Around Here

Here's a glimpse of what's been happening around here!

The peonies continue to show off.  Each stem has so many blooms on it that they are now drooping over and laying on the ground because the stem can't support the weight of so many blooms.  I've been trying to cut them and bring them inside so they don't lay on the ground and rot.

Baby Cassidy took her first tractor ride with The Farmer and could not have been more unimpressed.  She fell asleep within the first five minutes we were in the tractor and slept the entire time we rode.

She actually got so deeply asleep that she didn't even wake up when we left the field or drove home.  Once we were home, she stayed asleep in her car seat for two more hours.  She is a light sleeper, so this was very unusual for her.  I told The Farmer that whenever she's fighting her nap (which is often), I'm going to send her out with him on the tractor. :)

Harlee and Cassidy are becoming good friends.  I have a mat that Cassidy lays on with toys that hang over it, and one day I laid her on it to entertain her while I was cooking.  I looked over a couple minutes later and Harlee had gone and laid right beside her. 

A couple of minutes after I took this picture, I looked over again and Harlee was licking Cassidy's hand.  Haha!  I made her stop and washed Cassidy's hand, because I know what that dog licks/eats when she's outside and that's just gross, but it was sweet too. I hope they always like each other so well!

I don't have pictures, but I've been working on the yard and garden when Cassidy naps.  I've got 3 tomato plants, a pepper plant, two hills of cucumbers, and onions in the garden.  I just bought green bean seeds and hope to get them planted soon.  I also bought some more perennials for my perennial flower bed, and lots of zinnias for the other flower bed.  I bought some annuals as well for the flower pots by our door, but ran out of potting soil.  I hope to make it to town soon to get more potting soil so I can get the rest of them planted.

The Peonies!

It has finally happened.  I've been checking the peony bush every day for the past two weeks, waiting for the blossoms to open.  The past couple of days there were some that looked soooo close to opening, but they were being stubborn.  Then finally today I went out to look again, and the first ones were open!

Goodness, I wish I had a whole garden full of them.

I couldn't resist cutting the first open bloom to bring inside and enjoy, even though that means the two buds on either side of it won't open.

Besides the peonies, the excitement around here this week is trees.  We have rows of evergreen trees on three sides of our yard, but the trees have been there for quite a while and some are dying.  Because they provide us protection from the wind, we don't want to wait until they completely die to pull them all out and plant new ones.  The new ones are little bitty and won't give much protection for a few years until they grow, so The Farmer ordered a bunch of new trees to plant.  Hopefully these will grow quickly and be ready to take over the wind-blocking duties when the existing trees have to be removed someday.

With our purchase of the evergreen trees, we were given some free oak trees as well.  We decided to plant a few in a line next to our driveway.  I've always liked the look of a tree-lined driveway.  There are already evergreens on the south side of the driveway, so we planted the free oak trees on the north side.  They don't look like much right now!

Those little sticks poking out of the ground are the trees.  Haha!  It's going to be a few years before they are very big.

Don't they look pathetic?!  Some of them don't have any leaves on them at all, and the ones that do have leaves look really withered and sick.  I'm not sure if that's what they're supposed to look like when they're this small, or if they're all going to die, but at least they were free.  If they all die, we're not out any money.  And if they live, I will get my tree-lined driveway in about two million years when they get big enough!  Haha!

The other excitement around here lately has been rain.  I don't think I ever considered rain to be exciting before I married The Farmer, but I guess things have changed.  We had a very dry winter and early spring, and the crops were really needing water.  The past two weekends we have finally had rain, and lots of it!  Last weekend I happened to catch this rainbow just after a shower drenched us.  Of course my phone didn't do it justice, but it was one of the brightest rainbows I've ever seen.

I Heart Spring

Spring is in full swing around here now.  The first sprigs of lily of the valley started blooming this week!

It smells amazing.  There are a lot of blooms that haven't opened yet, so I'll be enjoying them as they open over the next several days.  I couldn't resist cutting this first bloom and bringing it inside to enjoy.

The peonies are getting closer to blooming, too.  We've had 2 1/2 inches of rain in the past 5 days (after a very dry winter and early spring) and are getting lots of sunshine today, so I think they will do great.

