Do You Ever...?

Do you ever dream of running away to somewhere where no one can find you. No phones. No crime. No neighbors. No extended family. Just you and your immediate family and nature. You'd build a cabin from local trees harvested on your own land and cut down with your own hands. Grow your own food and hunt for your own meat. Live a fairly self-sufficient lifestyle. You'd never have to talk to someone you didn't want to talk to. You wouldn't have to worry about a neighbor's dog barking all night long. You could leave your door unlocked and windows open. You wouldn't have to put a railing on your deck or a fence around your pool unless you wanted to.

I dream of this daily.

Do you ever dream of cleaning your floors once and having them stay that way?

I dream of this daily.

Do you ever dream of planting your gardens and never weeding them. Never picking off bugs or dusting for  pests? Never worrying about watering them and knowing they will produce perfectly tasting and looking fruit.

I dream of this daily.

Do you ever dream of telling your child something once and never needing to tell them again? Better yet, never needing to tell the next child and the next the same thing. And never having to answer to the name, Mom, again. Never have the question, "What's for dinner?" asked.

I dream of this daily.

Do you ever dream of being in the mood for your husband every time he asks? Having the energy to flirt and the body you "once had". Having muscles that don't ache when you do the most mundane of tasks. Never making that moaning sound when you get up from the floor.

I dream of this daily.

My conclusion after a day of these dreams?

I dream too much.

I Like Lilies

I have lilies of many colors all over my yard. I have daylilies and asiatic lilies.

Daylilies.

Asiatic lilies.

Garden Update

I realized I haven't given a garden update in awhile.

I had a volunteer in my tomato garden this year. I could tell it was some kind of squash or pumpkin. Now I can see it is a pumpkin.

The other day I went out to pull it out so the tomatoes would have more room. I thought it would be an easy task. Just snip each vine and carefully pull it out. Hmmmm. That wasn't how it worked out. As you can see, it is still thriving amongst my tomatoes.

When I went out and started the removal process, I realized it was completely entwined around everything and removing it would damage my tomatoes greatly. I also found that it was doing an awesome job of holding the tomatoes upright. I found a new type of tomato "cage".

This morning I went out to add some pulverized egg shells to each plant, a trick I learned from Granny, to help with blossom end rot. I almost had to crawl on my belly to see where each plant went into the ground! And I had a pretty good idea where to look for each one to begin with. What a jungle. However, my "Oxheart" heirlooms are doing fantastic again. I'm so glad last year wasn't a fluke!

The "Sweet 100s" cherry tomatoes are getting huge. This variety is so sweet.

I've never grown celery before, so I had no idea what I was doing. Obviously. I'm guessing it should have been harvested earlier? It's pretty anyway. So is the rest of this garden. It's mainly peppers and herbs. I love the colors and textures here.

The cucumbers are flowering really well and I look forward to eating them.

Last night we picked our first bush beans. And a single, sad-looking green pepper.

We also picked our first red potatoes. I've never grown potatoes before. This is only a quarter of the ones planted, but the first to be ready.

We also picked sugar snap peas. This is what was left after the kids shoveled them into their mouths as fast as they could while "harvesting" them.

My gardens have been a bit neglected this year due to some "issues in life", but they aren't doing too badly considering they were planted  late and the plants were left to overrun each other.

The Usual Suspects

A crime has been committed. My daylilies have been trampled.

Exhibit A

Foliage trampled. Flower stalks bent.

The suspects.

Puffy.

"I have babies, so I have no time for playing."

Shadow.

"I'm too busy catching quail to feed all these suspects."

Mama.

"Whatever."

Zz.

"I'm too macho to play."

Buddy.

"I'm a dog."

Pipsqueak.

"I'm too widdle to pway wiff fings."

Cookie.

"Aren't I a cutie? I'm winking at you. What was the question?"

Aha! The culprit. Puddles.

"I didn't do it. I'm an innocent kitten. You can't prove a thing."

"Oh."

You see, Puddles is a black and white kitten, not a black, white, and pollen-colored kitten.

Look At The Size Of Those Berries!

I posted about picking mulberries the other day. We went back out for a couple more. We needed two cups in order to make a mulberry cobbler recipe I found here.

When we got out back to our huge, and very old, mulberry tree we found some huge berries on it. It didn't take a whole lot of them to make our two cups!

I Just Did This Post

Last year.

Apparently my Baby is another year older. Or so she says. I don't believe her. I'm sure I would know if she was 8. 

EIGHT?!?

That cannot be right.

Happy birthday, Baby.

Can You Guess What We've Been Doing?

We've been picking mulberries. Our hands looked worse than this by the time we finished later in the day. Luckily, hands wash and mulberry stains bleach out rather quickly.

 After having no mulberries last year due to a late frost, there is an overabundance of them this year. And they are huge!

The kids wanted to pick them. I had  little interest in doing it this year, but love watching them enjoy nature, so I gave in. We headed out early to the largest, oldest tree on the property. In quick order, we had almost four pounds of mulberries. We boarded the Ranger and drove around to look at the other trees.

 As we drove back by the first tree, I realized you couldn't even tell we'd been there. We only pick what we can reach from the ground so the birds can have the rest and we don't have to climb any trees. Stepping back and looking at the huge, old tree there were so many berries left.

Another thing we found while we were out were two mulberry trees that weren't turning purple. The berries on these trees were all white with a very slight blush to some of them. There were berries on the ground so I thought they might be a different variety. I picked a blushing berry and tasted it. It had a slight sweetness, but nothing close to as sweet as the purple and absolutely no flavor. The birds can definitely have this tree!

 After researching, I think they're called white mulberry trees. Supposedly the leaves and fruit are good for many medicinal purposes. The birds can still have them. I'll keep my premature graying hair, joint aches and pains, ringing ears and dizziness, and high cholesterol if it means not having to eat those again. (Actually, I don't have most of those problems or I may think differently. Probably not, but maybe.)

We ended up with over 9 pounds of berries in very little time!

I washed them and put them in my steam juicer. I ended up with over nine cups of pure juice. I gave the mash left over to the chickens. I froze the juice to use later when I have more time to make jelly.