A Hodgepodge of Random Updates

My father once told my husband that if he married me he ought to be warned that his life will never be dull.  I can say with confidence that I do not invite mischief.  It just somehow seems to always find me.  Even here in the backwoods of the Ozarks.

Rambles and Brambles

We have heard rumors of a large, wild blackberry patch outside the boundaries of our property.  We have been enjoying the pickings off our 3 small blackberry patches but there has never been enough at one time to make pies or jam out of and not enough self-discipline to deny ourselves the instant gratification of popping a scrumptious, sun-warmed berry right into our mouths. 

Herr Riesentraube

Remember our winter sowing experiment?

Moving adventures!

I have come down with a case of bronchitis with laryngitis and since I'm on my 5th day without a voice, and assigned a day of rest to get over the hump, I thought I'd do a blog post to update a little bit. 

 

Here are a bunch of photos of our recent move.  We still aren't moved in yet since we've had to do cleaning, repairs and repainting and tonight will be the first night everyone will sleep on a real bed.  Soon I will give you the tour of our new home, but for now here are some glimpses of the glorious chaos minus the severe thunderstorms we loaded and unloaded during and the tornado that touched down within miles of us while we were trying to get the truck unloaded and back on time.

So much to say, so little time!

We've been very busy lately...too busy to sit at the computer and write things out.  I have much to tell about because so much has been happening!

 

My bottom watering routine

Brace yourselves!  This is going to be one very boring blog post!  Feel free to skip this post, unless you want to poke fun at my nerdiness.  Actually, if you go grab a snack by the time you get back, I should be done and then you will be spared my detailed ramblings.  See you in a few... 

 

I wanted to make a note for myself on how we were watering from the bottom because I kept forgetting and doing it in the wrong order and forgetting the simple way I did it the day before.  So I decided I would make a post about it so I can save myself a few headaches next time.

 

Transplanting the peppers!

Oh, happy day!

 

We are ready to transplant!

 

We put everything on the table we thought we'd need.  Jacob was working with me today since he wanted to do his own peppers.  He is growing the Jalapeno peppers and dreaming of homemade salsa.

 

Preparing to transplant the peppers

 

Our pepper babies are moving up in the world!

Up another shelf, that is. 

Sow what?!

I am enjoying watching my own style of recycling bearing some happy greenery.

 

I have watered them a few times, but mostly we just admire them and get excited as each new variety decides to play along and germinates while we just stand by and watch.   I am hoping I have at least one pepper plant that I can do a comparison with in the garden with the pepper plants we started indoors with the heat mat and under lights.  My enquiring mind wants to know!

Pepper plants...sproutlings!

Things are getting awfully exciting around here with the world around us rubbing sleepiness from it's eyes and awakening to spring.

Winter sowing update...signs of life!

We noticed one exciting day, March the 28th to be exact, that we had signs of life in our fun, little pop bottle winter sowing experiment!  How wonderful!  Part of me was truly surprised that it was working.

 

We both had some new seedlings coming up.  Emily had Double Zinnias awakening 

 

Starting our pepper seeds indoors

Steve and I finally got our pepper seeds started! 

 

Onions, leeks and peas, oh my!

We received our onions from Dixondale Farms in the mail on March 4th. We took them out of the packaging and placed them in this crate so they would have air circulation while they awaited being tucked into their beds out in the garden.

 

 

 One thing led to another and they waited and waited until I finally just decided that TODAY WAS THE DAY!

Saturday, what a day!

We had an outdoor work day this past weekend.  It was a beautiful day and we all worked hard and got quite a bit accomplished.  I am so proud of the character our children are developing!  I'll include some of the pictures that we have taken that show the "before" aspect along with the pictures of everyone working and the end results.  It always feels so good to remember what it used to look like and be able to see all that we are accomlishing as we take dominion over this bit o' earth.

Winter Sowing Part 2

The next day, with the aid of my lovely assistants we scooped out the potting mix into a large bowl and wet it a bit and filled the bottle bottoms up to about 1 inch below the rim.

I let Emily have one of the trays to sow her flower seeds in.  We each chose our seeds and labeled popsicle sticks to keep track of what is in each bottle.

Winter Sowing Part 1

In my research efforts to try to minimize my risk of failure at starting seeds indoors, I stumbled across a curious concept that I've never heard of but am intrigued by...winter sowing.  Since I have so much time on my hands and nothing better to do but dream up things to keep myself busy with, I just couldn't resist jumping right in and trying it.  I figure with attempting to start seeds both indoors and out maybe I can up my success rate.  Couldn't hurt.

I spent a little bit of time reading around online about it and my darling beloved brought me home some wonderful scavenger treasures and we have begun the experiment!

Steve is so very green and brought me a love offering (which scored major bonus points) of plastic pop bottles and a handy-dandy plastic tray to hold them ever so nicely.  This will be wonderful!

Dreaming big...getting ready to start seeds indoors

We are getting excited about starting our first garden in our new home.  The garden bed has been resting while we've been leafing through seed catalogs and dreaming of what we'd like to grow.  We found that it is just as important to not browse seed catalogs while hungry as it is to not grocery shop while hungry! 

We have tried twice to start seeds indoors and both times it didn't go well.  But we really like peppers and we use tomato products year round and would really like to be able to grow our own peppers and tomatoes and be able to grow some interesting and heirloom varieties.  So, we are going to try it again. 

Recovering from a virus

Our long, wonderful stretch of good health has come to an end.  We haven't had anyone sick for almost a year and it was very much appreciated and enjoyed.  I was sort of holding my breath wondering if we'd make it through February.  It seems that is our sick month.  But, alas, we didn't make it and several people came down with a stomach virus.  And a strange one it was, too.  It has lasted over a week.  Most people weathered it alright,

Spring is on the way!

Spring is on the way!

I was on my way out to the pecan orchard where the kids and I have been hard at work clearing out debris so that Sweetiebelle can be outside grazing when I almost stepped on this beautiful cheery crocus.  She carries with her the bright promise of sweet breezes, sunny days and the delightful time spent working outdoors together.  We have a common goal we are working toward...