There's Always Something To Do.....

Heat Indexes can get up to 112 degrees or the chill factor can be down to 10 degrees but there's always something to do on a homestead.  The temps were so hot today  walking out on the porch made me start to perspire.  The humidity was so high that opening the door to step outside caused me to almost lose my breath but even so there's things that have to be done.

We had chickens  hatch on March 29th and 30th.  When they were old enough William built a small building with wire on each end to house the chickens.  They'd outgrown the area so today we chased chickens to move them into a larger pen.  Talk about hot....and....sweaty (no perspiring in this case it was plain, old, hot sweat) we both were hot and sweaty when we finished with this chore.

We have some younger chickens that will be moved from the brooder into the small pen.  We have chicks of two ages.  There's about two weeks between these hatches.  I'm hoping that we can combine these two hatches in one pen without any major troubles.  There's only eight chicks in all so the area should be large enough to house all eight without too much fighting, feather picking or roosters marking out their territory and pullets.

We have a pen that has to be repaired.  It has two or three holes in one side which is an open invitation to skunks, o'possums and raccoons to come and dine.  It's getting the time of year when the critters start fattening up for hibernation.  I don't want them to be feasting on our animals to get that fat.

When the pen is finished we're putting the four roosters in it.  I'm going to fatten them up for freezer camp.  At least a couple of them will be sent to the freezer.  I want to keep one to use for breeding and another to keep in case my breeder decides to bite the dust or some varmint decides to bite him.

We have to get the hens away from the roos because those poor hens' backs are in terrible condition.  I have some of the chickens listed to sell in the Mississippi Farmers' Market Bulletin.  Right now, I don't know if anyone would want them they look so raggedly. 


We have some young roosters in the chicks that were hatched this year who will taking the older roosters place next spring.



As I said at the beginning there's always something to be doing on a homestead,  This is one job that we can't say we will do the chores only if the weather permits.  It has to be done come one hundred degree heat or ten degree winter time temps.  All animals have to eat and drink or they won't be here long nor will they produce eggs and meat as we want them to do.

This is my in depth discussion on not being able to stay inside with the air conditioner in the summer or the warm heater in the winter and the reason why.  I don't want to live any other way than what I'm living right now....heat or cold.

Thanks for dropping in.  Do come back, ya hear!

They're Jumping Up Like Nobody's Business!

The seed we planted last week are coming up.  They're popping up like popcorn in an old cast iron skillet. 

If we could get a good rain the plants would jump up like Jack's beanstalk.  Rain is in the forecast for tonight and for several other days this week.  I am praying the forecast is correct.

William fertilized the peppers, eggplants, late tomatoes and the old tomato vines.  Rain would help them also.

There's just something about gardening that brings a peace to me.  Good food too!

I am trying to sell some of the birds and rabbits.  I have the birds in our state market bulletin and the rabbits on a local Buy, Sell and Trade site on facebook.  We need to downsize to at least half of what we have now. 

If we don't sell the birds and the rabbits this time we are going to have to send all of them to "Freezer Camp".

 I will check on the flowers in the morning and see if just possibly the marigolds are sticking their little heads out of the dirt.  That would be a nice surprise!

That's all folks! Thanks for coming.

Flowers Planted!!!!

We planted marigolds, zinnias, cosmos and purple coneflowers this afternoon.  As soon as we got the seed covered the rain came.  A good soaking kind of rain. 

I'm looking forward to the flowers coming up, transplanting them all through the bed, then a sea of colors and all this before frost. 

If the seeds germinate as I hope there will be a lovely sight to see when we look out our living room window. 

I'm also going to put three or four tomato plants in the bed.  So the bed will be producing food as well as beauty.  This is my plan if I can find some tomato plants in town.  If not I will break some suckers off our plants that have just started bearing and set the suckers out.  They should root and produce fruit before frost.

Oh!  Did I say it rained?  A slow, soaking kind of rain!  LOL  I know I have already told you all about the rain but I'm just so happy about that nice shower that I thought it deserved saying twice.

More next time.  Thanks for coming by.  Please come again.  :)s to you all.

The Deed Is Finally Done....

William and I finally got the late summer garden planted this morning.  We planted two beds of Zipper Cream Peas, three hills of yellow squash, zucchini and cucumbers and planted green beans around one of the teepees.  Now if we can just get a rain so the seeds will germinate and we can have fresh vegetables until frost.

We plan to remove the early tomato vines in a few weeks (they're still producing right now and they're all we have at this time) and plant Kale and Swiss Chard where the tomatoes were.  We will most likely do this around the first of September. 

We could use another raised bed or two.  I'm not going to tell this to William though.  He's worked so hard building all the beds we have that I'm daresome to ask for more.  I would like to have a nice size bed for collard greens and one for a mixture of mustard and turnip greens.  As my Mom always said "Your wants won't hurt you."

It's very hot here today.  We came in when we finished planting and have been inside ever since.  The heat index is supposed to be around 105 degrees today.  That's a little warm to suit me.  The a/c is working it's fan off to keep the house cool. 

This is about all that's happening around here today.  Nothing exciting but that's the way I like it.  See ya'll later, neighbor.  :)

Sunflowers, Watermelon Preserves And A Birthday Party.....

The sunflowers are in full bloom even though they’re not lifting their heads to the sun. The reason for that is the sun hasn’t shown it’s face for a several days.






We plan to try to get some more planted Monday. We’ve been trying to get seed in the ground for two weeks but we’ve been rained out every day. If it wasn’t raining we had doctor appointments that took up most of the day. If we get them sown the first of next week we have plenty of time for a harvest.


