The visitors are gone, they left around 7:30 pm last evening. As usual, I cried. It is hard having family you love a lot and not having them around. The mountains and our home are just what we wanted in retirement, the quiet is so peaceful, but today it is lonely. Hubby came down with a cold Saturday night and he is snoozing in his recliner. Even the dogs seem to miss the children running around and their Golden Retriever to play with. There has been a lot of grooming and tussling going on when the big dog isn’t lying by the front door awaiting their return.
They were here for 12 days, their longest visit and it was delightful. The children are 6 years and 20 months respectively and so much fun to be around. Both are curious and loving. Our grandson is very bright and loves to show off his reading and math skills. Our granddaughter, full of energy and words, both verbal and sign language. Though many of her words have multiple meanings at this point, they are enunciated clearly and emphatically.
There were many activities, from berry picking
To jam making. Four batches made with our daughter
Hiking to the Cascades
Kayaking and target shooting for hubby and the adult kids.
A birthday party for my 90 year old Dad and two baptisms for the grandkids.
Perhaps someday soon, our eldest and daughter by love will finish their education, find employment back in this area and return with our eldest grandson and our daughter, son in law and their two children will find their way closer to us and with our youngest son and his family 4 hours from here, we will be able to spend more time with them all.
Author: Cabincrafted1
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Too Quiet
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Sunday Thankfulness – August 11, 2013
I am thankful for the 10 days that we have been able to share with our daughter’s family and their friend, their children’s Godfather. The weather was beautiful most of the time, we hiked, swam, played with puppies, visited, ate and played. We travelled a couple of hours to celebrate both my father’s 90th birthday and the baptisms of two of our grandchildren. We “adopted” a new son, the Godfather of the children.
I am thankful that we had the opportunity to attend these celebrations and to travel safely.
Grateful that hubby was able to leave as we did yesterday morning, but travel north another couple of hours to attend the wedding of his nephew and get home safely last night afterward.
Thankful that our generous hens are now producing about 5 or 6 eggs per day, more than we can enjoy alone.
Life is good on the mountain.
Below, left to right, my Dad, a strong, vibrant 90 year old; Christian, our newly “adopted” son; Rich our son in law, standing facing the camera.
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Grand day
Today is the day that “Mommom” got to spend with the grandbabies while their Mom and Dad got to go have some adult time. This morning they went to the shooting range for some target practice with hubby and their friend who is travelling with them. After a quick trip home for lunch, some kiddie time, hubby drove them and our three kayaks off for a couple of hours of drifting down the New River, just the big kids. Hubby will hang out until time to pick them back up and return them to our house. That has given me some quality time with the little kiddos. Today we took “walk, walks” but not in Daddy’s shoes
We tried taking walk, walks outside, but the little princess didn’t want to keep her shoes on and the big boy thought the gnats were too much of a bother, so we came in and tooks naps where they landed.
Yesterday, we took a four mile family hike up to the Cascades, a beautiful waterfall near our house. Most of us shed shoes and socks and waded only to find the water much too cold to stay in for long. The crazy young adult men braved the frigid water and went for a swim.
The past two days I have gone out to find 1 to 5 of the chickens outside of the pen, free ranging unsupervised. I think I finally figured out where they are escaping and need to make that part of the pen more secure. One of the girls must think she is a dinosaur as her eggs have been extra jumbo this week.
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A Week on the Farm – August 3, 2013
This week has been delightful, the weather is mild during the day and cool at night. The rain has abated with only the occassional shower.
On Wednesday morning, our daughter with her husband and kids, along with one of their friends arrived. We are really enjoying having our kids and grandkids here. Their dog is getting along with our dogs fairly well. There was really nothing scheduled, we picked wild blackberries on Wednesday afternoon and made a batch of 6 half pints of jam.
Today we all went to the local you pick berry farm and picked nearly a gallon and a half of blackberries and about 3/4 gallon of blueberries. Daughter and I have spent the better part of the afternoon making 2 batches of blackberry jam and 1 batch of blueberry jam for our pantry and for daughter to loves the blackberry jam, and this was her first time making jam.
It has been a week of pickle making, a couple jars of jalapenos put up, but still no tomatoes. The hens are now laying a fairly consistent 5 eggs a day. Four of the girls still haven’t figured it out, but I am seeing more mature signs from them. -
Farm Morning
The farm from the SW cornerIt is still a cool hazy morning, a delight in the summer. Last night dipped to 52f, I can definitely sleep in that kind of weather. The A/C is off, the windows open, the humidity is tolerable. Tomorrow, we again get rain, but today is to be enjoyed for what it is.
The morning has been productive, adding hay to the coop, some garden weeding and planting for a fall garden. Last week I planted a bed of green beans, a second planting which won’t produce as many beans, but will give us a much longer growing season for them. This morning, 8 Swiss Chard seedlings, 18 broccoli seedlings, and 24 cabbage seedlings were added to give us some variation for the winter. There will be another planting of peas in a couple of weeks and again, they may or may not give us a crop depending on how hot the late summer is and when we get our first frost this year. Any harvest will add to the peas already frozen.
