Busy time around the home

The weather has been so nice for August. We really haven't had a hot summer. Most mornings it is rather cool and we have had so much rain this summer that the grass feels like plush carpet and of course has to be mowed quite often.

Sonny and I sit on the porch most mornings right after the sun comes up and enjoy the view. I love this time of day with the morning sun peeking through the trees. 

View from the porch. 

Field across the road with the cows. 

closer view of cows. 

I love this speckled cow. I think she is my favorite.

We harvested the apples and pears and I made lots of jam. I ran out of sugar and won't be back to Sam's to get more for a few weeks so I just juiced a few grapes and froze the juice to get ready to make into jelly. I still have stone or wild plums yet to juice.
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Homeplace

Just a few shots from around the homeplace.

I missed the wrong caption under this photo in last posting. This was a few of our peach trees when heavily loaded with fruit....not muscadine grapes. 

I love Spider Wort. This time of year it is about the only thing that blooms and the blooms are my favorite color.....blue. 

This is close-up of Spider Wort bloom. I hear Spider Wort is also edible. 

Our walk through to the patio area. This is an overgrown muscadine but rarely has fruit as it is too shaded. We do keep it trimmed back or it would grow all the way to the ground each year. 

This was a huge visitor hanging from our gazebo. Meet Mrs. Spider. 

We finally got our first egg from our hens. They are only 5 months old and have laid 2 now. We are so excited. 

This egg was so small but perfect as all things are in God's kingdom....


And as always........

Busy few weeks

My newest rug finish. It is for a new mother. Here theme is deer heads with flowers and colors are mint green and coral. The baby's name is Oakley. 

We have had a busy few weeks. I had a tooth pulled a few weeks ago and wound up being surgery and took almost 2 hours. Sonny had one pulled this past week and took only 30minutes. Tough luck on my part. I got a summer cold right after the tooth bit and it settled in my left ear. I wound up having a burst eardrum over it and had to get some very expensive ear drops but it is all better now. 

We only have one old fashioned antique clematis still blooming. 

Jackmani clematis

The garden has been winding down as well as the fruit. I put up peach jam and put the plums in the freezer to make jam later. I only put up 4 gallons of blueberries and we let family and friends come and pick what they wanted and still had bunches and wound up letting them just drop off. I put up salsa, pickled green beans and roasted bell peppers. We are still having fresh tomatoes and peppers. The rest of the garden is pretty well over and done. We still have apples, pears, muscadine grapes and figs to ripen and put up. I plan to put up some preserves from the figs and pears but will make the apples into applesauce.  Muscadines into jam. Just a few photos.

muscadines

fig tree

apple tree

Will share more later.

Sorry about the video

I don't think the video I tried to put here works ....oh well. It really was great!!
On gardening....this year our garden is only about 1/3rd the size it usually is. But we are still getting a few goodies from the smaller garden. Our fruit has been great this year. The plums not so good but we have had a bumper crop of peaches. Our first one to ripen it's peaches is a red peach and is the best tasting of all of them. This year we put carpet tack strips up around the trunks to keep the squirrels and other 4 legged critters from stealing the fruit but seems we have a 2 legged robber...We had picked about half the peaches on this prize tree and then the other half all disappeared in one night. But we still have other types of peaches. Of course I'm putting up peaches in the freezer and also making peach jam. The jam will make terrific Christmas gifts this year.

We have had a bumper crop of blueberries. I still have berries in my freezer from last year so mainly been having the family come and pick what they want and they are now falling off and fermenting so smells like blueberry wine around the bushes now. 

The youngest son and daughter came out and picked yesterday and she is such a joy. She is our youngest grand and is spoiled rotten. but she still remains sweet. She is also my mom and grandmother's name sake. 

While they were here, we gathered some tiger lily seeds and found out the pollen from the flowers can really stain you as got some on my face...now I'm wondering if I could use it for dyeing wool. 

I'm leaving you with an awesome sunset.

photos wonky

For some reason when I went to add photos to last post, instead of adding to the bottom, they kept going to the top so will try to post the rest here.

Our 2 granddaughers were with this group. As you can see from bottom photo, they did hand motions to black light with white gloves set to music. 

I didn't want to put up the entire video so clipped it some. 

And as always...

Been awhile

It has been a busy time lately. Fruit has been coming off so was time to start putting by all the goodies. We have been eating from the garden now. ....and kids and grands have been out a lot. Then had major problem with the tooth that broke off early spring. Seems the root died..And of course it happens on a Thursday night and most dentists are not open on Fridays. So I lumped along until Monday and when I called, I found out my dentist was on vacation until Monday June 26. I then called their standby dentist and they did not know my clinic was closed for the week so they did not have any openings. I then called 9 different dentists in 2 days. Most would not have openings. The oral surgery unit in Hot Springs charged over $700 and that was just the starting price to pull the tooth. Finally one of the other local clinics I had called and had told me they would call me if they had cancelation. They called at 1:30 on Wednesday and I had to be there at 2...15 miles away but we made it there and the tooth that was supposed to be a minor removal wound up being oral surgery and they had to drill it out...took 2 hours but at least it was only $300 and not over $700. 
In the midst of all this, our church has had VBS every evening. I had signed to work but with so much pain I only got to help out on Thursday in the kitchen. Then last night the kids had their program. Two of our granddaughers were in it and did the hand motions to music...they had a blast all week. 

Some of the parents at the program night. 

Our pew with our grands sitting spot.

There were so many kids and parents and grandparents that we had to pull out extra chairs to sit along the sides and back. 

Our pastor 

Our pastor is so full of energy. His wife was the coordinator for the entire week and they both did a terrific job. Since weather was rather warm, he had his head shaved and the cap he wore had a built in wig. Our granddaugher is behind him in this photo. 

Our pastor's wife

Rooster in the Mix? Baby Mockingbirds! And Blueberries

Our little hens have sure grown. They have finally eaten all the fire ants out of the old stump in their yard.

A couple of days ago, I told Sonny I thought one of our hens was a rooster. We so called bought pullets but when they are little it is hard to tell. Arkansas law states you must buy 6 biddies at a time. I think to keep kids from getting babies for pets or at Easter. Anyway our farm and ranch store had a special if you buy 6 you get a 7th one. I even watched them gather and crate them for us so just figured they were all hens. Well this morning I woke to the most awful noise...sounded kind like an owl. I'm thinking "O NO, an owl will catch and eat our hens." Well looked out in the yard and it was a rooster among the mix.

He is the one on the left and is much larger than the others so guess he has a harem of 6 hens now. 

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Along with our wanderings around the place this morning, we discovered a mockingbird had made a nest in our muscadine grape vines. It makes it closer to the blueberries which they love..so guess a fight is on our hands later. But I was able with a lot of fussing from mama bird to get a close up of the babies.

You can see the beak on one in the bottom center right side. All are fuzzy and really ugly!!!! Of course not to mama bird.

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While there I discovered some of our blueberries are getting ripe so ate a handful.

In a week or so, we will be picking them and looks like we will have a lot to give away this year. 

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And as always.....