Category: Family time

The Norm

This seems to be a daily event right now. Thick gray clouds for a good part of the day, temperatures in the 80’s (27-29 c) and humidity in the 80%s so hot and muggy.

It does mean that the deck flowers and vegetable garden don’t need watering, but the paths of the garden did need attention with the line trimmer. That was done in the fog yesterday morning after I had to chase a soaking wet hen though the foot tall weeds when she figured out how to get in the garden but not back out the night before.

When regrading the driveway and preparing to try to clear some of the gravel from the ditch below the culvert, the tractor ran out of fuel. The fuel gauge is a float device, stuck to the bottom of the fuel tank, so it doesn’t register even when full. Of course I was at the top of the driveway and had to walk down the hill to the house to get the diesel can and carry 5 gallons back up the hill. After filling, the tractor started right up then stalled, repeatedly. I sent a text message to our hay guy to see if he thought it was something I could fix or if I needed to call the repair folks to come get it. His phone died just as he started to read my text and thought I had a critical issue and came right over with this pickup with the fuel tank in the bed. Realizing the issues, he opened the engine compartment, removed various hoses, cleaned out the fuel filter and put it back together. Still stalled, so more hoses removed and there was a clog where the fuel feeds from the tank to the fuel pump. It was unclogged and worked fine for him afterward.

As we were going away for the weekend, the tractor was parked back in the barn and the next morning, VDOT graded the road and cleared the ditches.

Our Father’s Day weekend was to attend a play with Son 1, DIL, 2 grandsons, and her parents. This was part of our Christmas gift from Son 1 and DIL. The play was very interesting and thought provoking. The title was Andy Warhol in Iran. It took place in a hotel room with only two character’s, Andy Warhol and a revolutionary who was trying to kidnap him. The character development was fascinating, the two actors performed for 90 minutes straight with interaction and monologue sidebars.

This followed by dinner out at an Ethiopian restaurant. Father’s Day was breakfast out with Son 1, DIL, and their son and a drive home in the rain. Then ice cream out with Daughter, SIL, and 3 grands.

We have been fortunate to get our daily walks in between rain storms, but the heat and humidity wear on me now.

The garden is now providing. Yesterday, the garlic was harvested, but is having to dry in the garage. The first of the peas harvested and half of them enjoyed last night, the other half frozen. The green beans are tall and flowering, a second planting needs to go in where the garlic was removed. Cucumbers are climbing the trellis and flowering. A few new potatoes were pulled from under the volunteer plants to serve with the peas last night.

We will return to the Farmer’s Market this weekend to stock up on vegetables for salad and ones I either don’t grow or haven’t begun producing here yet.

June 17, 2025
Time flies

A friend commented that she missed my blog, which tells me, I haven’t been posting as often as I used to.

While we were away, it rained heavily and our dirt and gravel sloped driveway took a beating. We came home to deep gullies and evidence that someone other than VDOT had attempted to smooth the state road so getting to our mailbox was a real challenge. Our tractor has a blade attachment on the back and I am getting quite adept at smoothing out the mess. I no sooner got it improved than we had another two days of heavy storms and my work was destroyed again. Again, the tractor and I tackled the mess and got most of the driveway smooth enough to not drag bottom on the car coming in and out. When the fiber optic crew was here before out trip, laying the new line, one of the guys on a small backhoe dug out the ends of our culvert for us. The rain now has a better path, but the steepness of the driveway still allows serious run off. The state road is hazardous to drive right now and the ditch below our culvert is filled with gravel from the road.

The weekend we got home, our eldest local grandson (not the eldest of all of them) was graduated as a distinguished scholar from high school. As his high school is in the process of being significantly enlarged, they held the graduation at the basketball stadium at Virginia Tech, so each student had unlimited guests. He had many, some from as far away as Florida come to cheer him on. Daughter and SIL threw a party that afternoon for everyone and many of his friends as well with lots of food and cupcakes. He will enter Virginia Tech in the Engineering School in the fall. We are very proud of him and his accomplishments as a student, with the robotics team Fabrication co-leader, and in Taekwondo as an instructor and as a 3rd degree senior black belt.

Last weekend, our spinning group had it annual spring porch party always hosted by the same couple. About 20 of us gathered for an afternoon of socialization, spinning, and an awesome potluck. I brought out my spinning wheel for the first time in a while and started a very colorful braid of Organic Pohlwarth which I finished a couple of evenings ago.

All of these weekends have thrown our usual routine out the door until this weekend. We resumed our Saturday morning breakfast out, followed by the Farmer’s Market and good local food to supply our freezer and refrigerator.

