Pot O Gold?

A couple of weeks ago in the Country we had a massive thunderstorm come up. Then this happened:

It was huge & if only there had been that proverbial pot, it would have only been 100 ft. away. Then it turned into a double. Kind of hard to see but it's there & it lasted about 20 minutes.

We also hit a good weekend for the crepe myrtles.

About 90% of them were blooming. Just lovely. Hard to get a pic of all of them. Will be headed up there tomorrow, wonder if any blooms will be left?

An Update! (Picture Heavy)

Didn't realize it had been almost a month since I posted! I've been in the country taking care of a few things. We went up over Memorial Day & got a lot of stuff done on the apartment. We got the appliances placed in the kitchen & the shop pretty well cleaned up. I stayed the following week to get the baseboards finished painting & the gas hooked up to the stove.

Here's an updated pic of the kitchen. Still have to put the panels on the island & the countertops ordered & installed, but it's coming along.

The best news of all ......... We got the pantry started. One side is done & just need additional pins to hold the shelves for the other side. Now all I need to do is fill it up!

These are the shelves that I got at the World Market going out of business sale in January 2015 ($15 each). Three & 1/2 on each side. Greg had to cut the 1/2 one & fabricate the shelves but as usual, he did a great job. Once the shelves were up we decided that we needed a top in order to make full use of the space. There is no way we could have purchase wood to make this shelving for $105. It would have cost twice or maybe even three times that much. I can't wait to get it finished & start moving stuff in!

We got the grass mowed & everything cleaned up around the yards. Also had these for dinner one night, along with some potato salad.

The following weekend I hosted a small cousins get together to swap recipes for a family cookbook that I agreed to coordinate. We'll see how that turns out. Everyone is so eager to get one done but only a few actually take action to make it happen. I've got until the end of the year to use the software to get it finished for printing in January. So far, myself & only a couple of cousins have added 75 recipes, 50 of which are mine (or friends & MIL). Oh well, I'm not going to stress about it, if they don't contribute by the deadline then it's their loss.

Anyway, it was a lovely week, even if it was a bit HOT & no rain ALL week. It did cool down enough at night that it wasn't unbearable like it is in July & August. The mornings were nice until around 10:00a then you definitely wanted to find shade. I watered trees most every day, all the established ones are doing good. The ones I planted last October are struggling but I'm crossing my fingers. TS Colin brought some much needed rain to the area the day after I left.

Each morning as I was enjoying my cup of coffee, this guy showed up to spray the surrounding fields.

I have seen them do this before but not so many days in a row. The only thing that is different is that the field is planted in corn instead of squash, melons, cotton, etc. The fields behind my Dad's place & directly behind our lot are pretty small so it was pretty impressive to see his skills in getting to those. I'm sure it's pesticide he was spraying but there was no wind & he was very precise. Most mornings on his direct approaches I could see his face, he was that low.

He flew & sprayed a different direction each day. Although I don't like pesticides being sprayed, it must be an awesome job to get to get paid to fly each day.

In othere news, the Crepe Myrtles are doing great!

And Nelly enjoyed her time in the country as well.

I'll end with this parting shot. Thought it was pretty cool & shows that the property is not all completely flat. This is looking from the barn down the driveway through the branch.

My Zen Machine & July 4th Weekend

I've been busy with very little time to post. I'm off work today as tomorrow is my Birthday & I always treat myself to a day off at this time of the year.

Here's my Zen Machine. It's a 60" rear discharge mower. It's still new & a bit squirrelly but I think straight line are overrated anyway. And like 1st Man over at Two Men and a Little Farm I actually enjoy mowing & find it very calming. Greg was on his 72" machine & we got the whole place mowed in about 3 1/2 hours.

We had a long weekend in the Country over the July 4th weekend. The first day was spent getting the 9 acres mowed & trimmed & watering the new trees (I need to take pics for comparison, in case these actually live). The crepe myrtles are doing great. They were almost all flowering & should be in top form this weekend, but we won't be there. Hopefully they will hang on another week & I'll take a pic then. I did snap a pic of the wild gladiolas along the driveway. There are a bunch of them but only 1 or 2 flower at the same time. I'm going to put some fertilizer on them & hope we are there when more are in bloom next year.

