Saturday, August 4, 2012

Weather & Kitchen

It's amazing how busy summer can get! Well, we finally got some rain so the corn looks much happier and hopefully we can get a decent 3rd cut hay. Being a small family farm at least even if we had to buy some feed for our cows, or "the girls" as we call them, it wouldn't be too much. Not like those very intensive farms where they have hundreds of cows. Our vegetable garden didn't suffer too much as we were watering it, so we are starting to get some tomatoes and beans now, so yummy. It is so nice to eat food you grew. My purple coneflowers that started blooming just before we got the rain did not get the prettiest flowers this year as I did not water my flowerbeds. I deliberately planted hardy perennials as I think if conditions are that dry, you should not be wasting water on the flowerbeds. I did have a couple of hanging baskets for a bit of colour, they don't need any where near the amount of water the large flowerbeds would need. Hubby and his father are now in much better moods since the rain, thank goodness!

I haven't been doing too much of interest of late. Yard sale season is over and it's been so insanely hot that I haven't been taking many photos. I am still working on the kitchen. We are not exactly renovating it, just updating it. So I am painting the cabinets as they are those old ones that are just a veneer, not real wood and I took the wallpaper down so I need to patch the plaster before I paint. I am very excited as our new counter top will be put in next week. We, or I should say "I" since my hubby likes to say that it looks just fine the way it is, have decided to go new on the counters, back splash and floors as what is there is in really bad shape. We have that old white with speckles laminate counter top that goes up the wall as the back splash, and it is actually starting to peel of the the front of the counter. And the floor has seen better days, under the cutting board there are all these marks on the floor where knives have been dropped over the years. The floor is also stained in spots as I had the not so bright idea to strip paint of a dresser in there and didn't have a big enough piece of plastic down. So there are pinkish splotches. Once I get the painting done I will go and pick the flooring and back splash as the flooring shouldn't be put in until I am done painting and I intend to get the back splash from the same place. So that is keeping me very busy. I have a lovely cabinet I am planning on putting against the wall when I am done, to increase my storage area. It is a part of hubby's grandmothers dining room set. We have the whole set, but with the china cabinet in the dining room we don't need the smaller cabinet in there too. I intend to keep my baking supplies and things like oats, dried peas & dried beans in glass jars in it.

Monday, July 9, 2012

Poor Thirsty Plants


We have been having a great deal of hot, dry weather. While I do enjoy summer, I find the 30 C + temperatures to be too much for me. The crops really need a good rain too. The corn is starting to get that spikey look when it curls its leaves to conserve water, and second cut hay has not grown much at all since we did first cut because the grass & alfalfa doesn't grow well without rain, it just goes dormant. It is not so dry yet that we are in danger of loosing our crops but the crops certainly are not doing as well as they could with a good rain. Our vegetable garden is loving the heat as some evenings we put the sprinkler on it. The tomato plants are doing so well. I am very glad I have planted hardy perennial plants in the flowerbeds as I have not been watering them at all, and though I am not getting the usually abundance of flowers, the plants are still doing fine. The only things I have watered in my garden are the blackberry bush and the strawberry plants I planted recently because they are not established yet and will die with out the extra water. I have started planting some berries in flowerbeds as I figured why can't they beautiful and functional. I think the strawberry plants will make a nice, and tasty, groundcover. I just wish the temperatures would drop by a few degrees so I can get back out there and do some more weeding. Thankfully this year we planted the vegetable rows far enough apart that we can take the rototiller between to take care of the weeds, but I still weed the rows by hand, and they are starting to look weedy again.

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Lackadaisical Blogget



Like the Smokey Cat I have been a very lackadaisical blogget. Life on the farm has been very busy since the birth of our son in December. I am amazed at the joy derived from having a child. Not only has family and life in general kept me busy but I have been trying to decide on exactly what I want to blog about. I have had a lot of posts about thrifting and yardsale, which while I enjoy those activities, I don't feel that I am posting enough about my other interests. I think I would like to just post more about photos, I quite enjoy photography, though I would say my skills are sadly lacking, but I want to make a point of taking more artistic pictures. And I want to post more about country living and getting back to the basics such as gardening and cooking from scratch and my home updating.

I thinks, as long as we are not in for anymore thunderstorms, tomorrow will be a gardening day around the farmstead. We plant our rows of vegetables far enough apart so that we can get between with the rototiller, that really cuts down on the hoeing. Hubby usually does that and then I will go down the rows and weed by hand between all the plants. There is something very satisfying about puttering around the garden and flowerbeds!