Well, today I decided that I needed a day off.  I needed a day to “catch up” on sleep and things around the house and garden.  I’ve been working until pretty late every night and sometimes into the early morning hours.  Unfortuately, that hasn’t left me much time to do anything around the house. 

First of all, I went to bed early last night and slept until around 1 AM.  I got up, got on the internet and started browsing through all of my favorite blogs that I needed to catch up on.  It seems like most everyone is slowing down on their gardening efforts with fall and cooler weather kicking in.  Here in the South, it’s awesome weather to grow so many veggies!  I got sleepy again about 3 AM and went back to bed.

It was time to get up this morning at 6 AM so I could get my day started and get DD to school.  But, even with all of the sleep I had, I just felt pretty run down and worn out.  So after I took DD to school, I went out and fed/watered the chickens and calves and visited with them for a little while.  I came back inside and decided that I would lay back down for a little while.  Well, that little while turned into 1 PM!  I guess my body just needed some R&R for a while.

After picking DD up from school this afternoon, I went back out to feed and water as well as get some more seeds into the raised beds.  In the garden I have the following veggies planted:  lettuce (Red Sails & Romaine), peas (Sugar-Snap & Alaska), carrots, turnips, broccoli raab, radish, and some swiss chard.  I’m really getting excited about growing cool weather veggies.  In the South, we have so many bugs to worry with during the summer months.  About the only time that we get any relief is during the cooler winter months.  We rarely have freezing temps (only a couple of times over the winter months) and when we do, we try to cover the garden to keep it from freezing, which has worked so far.

The two types of peas I have planted are Sugar-Snap and Alaska.  The Sugar-Snap vines can get as tall as 55-65 inches!  I have them planted so that they can grow up the 7′ high trellis that I used for the tomatoes last summer.  I also have more of them planted where I normally plant my pole beans.  So these peas will have plenty of room to grow :-)  I can’t wait until they start producing!  They are 66 days to harvest.  I hope that I have enough planted to allow us to eat fresh snap peas as well as plenty to blanch and put in the freezer.

Now the Alaska pea vines do not get that tall.  The package says that they will grow to be about 2 1/2 feet tall.  These peas are the shelling variety (like English peas).    I have them planted next to the 3′ high fencing that surrounds the garden.  I also decided to use some of my tomato cages as trellises to grow this variety on.  I will try to take some pics and show you tomorrow on my blog.  I placed the tomato cages inside the raised beds and planted the pea seeds on the inside of the tomato cage.   They have already germinated and aren’t too far from grabbing hold of the tomato cage.  On the outside and around the tomato cages, I have planted some Swiss chard.  This raised bed is going to be beautiful once it’s mature.  The chard I planted is the 5 color chard.

I took a pic last week while I was outside working one morning…. it’s a picture that only a gardener or farmer can really appreciate LOL!  It’s 3 days worth of what I picked up behind the calves to put into my compost bins….  DH and I keep the grazing field “picked up” of the bombs that Kitty and Davison leave for us.  We do this for 2 reasons.  The first reason is that I don’t want my back yard smelling like a cow pasture and the 2nd reason is that this stuff is GREAT for the compost pile!  I like to keep everything cleaned up and tidy even if it’s in the calves’ area.  We keep it picked up using the pitch fork and the wheel barrow and then toss it into the compost bins and cover with some leaves.  You wouldn’t believe how that keeps the smell down.  When you walk into our back yard, other than hearing the calves mooing and the roosters crowing,  you don’t “smell” them and wouldn’t know that they are there.  Anyway, here’s an idea of how much manure 3 day’s worth looks like:

Our wheelbarrow has been used so much… unfortunately this week while I was going around picking up “bombs”, one of the handles broke and part of the underneath bracing broke.  That on top of the tire that must be air-ed up on a regular basis and it has several holes rusted through, well… we need a new wheelbarrow!  This is a tool that we just can’t do without around here.  For my birthday last week, my mom sent me a check — guess what I’m going to use that money on?  LOL

In closing, I would like to share a video that I took with my cell phone.  The quality is horrible but still, you will get to see how sweet Kitty and Davison are and how they are like big puppies.  I took this video last week when I went out to feed one morning.  You’ll get to hear Capri crowing several times - he’s such a loud-mouth!  I am hoping that I can get another video with the calves moo-ing so you can hear the way Kitty moo-s.  He sounds like an elk!  Anyway, enjoy!!

Where has fall gone?  LOL!  It’s already November…. time is just flying by!

I’ve been busy at the office doing volunteer work…. every day, every night, every available minute it seems.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave much time for gardening, ya know?  But I have managed to get a few things in the ground, so that’s good.  I have planted more peas, turnips, broccoli raab, radishes and swiss chard. 

