new stuff

Well this last week hasn't been the best for me. I had a "re-lapse" of sorts, sorry for my lack of better wording! It's my mental problems -- I go a little overboard sometimes with the paranoia sometimes. But this morning I got up and decided - TO HELL WITH IT! I am making myself snap out of it.

So on to some news =)

We have been processing things like crazy. Got pumpkin all done -- Darkside was sad about that (did I already post this??). Still have about 1 batch of apples to do, have put that off forever.

Started getting the following from the fall garden: baby carrots, zucchini, green beans, and raspberries. We have about 5 tomatoes on 1 new plant (green) and the peas are flowering. The broccoli looks promising. The other new tomatoes, tomatillos, and corn don't look so good.

In the summer garden things that are left seem to got their second wind. The tomatoes have even greened back up and have new flowers! The peppers are all putting out like crazy. The eggplants really need to be ripped out -- they never did anything. And the cabbage seems like it's stunted? They all only have softball size heads. Oh well maybe next year.

Also we haven't had any luck with the 2 dozen eggs we've tried to incubate in the past 2 months. I think we need to wait till spring to give it another shot. Plus the bater needs a good cleaning and tuning, in my opinion. Now whether SR agrees or not that another story!

We're still debating on whether or not we should get some does or not and start up selling baby rabbits. Our 2 bucks are HUGE and mean as hell. Well probably not that bad, but not exactly tame to handle and that's how I wanted them.

We are also excited to say that next week we may be in our new place. **cross your fingers!** I really hope that things go smoothly. We are making a big circle - cause we're going back to the place in Roodhouse. But things did seem to go ok there before. We at least had room and freedom there. Hopefully it's in the same or better condition than when we left there.

So now we're scrambling to store up some firewood for this year and might as well work on next year, right? So we're busy cutting and stacking wood.




Yep coming around full circle pretty much. But that's ok - we got a little smarter on the curves! =)

later...

stuff

Been awhile since I've posted, it has been to hectic here! That and I've been too sick!

I was sick the past 2 weeks - you name it, I had it! I thought I was better this past week but nope. In fact this morning I woke up coughing - UGH!

I also had the GREAT fortune of stepping on a rusty nail last Monday. So I had to go get a tetanus booster =( Good thing about that is it didn't hurt like it did back in junior high LOL!

One by one everyone else in the house has been sick too except SR. It is truly a sad sight to see your little 5 year old girl hold her head and say - my head's hurting. =(

Well the Kaos King didn't get sick per say but did suffer a massive out break from something. He was swelled up really bad. We still don't know for sure what it was. We took him to the hospital but the quack out there spent a total of 50 seconds in the room with him so I don't think it's possible she got the diagnosis correct. She said poison sumac. But his brother was with him and didn't get it? Oh well they gave him a steriod shot and some steriod pills and that cleared him up. And once he stopped itching it has all went away.

This all happened with the Kaos King because he was hired to do some yard work for a neighbor. They even paid him $6 an hour, which he loved! I told him to let #3 go down there with him and help out. He made $20 which he put with the money he made from them earlier this year so he can buy a new mp3 player. It took me about a week to pick out the best one for his money but I finally did and it's on it's way here!

On the garden front --
Our fall garden is all planted and mostly sprouted now. I made sure and left LOTS of room between things in it LOL! Thats because I crowded so much in to the other garden and it was a pain to harvest things. I've had hardly no luck at all with the onions I planted which really sucks! The other stuff seems ok so far.

We have been pulling out all kinds of plants because they are done. So far here's the list of what we've pulled -- cucumbers (thankfully!!), zucchini, spagetti squash, corn, onions, garlic, a couple extra cabbages, some of the pumpkins (both kinds), and slowly pulling beans here and there. For some reason even though we counted the days for proper pumpkin and winter squash planting they all finished WAY early! Darkside was very upset since his pumpkins are ready now and it's not October yet!

We FINALLY are getting tons of ripe tomatoes!! And peppers too! And a couple big eggplants, too. I've made 2 batches of salsa so far =) It's so nice to have ripe tomatoes that we grew!

I also made some dilly beans -- we don't like them LOL! But we tried =) I've been pickling almost everything in sight lately. There were just too many cucumbers!

Oh then a neighbor brought down some more cause she said they couldn't use -- SURE! LOL!