The rest of the weekend was spent fishing, in the boat! IF we ever find time to fish it's usually just a few casts from the dock or the bank but we actually put the boat in the water on Thursday night & fished Friday afternoon & much of the day on Saturday.

The pond is filled with bass, bream & catfish. We mostly fish for bass because they are so much fun to catch. We like bass to eat as well. But it was all catch & release that weekend. Late afternoon fishing was the best, after supper it would cool down with a very light breeze & we would fish until almost dark. In laws were up as well & FIL got his fair share of fishing from the dock. All in all, it was a very relaxing weekend which was much needed by all.

I have some very exciting news to share in the next few weeks ......

Plant Experiment - 50% Success Rate

My FIL started all our Crepe Myrtles using a grafting method off of his existing plants. Click to see posts where we planted them at the Country House In-laws Crepe Myrtles & Our Crepes.

In theory, this method should work with any 'hard wood' shrub. We decided to try it on some Loropetalum & Camellia. 

Loropetalum - much more purple than this pic shows.

I don't have a pics of each step but here is how we did it:

1. Select a strong straight stem.

2. Scrape the bark off all around about 2" long.

3. Put wet moss all around scraped area.

4. Wrap tin foil around it, leaving the foil open at the top so it can get water. Make sure bottom is squeezed tight to hold water.

5. Let sit for about a year.

6. Cut just below the foil.

7. Plant in pots.

8. Trim tops back.

9. Give a good drink of water.

10. Once well established (hopefully), plant in yard.

Camellia ready to be cut from mother plant.

Close up of Loropetalum packet.

See how it's open at the top & closed tight at the bottom? It's leaning because the top of the plant had gotten really long & heavy. We did 16 Loropetalum & 4 Camellia.

Ready to be put in pots & trimmed.

None of the first Loropetalum we unwrapped had any roots. We thought it was going to be a dismal failure but we wound up getting 6 with roots, whew. All 4 of the Camellia had roots.

Loropetalum

Camellia

10 plants plus 1 azalea that I had cut off last year & stuck in the pot.

We wound up with 10 free plants. Of the ones that didn't root out, we think we must not have scraped enough bark away. Oh well, the experiment wasn't a complete bust.

Cross your fingers they live.....

Pesto (updated for Sandy)

Made Pesto yesterday. Very easy. Toasted pine nuts, grated parmesan cheese, garlic, basil, olive oil, salt & pepper Plus a splash of lemon juice. I made two batches & froze one for later.

The one on the left was made first. Already darkening.

Update:

Pesto Measurements

1/3 c. pine nuts (or any kind you have on hand)
1-2 cloves garlic
2 c. washed dried basil (packed very tightly) I used just a bit more because that was what I had picked.
1/3 c. olive oil
1/3 c. parmesan cheese (+ a bit more if you really like parmesan)
salt & pepper to taste
1/2 t. lemon juice

Pulse nuts & garlic until crumbly.
Add next 4 ingredients & process until desired consistency. I added a bit more oil at this point.
Stir in lemon juice.
Can be frozen.

We did go to the country last weekend, but the guys moving the buildings only got 1 moved. They were supposed to arrive around 4:00p but didn't get there until after 6:00p. So, they just left it & came back on Monday to unload & level it. The other building still sits on a broken trailer waiting for them to fix the wheel so they can eventually move it (if we're lucky) .

The Crepe Myrtles are doing great, one even decided to go into full bloom!

I'm taking another vacation day today & will be making eggplant parmesan. Might even head over to a couple of nearby Estate Sales.

30 More in the Ground (Plus Gladiolas!)

Last weekend wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. We arrived at the Country House Wednesday evening, July 3rd. With no plans for picnics or barbeque's the next day, we sat on the back porch a while before retiring a bit late, for us at least (it was around 10:30p).

We got up early the next day & headed to Lowe's to pick up posts, lumber & screws for fencing on either side of the gate. Once back we set about setting the posts on either side. Once we were at the gate to start work, we weren't sure if we could get both posts in because one side was exceptionally wet. We measured & set the first one. Since we were only going six foot out we decided that we could, in fact set the other one.