Soon I will be able to harvest peas, some volunteer new potatoes, and garlic from our garden. The tomatoes and peppers are growing, green beans and corn getting taller. We are about at the end of asparagus season (hubby says Yay, though I don’t serve them to him.)

I do need to week whack the paths again.

The other craft I have dug out, is to set up my sewing machine and make a couple of simple summer tops as the weather has been in the 80’s and humid. As you see, I’m not a good selfie taker, but this is one of them.

All is well on the farm. Holding out hope the rain doesn’t mess up the driveway again until I can figure out what is causing the tractor to stall out repeatedly. I may have to have the repair folks come and get it and give it a once over.

June 8, 2025
Garden Day, Finally

Tomorrow is our last average frost date and it seems that we have gone from winter straight to summer, so we aren’t afraid of more cold nights. After our weekly jaunt in to the Farmers’ Market for salad, asparagus, a bit of meat and some more pepper seedlings, we started on the garden to do list. First up was removing the remaining 4 pods of the old compost bins. They were constructed 9 or 10 years ago when the property had been purchased, but the house was only under construction. My current compost bin is up from the chicken coop and serves me well. The very large multi-pod bin was necessary when the gardens were just started, filled with composting leaves and horse manure from down the road. They have served as temporary shelter for cull birds and last year for sweet potatoes, winter squash and pumpkins. Today we deconstructed it. SIL knocked it apart with a sledge, Daughter and I knocked nails through the boards and pulled them, dropping them in a bucket for later disposal. Many of the boards are Chestnut and still sound, so they were stacked with the idea of using them to construct a more permanent meat bird coop.

While we hammered and pulled, our helpers started on the weeding, to keep them away from the nails. Unfortunately, SIL missed and swears my middle name must be Vlad as he impaled one of the smaller finishing nails through the sole of this boot and into the instep of his foot.

Once the wood was stacked, we tackled the former grape bed that had not been weeded very well last year and had many large clumps of Bermuda grass growing in it. While Daughter and I weeded, SIL hauled rocks and put them in the tractor bucket. Daughter was given her first tractor driving lesson today and by the end of our workday, was driving the tractor alone to dump the buckets of rocks onto one of the dozens of rock piles on the farm.

The chickens loved having clumps of grass, chickweed, burdock, thistles and other greenery with roots tossed into their run. They are still penned up, because we still haven’t moved all of the fence to keep them out of the gardens.

Romeo standing guard.

Today was a great start on the garden. When it cools some tonight, I will set the peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos in the beds prepared for them. The former raspberry bed still needs further clean up, many volunteers pulled and weeds removed and we will get the beans and other seeds planted. The barren end of the chicken run will be planted with winter squash, the area where the compost bins stood, we will plant the Seminole Pumpkins. Until they get large, I will continue weeding the area between where the bins stood and the chicken run. Sunflowers will be planted along the edge of the garden for their beauty and for the seed for the chickens.

Love this time of year, just wish it wasn’t quite so hot already.

May 9, 2015
The Great Circle Wedding Weekend

Whew, what a weekend. About 10 days ago, Mountaingdad came down with the symptoms that I had thought were allergies with me and I was mostly over, but as often happens with him, it went straight into bronchitis. Last Tuesday, he went to the Doctor and came home with meds, lots and lots of meds. We were scheduled to leave on Thursday and hoped that 36 plus hours on the antibiotic and prednisone that he would be feeling better. We awoke Thursday and he still was not feeling any better, but we decided to go on anyway and hope for improvement. We arrived in Northern Virginia to see our daughter in law’s senior exhibition prior to her graduation with a BFA in May. As they don’t really have room for both of us in their house and because we didn’t want Mountaingdad to expose Son #1’s family to his bug, we returned to the hotel from hell down the street. By the time we arrived, all he wanted to do was go to bed, so we checked in to the hotel and I took off on the Metro to met DIL at her exhibition to look around. We had reserved a room with a single queen bed, got a room with two doubles which may have been good since he didn’t sleep much that night. The heating unit in this room worked this time, thank goodness.

I did get to see the exhibition and we took Son #1 and Grandson #1 out for a quick dinner, got what rest we could and left Friday morning for Norfolk/Virginia Beach to my step sister’s wedding. We were supposed to stay with our youngest son and his family and again feared exposing them to the bug that wasn’t going away, so we checked into a hotel. Again, he stayed in bed and I went to visit with son and his family and took them out to dinner.