I’m having some trouble with “SOMETHING” and I’m not sure exactly what it is…  For example, every collard transplant was plucked!  Also, something was munching on the leaves (as in the ENTIRE LEAVE) of some of my chard transplants.  And now, something is either digging up or plucking my swiss chard seedlings that are coming up.

I can’t wait until I have more time to get into the garden and really get to planting!  The weather is perfect right now but I’m busy and locked up in an office all day

How’s things going in your garden?

Well, I played hooky from the office today…. but I had a very good excuse!  See, I’m babysitting my friend’s 4-year old son.  That’s a good reason, isn’t it?  So I had a wonderful nap this morning while DD played with the midget.  Then when I woke up, we went outside and fed the animals.  I also spent some time in the garden and got the collards, lettuce and chard transplants in the dirt.  The 4-year old had such a good time digging in the dirt.   He likes planting seeds and plants too.  We tilled the soil with the cultivator, dug little holes with the spade and got all of my transplants into the ground.  He also poked holes in the soil and planted the pea seeds for me.   I explained to him that the pea seeds (which he said looked like peas!) would grow pretty plants that would make peas for us to eat.  He was just so amazed!

Children love playing in the dirt - I know I did when I was younger.  I followed my grandfather around his garden and listened to every word he said.  I’ll be 47 at the end of this month and working in the garden with my grandfather is still something that I can vividly remember.  He showed me the best size to pick the cucumbers, how to tell if the butterbeans (aka lima beans) were ready to harvest, how to dig potatoes and “side-dress” the corn. 

You know, you’d think that a 4-year old with a short attention span would be like a bull in a china shop in my 24×24 garden.  But he was the best little guy.  He “dug holes”, found worms, planted and just had the time of his life.  Now he wants to be a farmer when he grows up and have cows, chickens and a garden.  Wonder where he got that idea from?  LOL

Finally we’re going to get a break in this muggy, wet and humid weather we’ve been having.   It’s not that it’s been particularly hot, it’s just that it’s so humid and that makes it feel hotter that what the actual temperature is.  But over the upcoming weekend, it’s really going to start feeling like FALL again!  Yeah!!!

Fall has to be one of my most favorite times of the year.  I love the cooler weather to say the least.  There’s just something different about the air… almost like you can smell the FALL season.

Fall here in the South is great.  The temperatures aren’t too hot and aren’t too cold. It’s a time when all of the oaks (water oaks) loose their leaves.  We have so many oak trees in our yard!  So, it also means a time to get out the blower and the rakes.  Of course, I’m looking forward to some more leaves for the compost bins this year.  Actually, with as many leaves as we get, I might just have to convince DH to build a couple more!  He originally had built 2 for me and then added 2 more bins right beside the first 2.  Here’s a pic showing one set of bins:

We put all sorts of things into our compost bins…. leaves (of course), lawn clippings, spent plants from the garden, clean out from the chicken coop and even cow patties from the cow field.  We kinda clean up after the cows like some people do after their dogs LOL!  But hay, it’s great stuff for the compost bins and eventually for my garden LOL.

With the change that we already had with the cooler temperatures a few weeks ago, along with the shorter daylight hours, the grass just isn’t growing as much as it had been.  That means we’ll have to go ahead and get some hay for the cows this week.  DH has plans on making a run to the feed store to check out the types of hay they have available.  Plus, our friend that we purchased our steers from also has hay that we can buy from him.  DH is planning on building a hay feeder above the “feed” feeder today.  This will keep the hay off of the ground so the steers don’t waste it.  If it falls out of the hay feeder, it will just land in the regular feeder.

Well, lots to do before I get my day started.  Maybe I will have some pics to post this evening of the new hay feeder

I didn’t have time this morning for my scrambled eggs and swiss chard (like I was planning) so…. I had it for dinner tonight!  Everyone else in the family ate various items and leftovers so I decided that I would cook my planned “breakfast” for dinner tonight.  I added a piece of garlic toast and BAM!!!!! I had an awesome dinner :-)   Take a look:

I love cooking quick and easy meals…. and this one was both.  I scrambled the eggs in this same bowl and then poured them into a small pan to cook.  Then I washed the bowl in the sink, dried it and placed the cook scrambled eggs back in.  I then sauted the swiss chard in the same small pan I cooked the eggs in,  and when the chard was cooked, I placed it on top of the scrambled eggs.   While the eggs and swiss chard were cooking, I toasted this garlic bread in the toaster oven.  Now this is a healthy meal!  Hardly any clean up either :-)  That even better!