Come on, bloom already!  I'm impatiently waiting to drool over you! :)

Not to be left out of the spring excitement, Harlee got herself a haircut today.

In the winter, when we don't shave her, her whole body is the color of her head.  But once we shave her long fur off, her undercoat is much lighter.  In the past, she has not been such a fan of getting shaved and would sit there and shake while I did it.  But today she seemed to enjoy it and even rolled over onto her back to let me shave her belly.  I think she liked the way it felt?!  Silly dog.

I don't know if shaving her helps her feel cooler (it probably does, since we get rid of all the dark fur) but it makes finding ticks on her a lot easier, and it keeps her from shedding so much when she's inside, and it makes bathing her easier when she gets all muddy, so that's reason enough for me.

Several people have asked how Harlee and Cassidy are adjusting to each other.  Actually, they've both done much better than I anticipated.  I was not at all worried that Harlee would try to hurt Cassidy in any way, but I was worried because Harlee does not like loud noises and tends to get really scared by them.  I figured when we brought the baby home and she cried, Harlee would get scared and run.  Instead, Harlee usually wants to stay pretty close, and if Cassidy really gets to wailing she will look a bit annoyed, but not scared.  Sometimes if I leave the room and Cassidy starts crying, Harlee will come find me and look at me as if to say, "Will you come do something about the tiny human causing all this noise?!"  

I was also worried that Cassidy would wake or startle when Harlee barked (which she does any time the mailman, FedEx man, UPS man, or any piece of farm machinery drives in our yard).  Instead, Cassidy usually sleeps right through Harlee's barking.  I'm not sure how, because she is a really light sleeper, but for some reason she seems to be able to totally tune Harlee out.

So overall I would say they are doing much better with each other than I thought they would!  I hope they'll become friends when Cassidy gets a bit older. :)

New Life

Every year at this time I remember exactly why spring is my favorite time of the year.  And spring on the farm is extra wonderful!  Here's a peek at everything coming back to life in our yard.

The lilac bush is starting to bloom.  I think a few cold nights have kept it from blooming as much as it would have otherwise, but I'm happy to still have blooms.

The peonies are up and growing and LOADED with blooms that haven't opened yet.  I can't wait for them to open, and unless we get more cold weather that damages the blooms, I think we are going to have a lot of them!

The lily of the valley is coming up too, although it seems a bit slow.  I need to go pull all the dead stuff from last year out, that would probably help it grow faster.  But there is a pretty good reason I'm not getting much yard work done these days (see last picture below).

And by far, our favorite new life on the farm this spring is sweet baby Cassidy, who joined our family on March 19th.  She's a very good baby and is rarely fussy, but we are still a bit sleep-deprived. :)  Hopefully in the next few weeks we will get into more of a routine, but for now we are taking frequent naps (when she lets us) and enjoying lots of baby cuddles.

Spring

It's been an early spring on the farm this year, which means the wheat has started growing like crazy.  The other day I took Harlee out for a walk on our road, and it didn't take long for her to make her way into the wheat field.  I'm not sure if she likes the fact that it's cool there (compared to the pavement), or softer, or just the right height for her to bound through, but it's quite obvious when you watch her that she is at her happiest when she gets to run in the wheat.  Here's a video I took on my phone:

I went digging in the dead foliage of last year's day lilies and found new growth sprouting!  I pulled out all of last year's dead foliage and this is what I found:

And our lilac bush has started to return to life too:

I cannot wait until it starts blooming!  Although last night we had to cover it because it got down to freezing, and a couple of even colder nights are supposed to be on the way this weekend.  I really hope we can protect it during these chilly nights so it will bloom.

All in all, I'd say we're happy that it's spring! 

Growing Summer

A while back I mentioned a couple of pots that I had done everything possible to kill, and yet the plants came back to life.  Here are the cannas I was sure were gone.  Not only did they grow back, but they are blooming right now.  This year I'll do a better job of digging them up after they finish blooming and storing them for the winter.  They didn't get very tall this year and I think it's because they're still living in the pot with all the old bulbs from last year.  Hopefully digging and storing them, then replanting them in their own pot next year will allow them to get a bit bigger in the future.