Saturday dawned and he still wasn’t feeling any better. I had some goodies for my Dad and Stepmom to help feed their guests and for a brunch they were having this morning, so I left Mountaingdad in the hotel room and had a short visit with my Dad and their houseguests. Afterward, I got him out long enough to get some lunch, still hoping for the best, but realizing that I was going to have to attend the wedding alone last night. I dressed and was about to leave, when he revealed that he was feeling very dizzy and heavy in the chest. Instead of attending the wedding, we ended up spending a couple of hours at a “Doc in the Box” making sure that his bronchitis had not turned into pneumonia. We returned to the hotel with no change in diagnosis with a whole new regime of meds to try. The hotel was hosting prom party rooms the first night and high school band competition groups last night, so not much sleep was had.

We left early this morning on minimal sleep to return home so he can rest in his own bed. Nine hundred miles of travel in 4 days and very little family contact had, but we are home safely with no photos to share. The new meds we hope will help this time and get him on the road to recovery.

April 26, 2015
Chaos to Quiet

What a week this has been and I hardly took a photo. Last weekend we picked up eldest grandson in Northern Virginia and brought him to our farm for spring break so we had three of the grandchildren here with no parents. The grandson that lives with us currently was in school until early release on Thursday for his spring break, so we mostly were caring for only two during the day. Daughter and son in law arrived back here on Tuesday night, exhausted after taking two days to drive a mammoth truck with their goods here. Wednesday, Mountaingdad provided childcare while we unloaded the truck into two storage units, then helped us take the furniture out of our front bedroom to put their bedroom furniture in there. Thursday after son-in-law’s successful interview, we moved our bedroom furniture into their storage unit.

Fortunately the weather last week was wonderful, allowing free range time for the chooks.

They are loving the sprouting chickweed. Tomorrow, the brooder pen will become home of 4 almost 8 week old Americaunas who will join the flock in a month or so, once they become acquainted through the fences and by fall, we should have some colored eggs to add to the one’s layed by the Buffy’s. Some of the Buffy’s will be culled and hopefully, there will be some new Buffy’s to add to the flock.

And nice weather for the cousins to run the fields and Mountaingdad to take a ride on the BBH to go the hour and a half to the dealer to have servicing and a flag added to the back.

Friday, I drove eldest grandson back to Northern Virginia in time for his evening guitar practice. We ran errands that night and yesterday morning and then I drove home, delighted to find daughter preparing dinner, so I didn’t have to worry with it.

Today we had our traditional Easter dinner of ham, au gratin potatoes, asparagus, deviled eggs and rolls mid day and daughter drove son-in-law to the airport to fly back to Florida for his last two weeks work there before he joins his family here and begins his new job.

It has been busy, this evening it is quiet and I will rest.

Loving life on our mountain farm and all of the young activity here.

April 5, 2015
A Weekend of Play, Responsibility, and Loss

The loss was not too significant, given that we still have about 6 weeks until we can plant tender plants outdoors, but as we were leaving for two days, one night, I left the light on my starter flat of tomatoes, tomatillos, and peppers. Most of the tomatoes and the tomatillos had sprouted, only a few of the peppers had shown any sign of sprouting. The light was very close to the clear lid on the sprouts and given the south facing window as well, it must have gotten too hot especially for the ones that had gotten tall enough to reach the lid. I still have a few Jalapeno sprouts, one leggy tomatillo, but the rest are a burned loss. This morning, I clipped the dead sprouts and replanted seeds. This time, I am leaving the lid off and just spritzing the surface a few times each day.

Our away was a trip with the two grandchildren living with us to go to Northern Virginia to pick up our eldest grandson for his week of spring break. We arrived mid afternoon and checked into the hotel just two short blocks from our son’s apartment. The only things positive that I can say about the hotel were its convenience and its price. We were on the front of the building, right across from the office with a busy street out front. The beds had no foundation and were uncomfortably soft and unstable and the wall mounted heating unit, needed because the temperature dropped into the 20’s and the door had no weather stripping (we could see light around all 4 sides) sounded like a wind machine. The thermostat in the unit did not work, so it was either too hot or too cold depending on whether I turned it on or off during the night. The kids slept, fortunately, but Mountaingdad and I did not get 4 hours of sleep between us. The kids were well behaved on the drive up and once we arrived at son’s apartment. All of us went out to dinner together before separating for the night. Son’s research showed us that a bus to the Metro left from in front of our hotel at 8:35 a.m. and he and eldest grandson were going to join us for a walking tour of the monuments on Sunday morning. The car was packed and we were trying to make do with the free breakfast (bagels and grocery store donuts) when son texted that they found a bus a half hour earlier and could we be ready.