This week I’ve made eight pints and three half pints of watermelon preserves. It’s been a lot of years since I’ve made the watermelon preserves but these turned out just as I remember.






There’s a young man who came to my house when he was just a kid. His request every time he came was “Do you have any leftover biscuits and do you have any watermelon preserves?” He’s grown up now but when I see him he always asks about watermelon preserves. I plan to give Pepper a couple of pints. The rest will be given as Christmas gifts. That is all but the pint I carried Mark this afternoon, I couldn’t wait until Christmas to give him one of his pints. J


Monday, July 23rd is William’s sixty-fifth birthday but as many as could got together to eat Mexican food this afternoon. All four children were there. The three sons-in-law came and three of the grandchildren. It would have been wonderful if we could have had everybody there but that’s life. We all have obligations and we have to keep those obligations. Maybe, for William’s sixty-sixth everyone can be together.

The birthday boy:




Chowing down:





The other end of the table:





There you have it. The news from Hunny Bunny Haven. With pictures!!!!!!

More Rain...No Seeds...

We had rain most of the day yesterday (July 12th).  Everything is soaked now.  A very good thing!

There is a crepe myrtle that I had rooted on the back door step.  William and I have watered it but it still turned brown and I thought it had died.  Lo and behold since the rain came the leaves have come back green and pretty.  The cutting came from a crepe myrtle my Daddy set out in their yard many years ago.  It's kind of special to me and I hated to see it die.  Now that I know it's still alive it needs to go into the ground and soon.

We've decided to plant Zipper Cream peas.  These are William's favorite peas.  I called all three suppliers in Philadelphia.....Nobody has the seeds.  So I called Lauderdale County Co-op.  They have the seeds but we can't get down there until Monday.  I will have to call Monday morning to see if they still have any in stock before we drive fifty miles to get seeds.

I hope we can get the garden replanted Monday and Tuesday of next week.  Then we will have to set up a schedule to keep it watered.  It's still summer in the south.  It's still hot and will be dry again before long.

When we get the garden cleaned up and replanted there will be more pictures. 

The sunflowers are blooming so I'm going to try to get some pictures of them.  The flowers aren't as large as I was thinking they would be but the stems are the nine feet tall listed on the seed envelope. 

We're planning to dry the flower heads to give to the chickens this winter.  I wish we had a good size patch we could plant sunflowers and harvest for protein in the chicken feed.

We actually sold five of our rabbits today.  That is good!  Maybe we will soon be rid of most of them.  The rabbits we don't sell will be sent to "Freezer Camp."

This is all the "exciting news" from Hunny Bunny Haven for now.  I'm going to attempt to add some pictures the next time I post.  

Thanks for coming by and try to stay cool.  :)

It Finally Got Here.....

The rain that is....We got quick showers for four days.  Showers that may have lasted ten minutes.  Today we got the rain.  It's rained off and on most all day.  A good slow rain is what we were needing and that's exactly what we got.  Right on time!!!

Now we can get the beds ready to plant another garden.  We're thinking the bed we have cucumbers in now is going to be planted with Zipper Cream peas (that is if I can find some seed).  The yellow squash bed will also be planted with the Zipper Cream peas.  The bed where the zucchini was planted will have yellow squash planted there.  The Swiss Chard bed will be growing cucumbers and we will pull up the green beans around the teepee and replant with more green beans. 

In our front yard we are planting flowers (zinnias, marigolds, and cosmos of several different heights and colors but across the back of the bed we will plant giant sunflowers. 

I'm thinking a few tomato plants in the flower bed is a good idea too.  Now is the time to get those last tomato plants in the ground so we can have tomatoes until frost.

That's our plan for the garden for now.  Of course as things go this is subject to change.  I'm hoping nothing changes and we can have veggies until frost.

Nothing new is happening with the animals.  We're just trying to keep them as comfortable as possible in the heat. 

That's the way life is here at Hunny Bunny Haven.  The best kind of life one can live.  Thanks for coming by.  I hope you'll drop by any time. :)

It's Hot. It's Dry. It's Summer Time.....

In Mississippi.  I am not sure when we had rain the last time.  It's been a while.  We are watering our garden and it is still turning yellow.  It's so hot here right now that we can't hold out to do much work outside. 

So far our animals have survived.  They're getting plenty of water and most of them are in a shady area.  We did have two baby chicks get away from the momma hen and both of them died.  :(  We have five that survived!  It's wonderful to have a hen go broody and hatch the babies so she can take care of them.  It's a lot easier than having them hatched in an incubator and then we have to be momma to the babies. 

I am planning to put more tomato plants in the garden.  If we don't get rain this week I will go ahead and set them out and pray for the best.  I also want to plant more yellow squash and cucumbers.  I know the heat won't be kind to them.  I will have to keep them watered and again pray for the best.

William has taken down the wall that was between the living room and dining room.  Now we have one large room.  We are going to move the living area into what was the dining room and put the table between the living area and the t.v. watching area.  We will have a living area, a dining area and a den but they will all be in one large room.  When we have company we can get away from the television and maybe people won't sit and watch t.v. instead of visiting. 

We went to visit with William's Uncle John and Aunt Marilyn last Saturday.  They gave us a bushel of peas and a bag of green beans from their garden.  I put five quart bags of peas and three quart bags of green beans in the freezer.  We appreciate the peas and the green beans since we don't have peas in our garden.  We really don't have room to grow enough peas to put any in the freezer.

Tomorrow is the birthday of our nation.  Let's all take a moment to be thankful for the freedoms that we have and the lives we are allowed to live.  Happy Birthday America.  I thank God that I'm a citizen of the United States of America everyday!  Happy Independence Day everyone.