  

 I've also mentioned that I got a little green pepper plant for free when I bought tomatoes from the greenhouse.  I peeked under the leaves the other day and found this tiny little pepper!  I have no idea how to tell when they are ready to be picked, but I can't wait to try it out.  This guy is pretty small, so I'll give it some more time before I pick it.

My watermelon plant has officially taken over the whole garden at this point.  Note to self, plant it far, far away from every other plant next year.  Watermelon plants are a vine, and the tendrils from the watermelon vine have grown up to my tomato plants and wrapped themselves around the branches of the tomato plants.  Here are a couple baby watermelons that I've been watching.  They're actually growing pretty fast, so I hope we'll have watermelon ready to eat in the next week or so.  The Farmer doesn't really like it, so I'm going to have an awful lot to eat!

When I was out at the garden taking pictures of the produce, the sun was shining through the trees just right and hitting the sunflowers so beautifully.  I had to stop and take a few pictures of those as well.  

And no post about gardening would be complete without the latest zinnia picture.  I love this picture because it shows how intricate all the petals are!  

My brother, sister-in-law, and niece came to stay with us for a couple of days and it was so fun to be able to cut flowers from the yard and use them to decorate the guest room for them.  

I didn't take any pictures of this, but last weekend I ordered 6 dozen ears of sweet corn from a local grower and on Saturday I put it all up.  I'm not sure the actual term for what I did with the corn; growing up we always just called it "putting up corn."  I husked it all, washed it, boiled it for a few minutes, then plunged it into ice water to cool down and cut it off the cob as soon as it was cool to the touch.  Then I scooped all the corn into small containers and bags and froze it.  It's sort of a lot of work, but I grew up eating corn this way and it completely ruined me from being able to enjoy the frozen stuff you buy at the grocery store.  Corn put up this way tastes so fresh and sweet, it was worth all the work to be able to enjoy that taste in the middle of winter.

I actually bought 8 dozen ears of corn and only put up 6 of them, so I need to get something done with the rest of them.  I'm sure The Farmer and I will eat some of them fresh on the cob in the next few days (we've already done this once), and I hope to put the rest up this week.  I got 24 containers of corn out of the first 6 dozen ears I did, so if I can get 6 more containers out of what I have left, that would put me at 30.  Then I'd like to do one more batch of at least 6 dozen more, to get us to a total of at least 50 containers.  Having one container to pull out each week over the next year will be so tasty!

C O L O R F U L S U M M E R

 Take a look at the beauties I cut from the garden tonight!  These are called "Teddy Bear Sunflowers."  Instead of large, distinct petals like a normal sunflower, they have these fuzzy leaves that look more like a teddy bear's fur.  I've never grown them before, but decided to try them out this year.  It seems like they took forever to bloom, but they were worth the wait!  Next year I'd like to put them in one of my raised beds.  This year I have them growing just along the grass that borders our garden, and I think the grass has held them back from getting as big as they otherwise would have.  But they are blooming away right now and are quite the happy sight on our dining room table.

And speaking of blooming, the zinnias have gone crazy!  Never again will I try to grow them in pots.  This is the first year I stuck them in the ground (in a raised bed) and I have had so much better luck with them!  I think an entire raised bed of them would be stunning.  This year they just take up one end of one of my beds, but next year I just may go crazy with them. :)

Zinnias, Lilies, And Veggies (Oh My)!

The zinnias I planted this spring have started blooming.  I've decided that zinnias are my new best friends.  I literally just dumped the whole seed packet out on the dirt and watered it good.  And this is what happened!

And there's more blooming beauty on the farm, although I can take no credit for this part.  There's a bush in our front yard that was very slow to come back to life this spring.  It's very overgrown and needs a good pruning, but I'm not sure what it's called and haven't been able to look up instructions about how to prune it.  Recently these gorgeous pink and white blooms started appearing on it.  Anyone know what it is?

There is a long row of lilies showing off in the back yard, too.

Not to be outdone, the veggies are growing like crazy.  It will soon be time to turn on the electric fence to keep animals from stealing our produce.  See the ears of corn?

And look at this tiny cucumber I found!

There is nothing better than fresh veggies from the garden!  