Once that was done we set out to plant the 30 smaller Crepe Myrtle trees we had brought with us. These are from the same Mother trees that FIL had grafted his from. We had dug the holes two weeks prior & some had caved in a bit & needed to be dug out. Easy compared to digging from scratch. We got them planted in about an hour & making the wells around each since we were on the ground anyway. Next, I got leaves & compost & commenced to put in the wells around each tree. Greg unwound water hose to lay along side. He secured the hose with some stake wires & drilled a tiny hole in the hose at each plant. We hooked it up to a timer to run 15 minutes 3 times a week. We should be able to remove the hose & reuse in the garden area by this fall.

Looking out from the carport.

Looking back down old driveway.

From old gate.

They are about 1/2 the size of the In-laws trees but they were free & things are now starting to look like a homestead with defined spaces. I want to plant some fruit trees in that large field this fall. Thinking about peaches, plums, pears & maybe an apple, if I can find one that grows in the area. Oh, and a table grape vine as well.

The weather was quite nice for July 4th. Not too hot with a steady breeze. After lunch Greg decided to go ahead & mow since rain was predicted for later afternoon. I decided to clean house a bit. It gets very dusty with farmers in the area plowing & cars & tractors riding the dirt road that runs along side the property. I shook rugs, washed rugs, swept, vacuumed & dusted, glad to have that chore behind me.

We got up the next morning & worked on the fencing, trying to decide what to do as we worked. We finished what we set out to do, that weekend, but realized we put the boards too close together. We'll space them out when we put in the next section. The gate is a crooked as we are having a time swinging it open across the drive because the drive is higher in the middle. We'll find a solution for that in the future.

As we were riding to the gate we looked to the side of the drive, about 1/2 way & saw something bright red in the woods along the fence line. Since it was about to rain we decided to high tail it to the house & come back later.

After the rain, the ditch by the gate.

Later, we stopped by the red sighting & realized the red was gladiolas! There were only two blooming but there are hundreds in 2 or 3 different spots.

There is an old well head almost directly in front of these in my Dad's field. There used to be a house there years & years ago so we guessed whoever lived there must have planted them. There were also yellow buttercups in the wooded area but I didn't get a pic of them.

So, in addition to passion flowers, we also have buttercups & gladiolas!

We got a solar driveway light put up as well as a game camera. We've seen bobcat, hog & deer tracks along the driveway so we are hoping to catch a picture of something or another.

As we were leaving on Sunday we noticed these mushrooms growing in the side of a tree. They are about 5 inches across.

We've also been finding rusted junk treasure here & there. I can't wait until we live there!

It is now Sunday, July 14th & I canned peaches (8 pints), made peach jam (12 1/2 pints) & peach butter (7 1/2 pints) yesterday all.day.long. The jam didn't set very well but it's thick enough to use as an ice cream topping. The butter came out perfect. I don't like to peel peaches but I love the end products.

Today, I got tired of jockeying all my bags of frozen vegetable pieces & meat bones & meat pieces so I've got 2 large pots of stock going. I am taking next Friday off so I'll probably spend the day canning the stock.

That's all I've got for now. Have a great week everyone!

Crepe Myrtles - Lots of Crepe Myrtles

Last weekend Greg decided to close his business so we could have a whole weekend to plant those crepe myrtles I mentioned in the last Memorial Day post. We drove to the country on Friday afternoon & got up early on Saturday to get started before the heat set in. Here's what we did (click to biggify any of the pics).

A shot of the driveway with black pots placed where 17 of the trees will go.

Trees laid out.

A dingo to dig with - really a muscle saver!

Placing the first hole.

Digging

Digging

Almost done digging 20 minutes later!

We had all 27 holes dug in less than 40 minutes! The soil there is very hard packed & has a ton of clay. Even when it's sort of soft after a rain, it is still very very hard to dig a hole by hand. If we didn't have the Dingo, we would still be digging a week later & probably wouldn't be able to lift our arms.

17 trees in the ground 1 hour later!

A shot back down the driveway.

We only planted 17 because there are still a couple of buildings that will hopefully be brought in before next weekend. To the 17, we added leaves & mulch & a water line & were done around lunch time.

A few more pics taken while the digging was taking place.

Peanut field next door.

Muscadines!

Pecans

4 foot long snake skin in the garden!

The next two pictures are taken down our side of the old driveway where we will be putting in 30 more (smaller) crepe myrtles, 4th of July weekend. We changed the auger bit to a 10" & went ahead & dug the holes while we had the Dingo. 30 holes dug in 30 minutes!

Looking out from the carport.

Looking down the old driveway.

We are gluttons for punishment!