With the daylight hours dwindling, the  chickens are not laying as many eggs as they were in the summer.  So today we only got 3 eggs.  But one of these should be counted as 2 eggs LOL  It’s one of those huge double yolkers I’m sure:

I took off today…. decided that I needed to take a break, ya know?  Sometimes we just reach that point where we need a little time for ourselves.  I’ve been working on the “project” day and night and I just needed to take a little time off to spend with DH and DD as well as to do some cleaning inside the house LOL   With DH working and me volunteering 12-16 hours per day, needless to say the house is a wreck!  So many things need to be “DONE”….  I  started in the kitchen this afternoon and I just about have everything cleaned up and back in place.  I still have some more work to do in the kitchen, but things are looking much better.

This morning DH and I went to Lowes to look around a little bit.  I think I mentioned on the blog that I came home one night to find that my office, sunroom, kitchen, laundry office bathroom, and breakfast were all flooded with water.  Well, DH has done a great job of trying to get up all of the old flooring and now, we’re walking on concrete floors.   I’ve wanted to change out the flooring in the kitchen, breakfast and laundry for a while now but decided we’d leave down the linoleum we had until we  had the time/money to replace it.  Needless to say, the water leak moved that date up quite a bit LOL   So we looked at some ceramic tile this morning.  We’ll begin to start putting away some money from every paycheck until we have enough to cover the expense of buying the tile, the adhesive and the grout.  DH is going to measure and determine how many tiles that we are going to need and we’ll get an estimate based on the cost of the materials.  Then, all we will need is the time to install it.

We are very lucky because DH can do just about anything…. besides being raised on a dairy farm, he also built and remodeled homes in his father’s business.  So these things he learned as a teenager and young adult have really helped us through the years!   DH has already tiled 2 of our bathrooms and he did such a great job with them.  So we’ll save the cost of labor and I’ll help him install the ceramic tile in the kitchen, breakfast and laundry room…

Now back to our Lowe’s trip this morning.   Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten any seeds started inside for my fall garden :-(   I have just been too busy and didn’t have enough time.  So, we headed to the garden area where I found some Georgia Collards, Swiss Chard and Red Sails Lettuce transplants! I purchased several packs of each one :-)  Here’s some pics of them:

As you can tell, the lettuce and the chard transplants are a bit big so I trimmed both of them up a little.  Now, I have some chard that I’ll saute in a little butter to go with my scrambled eggs in the morning and I’ll have some baby leaf lettuce for lunch tomorrow!  Here’s what the lettuce transplants look like now:

I have them under the light setup I have in my formal dining room (where I usually get my seeds started).  I’ll leave them there for a couple of days until I have some time to get them transplanted into the garden.

How’s your fall garden coming along?

Good morning!  Wow, I slept in really late this morning…. but I feel  like a million bucks…. completely rested up!  Yeah!!!  Unfortunately, I’m running late LOL!  I should have been down at the office at 10 AM but that’s the time I woke up! 

But I wanted to post to let you know that my sister in Mississippi did a hive inspection this morning…. and, she has pics and video!  I can’t wait to see.  I’m hoping that she’ll be able to get it uploaded and posted on her blog soon.  I wish I could have been there to see it in person but other committments had to take priority.

Her blog site is:

http://ft2garden.com/honeybees/

So check it out and she should have the post and pics up soon.

Well, I’ve got to run…. DH is scrambling me some fresh eggs for breakfast and I’ll be off to the office to work today.

Anyone off from work tomorrow?  It’s Columbus Day…

I’m up early this morning…. I have a few things to do before I head down to the office this morning (where I’ll be all day and probably 1/2 the night).  It’s a quarter till 7 AM and finally beginning to get light out.    We’ve had a week of almost record-breaking high temperatures but I think the cooler weather is now headed this way.  A band of rain showers moved through last night which is followed by a ;ittle cool front.  I could tell the difference when I left the office last night (after 10 PM) to drive home.  Even though the roads were still wet, the air had a cooler, almost drier feel…   But it will not stay dry for long as we have another band of rain that is going to be moving through today:

I was so hoping that “the project” that I’m working on would be complete enough so that I could have my weekend off…. well, that isn’t the case unfortunately.  I’ll be going in to the office today and tomorrow… so much for this weekend, eh?