Growth

Things around the farm are growing!  My garden has FINALLY taken off now that we are getting some sunny, hot days.

Here are my potatoes.  

 

I haven't peeked into the ground yet to see how big they are, but I hope to soon!  When I was growing up, my mom would fix new potatoes and onions and I LOVED them.  I'm going to attempt to make some soon, as long as there are enough small potatoes to dig up.

I also have one pepper plant growing.

  I've never grown peppers before, but our local greenhouse was having a "Buy 2 veggies, get 1 free" sale when I went to buy tomato plants, so for my free one I picked out a little pepper.  I figured it would be a good way to try something new, without feeling like I wasted money if it dies or doesn't produce well.

Speaking of tomatoes, I've got four of them.  A friend from church had given me four little plants that he had started from seeds this spring.  I cared for all 4 the exact same way, but 2 didn't make it and 2 are doing just fine.  I'm not sure what the difference was, but I decided to buy a couple more to replace the ones I killed.  Here are the two that I bought:

 

And here are the two that were given to me:

 

 I've also got two watermelon plants that are starting to get bigger.  Can't wait for fresh watermelon!

 

My cucumber is still small, but it at least looks healthy.  When it gets a little bigger I am going to put a tomato cage around it and try to get it to grow up the cage instead of spreading across the ground.

And we can't forget the sweet corn!  The first variety I planted is getting quite tall already.  When it was a couple inches tall I planted a second variety, which is also up and growing.  It's tall enough that I should be planting my third variety, but I haven't had time yet.  By staggering the planting dates, I hope to have sweet corn through several weeks instead of it all ripening at the same time and then being done.  In this picture, the first variety I planted is on the left and the more recent planting is on the right.  I'll add the last variety to the right of that.

 

It's too early to guarantee anything, but if all these plants produce like I hope, we will be eating good later this summer!

 

The Garden

It occurred to me the other day that I've talked about the veggies I'm growing (okay, attempting to grow...keep your fingers crossed!) in the garden, but not about the garden itself.  Remember how I told you we moved into the house that The Farmer's grandparents built and lived in for almost 50 years?  Well one of the amazing things they left for us was the garden space.  

Because we live out in the country, it can be a challenge to grow produce that doesn't get eaten, trampled, or stolen by rabbits, raccoons, deer, and other wildlife. The Farmer's grandpa had marked off an area to be used as a garden.  He then fenced the whole area to keep critters out, and even lined the bottom half of the fence with panels of tin to keep small animals from being able to get in through spaces in the fencing.

 Here's a picture of the fenced garden.  From the spot where I took the picture above, in front of me is obviously the garden and behind me is our driveway.  Since the garden is one of the first things you see when you pull in the driveway, and it's not the prettiest thing, I'm adding some perennial flowers and shrubs just outside the garden.  Hopefully these will grow up tall and hide the tin paneling.

That in itself is a pretty sweet garden setup, but they didn't stop there.  Certain animals are pretty smart and can climb the fence, especially when enticed by almost ripe melons, sweet corn, etc.  To prevent this, The Farmer's grandpa went around the whole thing several times with electric fencing.  This time of the year the electric fencing is not on, because there is no ripening fruit or veggies yet for animals to want to steal.  We won't have to turn on the electricity until we have produce that's ripening.

A challenge about using this particular spot for a garden is that it is quite a ways from the house.  There is no pump or water source out there, so the water for it has to come from the house.  I don't know about you, but dragging a garden hose and trying to get it to go where you want and not kink up seems like a big pain to me.  Rather than drag a hose out there and then have to roll up the hose each time he wanted to mow, The Farmer's grandpa decided to hook the hose up at the house and bury the hose underground to run it out to the garden.

All I know is it's going to get very interesting once we turn on the electric fence.  For one thing, Harlee has never been around an electric fence and has no idea what it will do.  She knows she's not allowed in the garden space, even if the gate is open (I don't want her trampling my plants or digging them up, which are two of her favorite past-times), but she does sniff around the perimeter from time to time.  I'm guessing one good zap to her nose is going to scare her out of going anywhere near the garden, but time will tell.

Stay tuned for the "Harlee is terrified of the garden" blog post. :)