The sole pumpkin looks very sickly this morning. None of the winter squash survived and produced this year. Such is the life in the garden, some plants thrive on the weather of the season, others falter and die. The cucumbers are prolific this year. The 2 small okra plants provide a few okra every few days and most of it gets roasted with other veggies or steamed whole with beans and I enjoy them fresh. So far it is not a good year for tomatoes, there are fruit on the plants, but they are still green, the only 2 to pink up dropped with blossom end rot. I guess I need more calcium in that bed and they could do with less water, but I have no control over that.
The chicks are now producing 4 to 5 eggs a day, more than we will eat. After our family who will be visiting for 10 days beginning tomorrow morning leave, I will have to find others who would enjoy a few fresh eggs periodically.
Life is good on the farm. -
A Week on the Farm – July 26, 2013
Finally a week of sunshine, moderate daytime temperatures and 50s-60s at night. It couldn’t be better. The garden is giving, we are eating and storing. Every couple of days, a meal with fresh green beans and a couple more meals worth in the freezer, a cucumber salad and a couple jars of dill pickle spears.
A few small yellow tomatoes (funny, I don’t remember planting one of them, must have been a mixup at the nursery), the red varieties, just beginning to pink up.
We have flowers to love, to cut, to tempt the hummingbirds, butterflies and bees. Sunflowers, yellow butterfly bush, petunias, brown-eyed Susans and Purple coneflowers. Marigolds, Comfrey, Daisies and a couple I don’t know the names of.
This week we were visited by the usual deer and turkey, but also this fellow came by to say hello. He has been seen in the area for a while and as we don’t leave garbage or birdfeed out, he was just passing through.
Yesterday, we deemed it finally dry enough to mow. The grass was up to my knees, especially in the orchard which I walk through to get to the chicken coop. About a third of the way through, the brush hog picked up a piece of left over construction debris, a 30′ long section of black electrical conduit. It was in an area that has been mowed before and it was never seen, but yesterday, it wrapped around the brush hog drive shaft so tightly we couldn’t get it off. A call was made to our farmer/heavy equipment operator neighbor for help. He was in West Virginia but said he would come by on his way home last evening. He managed to free it from beneath the brush hog, put the brush hog back on the tractor for me and get me back in business.
The orchard has to be mowed with a gas powered push mower, unless I want to remove the electric fence every mowing session and it took forever to push through the tall thick grass to get it done.
The chickens are still only producing 2 eggs a day, and this week we discovered that the largest and most beautiful Buff Orpington is a rooster. Dang, I thought we got rid of all of them.
We have had a couple of power outages lasting from a few hours to a few days this year, so Asplundth is out with a crew doing a job I would never dream of doing. A tiny helicopter with a huge dangling power saw composed of what looks like about 8 circular saw blades that spin and make a racket is flying over the power line right of ways, trimming back the branches from the lines. It is noisy, dangerous looking, yet totally fascinating to watch. -
Summer moderates
Last week’s heat wave has moderated to normal summer temperatures, still hot, but mostly tolerable. The humidity is still wicked and we must be approaching a record for rainfall, at last report, we were only 8″ from the total normally received in an entire year. The rain has wrecked havoc with the garden this year, the weeds growing fast enough to watch them. The beans, peppers and cucumbers love it, the tomatoes not so much. The plants look ok, but there are very few tomatoes and they aren’t ripening. There is a stellar crop of grapes, I am hoping when they ripen to be able to make grape jelly.
The garlic has cured and was moved to the root cellar shelves today.
There are now 4 pints of dill pickle spears brining in the refrigerator. The frozen vegetables are accumulating in the freezer. A second planting of beans has been done, the peas will follow soon, the cabbage and chard sprouts are developing on the back deck and they will soon be planted in the garden as well.
The young hens are reaching laying age, we are getting 2 eggs a day from them and hope to be getting about a half dozen a day soon.
It is such a delight to be able to eat from the garden and know that there will be home grown produce this winter and to decorate the house with flowers from the gardens.
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Sunday Thankfulness – July 21, 2013
I am thankful for the bounty of our small farm to be. The garden is providing plenty to eat and plenty to freeze and can. For the young hens who are beginning to lay, providing us with a couple of eggs a day for far, rich, dark yolked and tasty. For the wild berries ripening on the wineberry and blackberry bushes, soon to be frozen and turned into this year’s jam.
I am thankful for the local farmers that spend their week tending their plants, animals and flowers, so that we can enjoy the fruits of their labor on Wednesday and Saturday, providing us with items we do not grow or raise.
I am thankful for having been blessed with a wonderful family, Dad, children and grandchildren, and siblings and cousins that we stay in touch with regularly, by phone, text and social media.
Though the week has been dreadfully hot, I am thankful for the afternoon storms that cool the nights back to a comfort level and water the gardens and farms.
Life is good on our mountain farm.
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Farm and Market Day
Saturday mornings are Farmer’s Market day and with family coming for a week and a half, we wanted to get some meat in the freezer for them and winter and stock up on veggies, cheese, eggs, and fresh pasta for our week. We are now getting two pullet eggs a day and have a great vegetable garden, but there are some things I don’t grow, but like or that just aren’t producing yet. Today was a great market, live music and an art show in the street of the market block. We left early enough to get pancakes and bacon for breakfast before shopping and arrived home early enough to start the farm work.
One of my projects for the day was to reconfigure the chicken run to incorporate a peach tree for shade and to leave space for a Purple Beautyberry bush that I purchased a few days…
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