Sansevieria Trifasciato In Bloom

In other words my Mother-In-Law's Tongue/Snake Plant is blooming. This plant was given to me by my dear, sweet friend, Mrs. Gladys about five years ago. The plant had two blades when she gave it to me. Now it fills a large flower pot and is over two feet tall. It's probably getting close to three feet tall.

I've had the MIL's Tongue plant before but have never had one to bloom. This bloom has been on the plant for over a week. It's odd looking to me but strangely beautiful.

I hope that this doesn't mean that my plant is going to die. Some plants only bloom once in their lifetime and then they die. I'd be so disappointed if this happens to this plant because it's special to me.

The MIL's Tongue in bloom:


One more picture of the bloom:

Father's Day Twice

William had the good fortune to celebrate Father's Day two times. Once yesterday when Lisa and Sandi came to visit along with Meagen and NeNe. He had a good lunch with them. Also a good visit with them.

His menu yesterday was potato salad, pulled pork with homemade bbq sauce, and baked beans.

Today, Erica came to see him. Avery and Emily came with their mother. He had a good dinner with them. Also, a good visit with them.

Tonight's menu was chicken baked in cream of mushroom soup, smashed potatoes, corn, garden fresh greenbeans and hot biscuits.

I sure hope he doesn't think that tomorrow is a repeat of yesterday and today. He could get spoiled to the good meals and the visits from our children for just a little bit.

I'm glad he has had a good Father's Day. He's a good father! But then he's a good husband too!

Results Of Busy Day #1 & A Picture Of What William Does Best

The corn ready for the freezer.



William got up early this morning to water the garden, put the garbage out for pickup, and check on the chickens. He did all this before I ever woke up.

After working outside until eleven o'clock this morning then making a run into town for a few items from Wally-World and to pick up the chicken plates we bought from Kaileigh's cheer fundraiser, he decided it was nap time.

William snoozing in his recliner

Busy Day #1

Late yesteday evening Dub came to bring us sixty-five ears of sweet corn. It was late and I was tired enough that I didn't want to start on it last night. We spread it out and kept the air on it all night so the corn wouldn't spoil.

I got up this morning and started. I shucked the corn, silked the corn, washed the corn, cut the corn off the cob and put it in the oven to cook enough to go in the freezer.

There is a soup pot full of corn on the cob to go in the freezer also. I got tired of cutting corn off the cobs so I broke some of the ears in half to put up on the cob.

The corn is cooling. I will put it in bags in a little while. Then it will go into the freezer.

This is the first of any vegetable that we have gotten to freeze this summer. But from the looks of our garden this won't be the last of the busy days.

William went to Mom's and Dub's this morning to dig potatoes. He brought a plastic tub almost full of new potatoes. I think I will can some of them. They would be good in soups and stews this winter.

I don't mind busy days. When I think of what we are getting accomplished it gives me a feeling of satisfaction. I know that if "stuff hits the fan" we will not go hungry. Neither will our children.

Dinner, Anyone?

The fixings for our veggie dinner tonight. We grew the cucumbers, squash, beans and peppers. The onion, cabbage and potatoes came from my stepfather's garden. All fresh vegetables served with homemade bread. Can't get any better than this.

One of the reasons I love gardening:

Everyone has their time!

This is going to be short and sweet today. I have a confession to make. William and I have been gardening for thirteen or fourteen years. We are pretty good gardeners...at least I think we are.

Yesterday I wrote about the butternut squash plants that came up volunteer....WELL....I checked them out closely late yesterday afternoon. They NOT butternut squash. Are you ready for this? They are burpless cucumbers. How do I know? There's a cucumber growing where a butternut squash should have been. At least where I thought a butternut squash would be.

Just goes to show me. I don't know everything and I should never take William's word for it.

Feeding A Garden So It Can Feed Me And Other Stuff

We gave the garden its bi-weekly feeding this morning. We soaked the ground with the tea and poured it over some of the leaves.

I noticed that the green beans are blooming profusely along with the butter beans. William said he found some tiny hulls on the butter beans. YUM!

The squash have loads of blooms as noted in a previous post. There's not many squash on the vines as of yet.

Yesterday I found a baby cucumber. When there are tiny cukes one day there will be cukes ready for eating in a couple of days or they will be too large for anything. I will check the cucumbers again in the morning and hope that there will be some ready to eat for lunch.

I have to thin the okra. Some hills have three or four plants in them. That will keep the okra from growing like it should. I will thin them down to one or two stalks in each hill. I may need to give it a little beating. The plants aren't growing as sturdy as I would like. The beating will make them start growing. Yep, it works. I've done it before and the okra shot up overnight.

There are some butternut squash plants that came up volunteer. William has a trellis for one of them to run up. The other one is on the north end of the garden. We gave them some food this morning too. If they do as well as the one plant we had last year we will harvest all the butternut squash that we can use from these two plants.

The tomatoes have a good many small tomatoes on them. Not as many as in years gone by but we will be planting more tomatoes this coming week for late harvest. This way we should have all the tomatoes that we can use until frost hits us.

The peppers are looking a little better. The leaves are greening up a bit.
I will pick the peppers late this afternoon.

