden yet. Got a few plants already. I will have my herb garden as well. We plan to plant potatoes, onions, cabbage, radishes, tomatoes, peppers, okra, egg plant, lettece and beets. A little of every thing. Alot of people around here do gardens and they also put up stuff in the freezer or canning.

Well its time to make that trip to town. Diane gave us a lap top computer so I need to take it in and see why it won't power up.

Spring Time

Well now! Spring appears to have sprung here on the mountain. Weather is warmer but ya never really know for sure. Just two days ago we had ice on everything above ground. Some of the trees were down on the road and we had to cut our way down off the mountain to get to Jamestown. Spring also revives Cathy's Honey Do list. I finally finished her back splash for the kitchen. We used a beadboard panel and moldings and glued them to the wall. Lots of cutting around switch plates and the window but its done. Joe came down and gave me an arrowhead he'd found in his garden plot. He recently plowed a plot for himself and also plowed a 15' x 50' plot in my back yard for Cathy's garden. Anyway- he invited me to search his garden for arrowheads. I spent about 2 hours scouring his plot but didn't find much. After I had been searching for a bit, Joe drove down and handed me a baggie full of arrowheads he'd had in the basement for awhile. He wanted to get rid of them and figured I'd want them. He figured right. I try hard to classify these things but man there's just soooooo many different styles and types that it's really difficult. When I first started I thought that I'd be dealing with mostly Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Kentucky types. But the early indians did a lot of traveling and swapping so it's not really unusual to find arrowheads from Maine or Illinois and maybe even Texas. It's an extremely interesting hobby that provides you with an education in Archaic and Paleo history.