I am just so wanting to get outside and spend the day in my garden!  I have so many things that I want to do - like PLANT!  LOL  But, for now, I’m committed to this project and everything else will have to go on hold.  One thing I know for sure, after this project is completed, it will be a cold day in h-e-double hockey sticks before I even think once, much less twice of volunteering for such a time consuming task.  Every day that I’m at the office, all I can think about is how much I would rather be outside in my garden than sitting in an office in front of a computer and paperwork.  Just thank goodness I can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, it’s light enough to go outside… I’m going to feed and visit all of the animals this morning :-)   I’m checking my chickens to see if they are beginning to molt.  With the changing amounts of daylight hours and the onset of fall, they should start molting any day now.  This will also mean a very sharp decline in the number of eggs they lay.  Molting is a natural process in the life of a chicken - it will just be the first time that my chickens (or ME) have gone through it LOL

Hope that you have a great weekend!  And that you can get out and do some work in your garden (dig a shovel full of dirt for me!!).

I hope that your week is going well!  We’ve made it past “hump day” and tomorrow is Friday!  Yeah!

These late nights working down at the office (on the “project”) is definitely taking a toll on me.  I’m just completely worn out!  This morning I couldn’t get out of bed at my regular time.  Thank goodness DH took DD to school for me.  I don’t think she would have made it there if I would have had to drive LOL 

So it’s a quarter till 10 AM and I’m still at home.  I just needed a little more sleep this morning.  Plus, I had clothes to wash and dry, etc.  But I’ll be getting my shower in a little while and heading back down to the office before 11 AM.

Something that I did do this morning was to feed and water the animals.    I have really missed them.  Thank goodness for DH…. he’s been taking care of things outside for me.  But it’s not his regular morning routine so a few things have gone askew…. like leaving the 40 lb bag of dog food out.  So this morning I didn’t have to feed the puppies at all!  Their tummies were so round from them eating for the last 24 hours straight LOL!  But that will mean that I have to stop by the store to pick up another bag of food for them today.

And the cows… well, he left the back gate open and the cows have been grazing in the area between their pasture and the garden.  And it was “mowed down” to say the least LOL  But that’s ok… the grass was getting a bit high in there.    Of course, they came running from their pasture when they saw me with the feed scoop.  They are so spoiled!  Something I noticed is that they are beginning to grow their winter coat already.  They are looking more “fuzzy” and not as smooth and shiney black.  We have begun to have some cooler days over the last 2 weeks or so.  This week is muggy and hot though.

Now about the chickens…. they are doing great :-)  No more broody hens… and the egg production is picking back up again!  DH wasn’t able to collect the eggs yesterday morning so I had 2 days worth of eggs to collect which totaled 11 eggs.    So, something I’ve learned from my two formerly ”broody” hens… this is a normal process and it is going to happen with hens because that is how God made them.  Rather than caging them up or fighting the process, when I have another broody hen I will just push her off the nest every morning so that she will eat and drink (I want to make sure she gets enough nutrition and water) and I will let her go thru the process until it runs its course.   Sure it cuts down on the number of eggs that I collect, but that’s ok.  I think going through the broody process gives the chickens a little break in laying eggs.

Well, I need to leave in 30 minutes or so…. have a great day!  Any plans for the upcoming weekend?

Well, I’m up bright and early this morning (been up since 3:30 AM actually!).  I’ve been working day and night (literally!) on this special project that should be wrapping up soon.  Unfortunately, for me it means that I haven’t been out to the garden or to see the animals since last Friday morning.  But don’t worry, DH and DD have been taking care of them and doing the feeding and collecting eggs.   Thank goodness — without my family filling in for me and covering my chores, I don’t know what I could have done LOL. 

I usually leave out early in the morning and I don’t get back home until 1 or 2 AM…. yeppers!  But yesterday evening I was just dead beat and couldn’t go any further.  So, the group knocked off at 6:45 PM and decided to call it a day.  We all needed some rest.  Nodding off at the computer isn’t good and we don’t want to make any clerical errors in our work (would be disasterous!).   So I came home and was in bed at 7:30 PM.  I slept until 3:30 AM (8 hours) this morning.  I feel like a million bucks this morning, all rested up and ready to go back and tackle “the project” again.

But back to the garden and animals…. guess what?  The Rhode Island Red that was broody has FINALLY gotten over it.  Yes!  DH has been out feeding and collecting eggs and said that for two days in a row she hasn’t been sitting in the nest box.  So that is good news.  She was defintely one meany while she was broody LOL   Otherwise, the Rhode Island Red hens have been so sweet.  I would definitely recommend this breed to anyone who would like to keep chickens for their eggs.   All of mine have laid the largest, oval brown eggs… many of which have been double yolks!

My last trip to the feed store yielded a purchase of garlic and onion sets…. I had gone to the feed store to purchase more feed for the steers and was very happy to see the garlic and onion sets there.  I probably purchased way to many onion sets though LOL  I am hoping that I will have a little time this coming weekend to get them into the ground.

Well, it’s 5 AM now and I really need to get going this morning :-)   I hope that you’re having a great week….