The field peas are growing. They soon will be blooming also. We will have to watch them for mold if we keep getting rain of any measure and watch them for lice if it turns dry on us.

As for other stuff: William put one of the Barred Rock hens in a coop with eight eggs. She was trying to set on a nest where the other hens were laying. Now she has her own nest with her own eggs to hatch, I hope.

One of the ducks has started setting on about a dozen eggs or so William says there's a dozen under her. If she hatches any of these eggs the ducklings will go to a brooder. I'll be danged if I'm having ducklings hatched just to feed raccoons or snakes or whatever ate the last eight that hatched about a month ago.

William is building a covered pen for the young chicks that I bought the last of March. He is closing up an open shed and then dividing it so we can seperate the Buttercups from the Americana/auracanas (Easter Eggers).

This has nothing to do with gardening or raising animals. Just a note of appreciation to the man who knew nothing about growing anything when we began our homesteading venture. William sees what needs to be done and quietly goes about getting it done. Thanks Honey. Think I'll keep you! I hope for a LONG time.

Blueberries....Blueberry Pie?

NOT! We transplanted three blueberry bushes earlier this spring. They have reached around two feet tall but have clusters of blueberries on them.

The three blueberry bushes all in one hole just as Felder instructed. That's the blueberries in front of the walkway.


The nurseryman we bought the bushes from told us that we would have blueberries this year. Look what I picked this morning. A whole handful of blueberries!


A closer view shows that I picked some unripe ones too.


Not enough for a pie but enough for a little snack. There's more on the bushes that aren't ripe. If they had all gotten ripe at the same time we could have had a small blueberry pie or cobbler.


William can have a little snack later on. I just want a taste for the time being.
I'll wait until we have enough for the pie.

First Peppers Of The Summer

I took a stroll through the garden this afternoon hoping to find some more "Big" squash to go with the ONE that I have in the refrigerator waiting to be cooked. No squash but I did find some peppers.

I gathered the jalapeno, sweet banana and cayenne peppers. The sweet bell doesn't look like it's going to make it!

Anyway, I cook a pork tenderloin that had been massaged with a Memphis-Style dry rub and then doused it with homemade barbecue sauce (Memphis-Style of course) and oven baked fries. I piled the meat on wheat buns then topped that off with fresh homemade cole slaw (cabbage from Step-Father's garden). Piled some fries on the side along with a jalapeno and a cayenne pepper.

I have noticed in years past that the first peppers are tender without much heat. WELLLL...not these two. The cayenne was purt near warm but that danged jalapeno threw the roof of my mouth into spasms. No Joke! That pod of pepper was about the hottest pepper that I have ever put in my mouth.

But...I ate it. Every little bit of it right down to the stem. After the spasms died away the roof of my mouth, my tongue and every part of my mouth welcomed that wonderful, hot jalapeno.

Now before you call the men with the white jackets to come take me away I must tell you that I don't consider summer "arrived" until I eat a jalapeno from my garden that is so hot that it makes me cry. Now you can call those guys with the white jackets to come take me away but be sure to tell them that I want to go where there's jalapenos.

My first peppers of the summer.

The Lone "BIG" Squash

William came into the kitchen this afternoon and told me that he had picked a "big" squash. I checked the squash out expecting it to be at least twelve inches long. Not quite. Not even six inches long. Maybe, four inches at most.


The "BIG" squash


While it's not as large as he made it out to be we can collect two or three more "big" squash and have them for dinner one night.

Now if he'd just find some "big" green beans to go with those "big" squash I would be a happy cook/wife/gardener.

Squash Are Blooming And Other Pretty Blossoms

I took a little walk around the yard today with camera in hand, of course! William had just finished hoeing the peas and okra again so I stopped by the garden to take a little peek.

The squash are a very pale green but I have never seen so many blooms on our squash since we started gardening. Not all blossoms have squash but there are a lot of baby squash on that row of plants.

I can't decide how to use these little delicacies first. Should I cook them with butter and onion loaded down with fresh cracked pepper or should I slice some of them to add to a salad or should I slice them and dip them in ranch dressing. Maybe, I should do all three and make a meal from squash. That's sounds like a winner to me.

Picture of squash plant with blooms:


Imagine a twenty-five foot row of plants just like this one. We should have some squash to preserve this summer.

Two more gladioli are blooming. One is a cheerful yellow and the other is a deep red-purple. Sure I made pictures of these also.

The yellow gladiola has two stalks twisted together.


This is such a showy color. Most of the colors in my flower garden are pastels. There's only a few deeper colors which makes this gladiola special to me along with being given to me by Jason.


Several years ago I planted some Calla Lily Bulb/corms/whatever. It's been so long that I don't remember what I planted. The foliage came up each year but never bloomed until this year. So far there are two of the plants blooming. Notice the varigated foliage on the plants. Callas are some of my favorite plants. I was thrilled to see this blossom.



A Burgundy Canna with the sunlight hitting it just right. This is in what William calls the "holding pen". This is where we put plants that we don't have time to find another place to set them when we first receive them. This canna is going in my little hideway that William is going to help me build.



