What A Beautiful Day!

Today William and I worked on the flowerbeds. With all the rain we've had (I'm not complaining about the rain because we really need it) the weeds and grass had gotten out of control. There's Nut grass every where and pulling that stuff up is like pulling teeth.

We got one of the beds cleaned. I want to get the soil loosened up so I can sow some zinnias, marigolds, cosmos and some other annuals to brighten up the spot by the fence. There's gladiolas, day lillies, correopsis, sedum and some wild flowers in the bed but I want some that bloom all summer.

Tomorrow after church, I want to get all the manure around the veggies and finish up the bed for the asparagus beans. I would like to get them planted tomorrow afternoon. If not tomorrow, the seeds need to be in the ground by Monday at the latest.

William put cages around the tomatoes today. I hope that they are sturdy enough to hold the plants up. I would be very disheartened if the cages blow over and take the tomato plants with them. What with the weather we've had in the last few weeks that is a possibility.

That's it for our day. Doesn't sound like we got very much accomplished but we did!!!!

Saturday: A Day For Working

I got up early this morning. Got the animals taken care of and then I pulled weeds from around the beets. After pulling the weeds from the beets I hoed the squash and cucumbers then I washed and hung out the sheets and dish towels. Did all this before William even knew it was daylight. I'm a good wife. ROFL

I've been cooking and cleaning to get ready for our company tomorrow. There's three fresh strawberry pies in the refrigerator and a big bowl of potato salad. Also, a pint of homemade ranch dressing is in the frig. All I have to do tomorrow is bake the ham, cook the veggies and make the green salad.

We finally got the okra planted today. I let the seeds soak in some luke warm water and they were already sprouting before they went into the ground. We should be seeing the plants within a week.

It's about time for me to get some rest so I'll be ready for tomorrow. I hope you all have a blessed Resurection Sunday. :)

Good Friday A Good Day For Working

We got up this morning and went to the grocery store. We left the house a little after six o'clock. Got that out of the way early. Grocery shopping isn't one of my favorite chores but eating is one of my favorite things to do so had to buy something to eat.

When we got home we moved those stinky little ducks to the outside brooder. We have them where they should stay warm tonight. I hope they don't get too warm.

I went to see about them about seven tonight and had to change out everything in the brooder. They had everything wet and nasty. They are growing like weeds.

William worked outside today. He put handrails to the steps on the front porch, finished digging the bed for the asparagus beans, cut some weeds growing on the west bank, dug holes to put up the frame for the swing and I'm sure there's more but I can't remember everything he did. He doesn't stop to rest....Only to eat and get some water.

I worked in some of the raised beds today. I pulled the weeds from the tomatoes and the green beans. I plan to pull dirt up around the greenbeans and then lay the soaker hose in the bed tomorrow. After I get the hose put down I want to put some pine straw in as mulch. I hope to get all the beds worked tomorrow.

The okra seed that I tested for germination had a good germination rate. Eight out of ten seed sprouted. So I know the seed are good that I saved from last year's okra crop. I'm planning to get them planted tomorrow morning.

We got the pen ready for the rabbit that is supposed to have her kits around the twenty-sixth. We will put her in the pen tomorrow. The nesting box is ready for her and the babies.

I bought plastic eggs to hide Sunday afternoon. They're stuffed with candy and one has a little extra in it. I have larger eggs with little stuffed rabbits, candy and some moolah stuck in them for each of the grands. I'm looking forward to seeing our children and the grands that get to come. I wish all of them could be here but when a person has a job they work when the boss says work or they don't work at all.

That's about all that was accomplished here today. Tomorrow will be a busy day. I plan to make a potato salad and three strawberry pies for our lunch on Sunday. I want to get the ham ready to go in the oven also. That will help with all I'll need to do on Sunday morning.

I hope you all have a good weekend and a blessed Resurection Sunday. :)

A Quack-Quack Here And A Quack-Quack There.....

Not yet...Mostly peep-peep-peep. The ducklings arrived this morning. All ten are alive and healthy looking. They're eating and drinking good. Good enough they already have their brooder wet and have food all over the bottom of the tub. That's what ducks do. Make a mess but they are so cute that I don't mind the mess. They also supply us with lots of eggs to bake with.

Duck eggs make cakes and bread very rich. I love to bake using duck eggs. The eggs aren't too good to eat but they are edible. They're just a little tough.

There's ten babies. They will be grown before I know it.

Enough about the ducklings. Time for some garden talk. I checked the zucchini this morning. All four hills are up and looking good.

The green beans are up too. Most every hill came up. The beans are in a four by twenty raised bed. There's four rows of them in the bed so if all of the seed come up and the beans grow, we should have loads of green beans this summer.

We still don't have the okra nor the Asparagus beans planted. Maybe we can get that done this Friday. William will be off from school then. We will be doing some work in the yard if weather permits.