The Florida born grandkids thought the Fairfax connector bus and the Metro were great. We got off on the Metro stop that put us nearest the Lincoln Memorial, a city walk of about a dozen blocks. A lot of hand holding and herding were necessary to keep those two safe on Washington DC streets, especially since that grandson wanted to do everything that his almost two year older cousin was doing.

A bit of heavy reading on a man just studied in 2nd grade.

Cousins posing in front of Lincoln.

More monuments, the Korean War memorial, Martin Luther King memorial (also a recently studied topic), a history recitation by the eldest grandson on Jefferson as we looked across the water at that memorial, too far to walk with kids, and a little one who soon gave out, taking turns being carried by an adult, Uncle being the preferred carrier.

With a bit of coaxing and challenges to race, we got her on the ground again as we hit the homestretch, around the Washington monument with a jog up it’s hill to actually get to touch it and on to the Smithsonian Metro station for the train back to Vienna for the trip home last evening. Many miles walked and tired kids.

The second grader was excited to see Washington. Eldest grandson excited to be able to spend spring break on the farm, son and daughter-in-law relieved to be able to work and study this week without trying to find daycare for him and entertain him at night, and us pleased to be able to have 3/5 of our grandchildren in our home at one time with the responsibility to keep them safe and cared for in their parents’ absence.

Daughter and son-in-law are in route with a truck full of their household goods, hopefully taking it slowly and safely to arrive here tomorrow night.

While we were away, our haying farmer neighbor took out several cedar and locust trees that have interfered with mowing and haying and removed about a dozen boulder size rocks that have knocked more than one tooth off of his sickle bar and caused more than one nick in our brush hog blade. His haying and our mowing should be an easier job this year.

March 30, 2015
Another Sunny Growing Day

before the next rain and drop back to normal temperatures. After Grandson was dispatched via school bus and breakfast was prepared, eaten and cleaned up for Granddaughter, we set out on errands.

One errand was to locate some inexpensive pots to plant the salvaged raspberry canes in for Son #2. It was sticker shock to see how much clay pots cost these days, even the cheap plastic ones were much more than I had hoped, but 5 were purchased as they are after all for Son #2.

Raspberries, neatly pruned and potted and awaiting transport to him in April.

The next errand was to get a new chess set. Decades ago, I gave Mountaingdad a carved Olivewood chess set. The pieces have always been close in stain, but the years have faded them to an almost imperceptible shade difference making playing with the set difficult even in good light. About a decade ago, while in El Paso for a family funeral, we travelled by bus over to the markets in Juarez when it was still safe to do so and came home with a huge set of the Aztecs vs the Conquistadors which safely made it back to Virginia on the plane, but it too is difficult to distinguish the pieces. We have a leather suitcase set that had backgammon, checkers and chess, but the grands have lost two pieces from that set, making it also unusable. Mountaingdad enjoys playing with the grandsons, working with them on strategy and confidence, so off to Target we went and came home with a folding wooden box that has the board on the outside and pieces for chess and checkers that are white and dark brown. The grandson living here will be delighted tonight.

While there, we found a tiny clay flower pot with a grow pellet and a packet of sunflower seeds in it. Grandson is growing a seed at school, so granddaughter gets to grow one at home. Little miss with her newly planted dwarf sunflower. Now to keep her out of it as it grows. She insisted for a few minutes that she was going to stand there and wait for it to sprout, a reminder that 3 year olds don’t have the concept of time yet. Each time we leave the house, she comments that her Mom will be home when we get back, though her Mom won’t be back for 8 more days and we have repeated that over and over, even showing her on the calendar.

The planting efforts outside resulted in some weeding and the chooks got a green treat of their favorite snack, fresh chickweed.

If I could control where they grazed, I would direct them to the front shrub bed that is quickly being engulfed by chickweed. In between other tasks, another 2 five gallon buckets of whole grain chicken feed were mixed, so they have a good diet to hold them until we can let them free range again and just supplement their feed.

I need to make a batch of hand scrubbing soap for the household. With gardening chores and weeding beginning, the dirt stained fingers and nails will soon be in need of good scrubbing each day.

March 23, 2015
Whew, We Survived!

The kids are in bed and we survived the entire weekend. We were not young parents, which makes us not young grandparents, but we are healthy and stay active.