Last but certainly not least is a Althea/Rose Of Sharon that is supposed to be a bush but has grown into a slim tree. It's covered in beautiful purple blossoms.



I love to walk in my yard. While it's not manicured as some fancy yards are it's mine and it changes daily. So each morning or late afternoon stroll through the yard is an entirely different trip for me.

Pots and Pans Pantry Started

William is removing the cabinets beside the stove. This is where the cabinet for all those pots and pans hanging against the walls and the canisters cluttering the counter tops will go.

Someday soon I will have the counter tops clear. I, then, can work without having to move "stuff" out of my way. Soon, I hope. It was almost three years before I got the food pantry finished. However, William didn't start on the pantry until six months ago. LOL

I am going to sand and refinish the cabinets by painting them a bright white. They will be put in my sewing/computer room for storing fabrics.

As we take each cabinet off the wall I want to refinish it and put it up in "my" room. I will have plenty of storage for all my fabrics and for computer supplies.

There's a closet in "my" room that we are going to install shelves in giving me more storage area.

I will make and post pictures once he gets the cabinets down and gets started on the pots pantry. It's a mess in there at the moment and I would just as soon not have permanent evidence of the mess he's made for me.

One day, we will have this house just the way "I" want it. O' Happy Day! Someday!

A Lazy Day Here At Hunny Bunny Haven

I have been lazier than usual today. I made the bed, folded a load of clothes, dried the dish towels, washed the dishes and cooked a concotion for dinner. Other than than I have done absolutely nothing.

I have days, usually once a week, where I just don't want to do anything constructive. Destructive either. I sit around drinking coffee and noshing on everything I can find that will stand still long enough for me to eat it.

This morning when I awoke I knew today was one of those days.

A Rainy, Rainy Thursday

A couple of days ago we put rabbit manure tea around all the veggies. We had gotten everything hoed and dirt pulled up around the veggies. This afternoon we got a good rain. I'm hoping that the rain will soak the manure tea in around the roots of the vegetables and they will start to produce. I'm getting ready for fresh tomatoes, okra, butter beans and cucumbers. Not to mention some fresh green beans and squash will be good, too.

The water was standing in between the rows for a while. Since it's been hot this week it didn't take long for the water to soak into the ground. I didn't make pictures of the water standing this time. I figure that a couple of pictures on a couple different days people will get the idea.

But I did make some pictures of some flowers a day or two ago that I'd love to share.

I hope you enjoy walking through our yard with me.

Beautiful pink zinnia that came up volunteer in the greens patch:




A daylily growing by William's goldfish pond



The yellow canna brightens up a shady area



This purple leafed plum has been cut down to the ground time and again. It's determined to live so I think we should let it be. It's burgundy leaves are beautiful in the shady backyard.



The elephant ears get as big as a wash tub before summer ends.


A couple of North Carolina Cherokee rose blossoms. This rose has some serious thorns.


Last is a single bloom from one of the gardenia bushes. These blooms smell heavenly.



Thank you for taking a stroll in our backyard. It's been a pleasure.

It's Finally Finished!

The pantry that is...Well, to be truthful it's almost finished. We still have to paint the doors and stain the sides and front.

Even so, I have moved the food items into the new pantry. I am so happy to finally have a pantry where I can put any canned goods that I am able to put up each summer.

William is checking the cabinet that has to be removed before starting on the pantry for the pots and pans. I will be happy to get this built also. It will give me much more counter space with which to work.

A picture of the pantry:


We have room to build more storage if we find we need it. We plan to put shelves up for our dishes and can build a storage cabinet under it if we need it.

That's all for the day.

Then And Now : Up-date on Chicks And More...

We got our new chicks on March 31st this year. They have feathered out and have been moved from the brooder to the chicken tractor. The roos are beginning to look like roos so we can tell the pullets from the roosters. The Easter Eggers are different colors. Some of them look like the Buttercup pullets then some are black speckled but all the Easter Eggs roos are whitish.

March 31st at a day old



Today at two months old:


The pullets should start laying around five months old. I hope they won't wait until next spring like our Barred Rocks did. We had the Barred Rocks for a year before we got any benefits from them.

We have to build two pens so as to keep the breeds seperate. I would like to raise some of each breed next spring.

We had twenty Barred Rock hens. Only one showed any interest in being friendly. I call her Henny Penny. She follows me around the pasture when I go out to visit with the animals.

Today I went to the pasture gate and Henny came running. She even posed to have her picture taken. Doesn't she look cute?

Miss Henny Penny Barredrock


I'm thinking Henny Penny came to that gate because she wanted to hear the latest gossip about the new young chicks that have moved into the chicken tractor just across the fence from her. She has that look on her face, don't you think?

I found these Blackeyed Susans growning on the west side of the yard. They sure brighten up that dark corner. Don't you agree?



We did give the veggies a good drink of manure tea this morning. Some of the plants aren't looking too good. I think all the rain and then hot and dry is telling on the plants. We have more rain forecast for Wednesday through Friday. Maybe we will get a good shower without standing water in the between the rows. I can only hope.

That's about it for today.