That's all that's going on here at Hunny Bunny Haven today. All except Sakura is not too happy with our new additions to the family. I think she's a bit jealous that I'm making a to-do over the ducklings and she's not getting all the attention. She'll get over it. I want her to get use to the ducklings being around so she won't be chasing them.

That's it for the day. Have a great day y'all.

A Rose Is A Rose Is A Rose.....

Or is it? I walk around our yard with a camera a lot. Can you tell? I'm posting a few more pictures of the roses blooming in our yard.

The beauty on the top is called "A Mother's Love". This rose was given to me for Mother's Day several years ago by Lisa (My daughter), Todd and Meagen. It's a beautiful peachy color and it blooms each year no matter how neglected it is.

Second picture: This is the arbor that is over the walkway to our front porch. This rose came from Doctor Dirt (Leon Goldbury). He thought it was Prosperity but then he came back and said that wasn't the name. I don't know the official name...I just call it gorgeous and smells so good. It's always covered with blossoms every spring and will have a few blooms on it all through the summer months.

Third picture: I have no idea what the name of this rose is. The rose was here when we bought the place. Every few years we cut it back almost to the ground and it rewards us for several years with pretty purple blooms. There's just one thing about this rose, the thorns are like daggers. I don't touch it, I just enjoy it's beauty.

Bottom: I don't remember what the name of this rose is either. William bought it for me about fifteen years ago at a big box building supply store. For several years it didn't do much but this year it is making up for those years. Not only does it have large white blooms on it, they smell heavenly.

There's more but I won't bore you all any more with the flowers blooming in our yard. I love walking around looking at them and snapping a picture or two or three or fifty. LOL I hope you all enjoy looking at the pictures as much as I enjoy making them and as much as I enjoy the beauty of the rose bushes.

A note about the vegetable garden. I walked through the garden this morning and the greenbeans are beginning to sprout and the cucumbers are coming up. I haven't checked on the zucchini yet but I'm hoping when I do I will find them sticking their little heads up out of the dirt too.

We're supposed to get some rain tonight and tomorrow so maybe the rain will bring the seed on up out of the ground.

We still have the Asparagus beans, okra and sweet potatoes to plant. But as cool as it's been the last few days I think we have time.

Thanks for dropping by again. I hope you enjoyed your visit and y'all come back now...ya hear?

Something New Every Day

Every morning when I look out the front or back door there's something new blooming. This year there's a bloom that I've never had before.

Several years ago...about seven years, I think....William's friend, Robert brought me a peony to put in the front flower bed. Each year it would come back up but nary a bloom. This morning I looked out the window and there it was in all it's beauty!!!!!

Gardening of any kind, vegetable or flower, takes patience. Several times I've come close to digging this plant up and composting it. I'm sure glad I didn't.

A Day Filled With Sunshine.....

And a raised bed filled with pepper plants. This morning I set four each of sweet banana, sweet bell, jalapeno, cayenne and hot banana pepper plants in a large raised bed. The earth is rich with organic materials and still good damp from the rain on Monday evening. I'm looking forward to loads of peppers from these plants. I pickle peppers and dice peppers to freeze each summer. If I have enough peppers this summer I may try canning some pepper relish. The squash have grown almost two inches since I worked around them getting the soil lose around the little plants. Some of the tomato plants have jumped at least three inches. It's a big change each morning as I walk through the raised beds checking out the plants and looking to see if any of the seeds planted are beginning to come out of the ground. Spring is a very exciting time for me. I love to get up and walk through the vegetable garden in the cool of the morning.

The Garden Is Started!

The radishes are getting ready to harvest. This morning I pulled five nice size radishes up to add to a salad for our dinner tonight . The beets are growing. I used the hoe and pulled some dirt up around the beet plants. I'm hoping for enough beets to put some in jars for William. But I've decided that I like beets too. I didn't think they were good but I've been eating some recently and they're good. Beets are low in carbs and calories. All the squash are up now. I hoed around them this morning. I will need to put some more rabbit manure around them in about a week or maybe some manure tea. I checked the tomato plants that William and I set out Saturday afternoon. They are looking good. Some of them look like they've grown two inches already. Tomatoes....fruits no words can describe. To describe tomatoes as delicious leaves so much unsaid. LOL Can you tell that I love eating tomatoes? This morning I planted green beans (Louisiana Purple Pod) in a raised bed that's 4' x 20'. I planted four rows of beans so that's eighty feet of green beans. That should be enough to can some beans and freeze some too. We have soaker hoses now that we are going to put around the green beans and the tomatoes. The hoses will make keeping the plants watered a lot easier than trying to water them from overhead. After I finished planting the green beans (and resting for a few minutes) I planted twelve hills of cucumbers. There's six hills of burpless cukes and six hills of pickling cucumbers. Cucumbers rate almost as highly as tomatoes with me. Lastly, I planted four hills of zucchini. They're planted in the flower bed in the front yard. William made a new bed with mown leaves, rabbit manure and peat moss along with the dirt that is mostly clay. I'm hoping that this new bed will produce a lot of zukes this year. There's room in the newly worked area to plant some more tomatoes. I'm planning to put the Marianna's Conflict there. I want to save some of the seed of these tomatoes so if planted in the front they will be away from the other tomatoes and won't cross pollinate. Rain is expected late this afternoon . That should be a good thing for the newly planted seeds and on the already established plants. I'm feeling good that the vegetables are now in the ground and that we should be enjoying them in a couple of months. We still need to get some pepper plants....Jalapena, Sweet Pepper, Cayenne and Sweet Banana peppers are what we usually plant. Okra will be the next vegetable I'll plant. I have a 4' x 16' bed that I'm planning to put the okra in. I may plant a couple rows across the bed and then in front set out some eggplants. After we get the raised beds going we need to till an area to plant the sweet potatoes and Asparagus beans. These beds will be about ten feet by ten feet each. I love spring time!!!!!