Tried to be nice and give some of our abundance to a friend but he don't want it =(

We've also been trying to remodel the bathroom, which hasn't been working out the best. I've also been trying to talk SR into building another addition onto the house. The addition that I'm proposing is only 10' x 20' which don't seem like much but I think it would make so much more room here. I really need more room so I can get all my food here and not at the storage place. Everyday we think of something else that is in storage that we need to go get. There is only 2 very small food cabinets here. They are like 2' x 2' !! I have all the rest of the food stored in various spots through the house, in the van, and in the trunk of my car!

Oh and.... We are attempting to incubate some eggs!! We had 12 in there but we candled them last night and there are only 5 that might be ok. Well actually SR thinks that those 5 might be ok. Personally I think that they are duds too. I believe that the rooster is still too young or not "manly" enough! But we are going to keep trying! It would be so cool if we could hatch our own babies!

Also on the chicken front - we have decided that the broiler/fryer/whatever they are definitely HAVE to go! And I say that we are SO not ready to do our own slaughtering! I don't think SR is really wanting to do any slaughtering anyway. Plus I'm thinking that his way of slaughtering - old school - is not the way I'd like to eat my chicken. Not exactly the cleanest method of preparing, know what I mean? =)

And the nearest meat processing place that will accept chickens that I could find online is about 100 miles east of here =( So we are going to do things the easy way -- take them to the auction! LOL! We found a once a month auction that isn't too far away that does small livestock. We was wanting to go to it anyway might as well make some money too! But really even if we have to give the stupid things away it'll be better than nothing! They eat tooo much!

Ok I'll stop now - this is WAY long as it is! That's the update so far though =)

later...

How Does Your Garden Grow

This week I'm going to be lazy and mainly post some pics =)

Did you see our new toy? YEA!! Finally we can till whenever we want!

Also wanted to share about our rooster, he's starting to crow. And he's feeling very cocky can't you tell? LOL!


This last week we've done tons of pickling and dehydrating. Tonight we did 2 batches of jam too. Now I have to wait till I go grocery shopping to do anymore canning (that's Sat.).

Tomorrow we will begin planting the rest of the fall garden. Here's what we got - 2 small kinds of cucumbers, more zucchini, tomatillos, peas, 2 more tomatoes, baby corn, more onions, broccoli, more green beans, and more radishes. I already foresee problems with the tomatoes and tomatillos, but oh well, we'll try!

later...

How Does Your Garden Grow

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Stupid Anne! STUPID %#*%%#@!! &*#@&*!

Sorry had to do it! We now have powdery mildew. And it's probably my fault.

I bought some marked down herbs about a week ago from Walmart. I thought that the rosemary looked funny but I just figured it was because it was being killed. LOL! Nope it has powdery mildew.

Which in and of itself ain't too bad. My herbs are about 75 feet away from the rest of the garden.

That. ain't. far. enough. at all!

Now the jack o' lanterns have it. Also, the spaghetti squash and zucchini.

So first we hacked some of the badly affected leaves off the pumpkins.


Next we are going to try a milk spray. I sure hope it works.




Some better news. The reason I'm posting this Friday instead of Thursday is I spent yesterday dealing with powdery mildew and I canned 5 quarts of cucumber dill relish! That used up 8 pounds of cucumbers. I have another 11 pounds ready for sweet relish too, gotta get more jars. I've also been dehydrating zucchini like crazy.

Here's a crazy looking cuke that I used for relish yesterday. It's like this because it grew around a fence panel =) Taken with my phone - not a great pic, but I was very busy! Oh and don't be alarmed with my orangish cuke LOL! I've found that alot of them are like this when they don't get picked like they are supposed to --hidden-- =)


I also finally got the rest of my box done. Right side we did last week, left side just last night.



Here's the planting order from r-l, radishes (2 kinds), carrots (2 kinds) ----that's the right half ---- onions (2 kinds) ---- 1 pot is huckleberries & 1 pot is bunching onions. I'm messing with this because the ground here has never been worked and it is VERY compacted. So I'm hoping that by doing a raised bed that I will be able to get some good root crops =) Here's my radishes already!



so it's a growin' ! =)

later...

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pickles!!

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As I type this -- dead tired, might I add! -- Darkside is pulling the last three jars from the canner. The sad part is the only reason it's the last 3 is because we ran out of vinegar! We started the canning at 10:30 PM and it's almost 3:30 AM!! The canner takes FOREVER to boil.

I almost wonder if it's going too slow? It seems even slower than our electric stove last year!

But anyway that's like 15 quart jars of pickled zucchini and 1 pint pickled onions. I still have more zucchini and cucumbers to do!

Oh and the bucket of green beans we pulled out tonight too. (snapped, cleaned, and ready to go!)

I'm tired even thinking about it!

later...

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