The weather cooperated, and the kids had a lot of free outside play time. They have moved from a neighborhood with a street in front of the house and a canal that was home to the occasional alligator in the back, so playing outside without an adult nearby just didn’t happen. Here on our farm, they have boundaries about where they can go alone and rules about not climbing on the rock piles, but are allowed to dig, run, romp and roll, and play make believe games to their heart’s content.

We are still introducing them to the region, so after lunch and quiet time, we took them to the Huckleberry Trail, a paved former rail grade that is still a work in progress, connecting more and more areas of the region, but the original portion, runs from the town library to the mall area in the next town, about 7 miles. The trail is an asphalt path used by bicycles, joggers, dog walkers and people just out for a stroll. We started at the library and walked only 3/4 mile to the gazebo. By then, the three year old was done. She had walked and run on the outward leg. She was coaxed, challenged to races and monkey backed on the way back to the car.

Home for some more outdoor play, dinner prep and clean up, a couple of chess games with Mountaingdad, baths and bed. We are now recuperating before I have to get up early to get grandson to his bus for school.

March 22, 2015
Weekend with the Grands

This is our first solo weekend with the grandkids that are living with us now. During the week, one of them is in school so we still outnumber the other one. Our Saturday morning tradition, even most winter Saturday’s is to go into the town and have breakfast at one of the local restaurants then walk over to the Farmers’ Market to support the farmer’s that brave the cold with their meats, breads, and cold storage vegetables. As we are only two weeks from the full season return of the market, there are still only a few stalls, but more today than in the past weeks, including a new addition to the market with heritage pork. Turns out we know that farmer, so we supported her with a purchase of the thickest pork chops I have ever seen. I hope I don’t overcook them. They are thawing for a meal in a couple of days.

We took the back way home and let the kids see all of the brand new calves in the fields around our farm. This brought us back to speculating about how many we could raise, how much it would cost us to have our field hayed when we kept the hay instead of giving it to the farmer for his work and whether we could make a small profit by raising a small herd for our own meat and to sell maybe 4 or 5 head each year.

Once back home, some chicken chores to add straw to the coop and hay to the extremely muddy run were done while the kids play outside in the sunshine. I want to let the chickens free range, but we just planted some seed in the garden and it is only fenced with two strands of electric which doesn’t even slow the chooks down. I don’t need them digging up my freshly dug, weeded, and seeded beds, or the newly transplanted raspberries, so they will have to remain penned until daughter returns. We will then expand the garden and string plastic poultry fence around the vegetables and let the girls wander again. Or perhaps we can just make poultry netting tunnels over the beds and let the chickens keep the weeds and bugs at bay between the beds. The egg production is up, having gotten 18 eggs in the past two days from the dozen hens. I am hoping that one of the girls gets to feeling broody soon, and I will let her sit a clutch of about 8 eggs to hatch. This will be our first year allowing this and hoping that we will be able to cull some of the older hens and the cockrells that hatch for the freezer instead of raising purchased meat chicks. If this doesn’t happen, I will buy meat chicks later in the summer and raise them until the fall for the freezer. Freedom Rangers or Rainbow Rangers only take about 11 weeks to freezer size and that is what we raised last year and found them to be an excellent table bird.

The seeds we started indoors are beginning to sprout. The flat is on a heat mat in a south facing doorway with a grow lamp. The Roma and Purple Cherokee tomatoes, and the Tomatillos are showing. So far the 6 kinds of hot peppers are still buried, but we hope to see them sprout soon too. Four of the varieties of peppers there are only a couple of plants and they are experimental for us heritage varieties. The others are of many pots of Jalapenos and several Habenos for salsa and chili tomatoes to be canned this summer.

Tomorrow is supposed to be another beautiful day, so perhaps we will take the kids for a walk on the Huckleberry Trail or a hike in the woods if it has dried enough.

Next Saturday we will all drive to Northern Virginia and pick up the eldest grandson for a week too. We will have a house full of younguns to keep us young or run us ragged.

March 21, 2015
Out Like A Lion

At least it isn’t sticking. After 4 beautiful spring like days, today is a return to winter. It was supposed to be rain and perhaps will turn to rain before it ends, but not more snow.
Mountaingdad is on the road with Daughter, so hopefully the roads aren’t getting messy.
The roads were fine a couple of hours ago when I went out to lunch with a friend. In fact, it hadn’t started then, we watched the snow showers start while we ate. We enjoyed some social time for a hour or so, then home as today begins nearly two weeks of full time grand parenting while daughter and her husband pack up their house that they sold in Florida. I’m glad we had a couple of months of them living here before they had to be left in our care. We will do fine.

March 19, 2015