A Few More Spring Time Blooms

Running rose on arbor,

Martha Gonzales Rose.

Mutabilus Rose,

Purple Verbena.

Miss Gladys' English Dogwood

The Miss Dorothy Iris.

Most of the flowers I have in my yard are from friends. The purple iris is from a dear, sweet lady named Miss Dorothy. She gave me the iris and it didn't bloom for serveral years. The year she died the iris bloomed. It's bloomed beautifully since. Each time I see that deep purple blossom I'm reminded of what a a precious person Miss Dorothy was. She'll live on in the blooms of the iris and of course in my heart.

The English Dogwood (or Mock Orange) and the purple Verbena were pass-along plants from a friend who I miss every day. My Miss Gladys gave me these plants. There are so many plants in our yard that she gave me that I can see her everywhere I turn. The blooms bring a smile to my face but I still get teary when I think about not being able to share these blooms with her. She was like a mother to me and I will always miss her.

Some of the roses I bought from a man who calls himself "Dr. Dirt" and does he knows how to raise plants! There's no mulch, no straw, no artifical dirt and no weeds growing in his garden. The plants are healthy and vigorous. I love to walk through his garden with him. It's been a while since William and I have visited Dr. Dirt. It's about time for another visit.

The roses, Mutabilus (has different color blooms), Martha Gonzales (Burgundy red blooms and a very small plant) and the rose on the arbor (Pale pink blooms that smell like old timey roses smelled) all came from Dr. Dirt. I've had them for several years and they are still as healthy now as when I bought them.

The yellow squash finally came up. They've been planted at least two weeks. I suppose the temps got too low for the seed to germinate. Five of the six hills I planted came up. I guess I'll replant that one. :)

I hope you all enjoyed your walk around our yard as much as I do. Come back to see us anytime. :)

n

Spring Blooms Eternal........

Or at least for a little while.

These are pictures of some of the flowers now blooming in our yard. I love this time of year! When I feel a little "blah" I just take a walk around the yard and look at the Creator's handiwork.

The bright and cheerful rose is a Lady Banks rose given to me for Mother's Day a few years back by Lisa, Todd and Meagen. It's in full bloom and like a "blob" of sunshine in our front yard.

The little flowes are called Rain Lillies. We discovered the plants in our daughter, Lisa's backyard after their home had flooded. When the water receded the lillies came up in abundance across the yard.

The Japanese Snowball bush ( which has grown into more of a tree than a bush) is another Mother's Day present given to me by Mark, Janet and family. This is the only snow that I like in my yard. LOL

Springtime has come to our little homestead. Even with temps down to thirty-five and frost yesterday morning (Wednesday, April 6th) the flowers still bloom profusely. I can't help but smile when I take a walk around our yard.

Meet Fred And Ethel

This is Fred and Ethel (so named by William because guineas get all excited about every little thing like Fred and Ethel on I Love Lucy). Of course, this couple hasn't been grumbling or fussing. After all they have their brand new home with a screened in porch in which they are privileged to live.

There's plenty of food and water along with all the ticks they can eat. They don't have anything to grumble about. :)

Also, there's not been any unwelcomed visitors so far. Even though when I went out to make the pictures a stray cat was lurking about. He decided he didn't want to hang around with the guineas if I was going to be visiting.

Other things going on at Hunny Bunny Haven are: Sweet potatoes are bedded for "slips" to plant later on., the duck pen is coming along and the new raised bed is ready to plant tomatoes as soon as the temps decide to be spring like.

The night time temperatures are supposed to dip down in the thirties again Wednesday. I don't expect frost but want to be safe so the tomatoes will have to wait until this weekend.

That's about all that's going on around here. I hope spring has come to your neck of the woods and I hope it stays for a while.