All Quiet on the Farm

I've not posted anything here for months. It was a difficult year on the farm. We suffered under severe drought conditions during the late spring and well into August. Weather like that will kill off a garden quickly, and we could not afford to water the entire garden. However, we continue to learn about both ourselves and our little farm. Here are a few take-aways from this year:

1. The vegetable garden must be redone to allow Adam to mow it with the riding mower. Weeds take over when paths between the raised beds only allow a push mower. Adam will remove one or two of our long raised beds in the spring.

2. We have too many raised beds in the garden, and we continue to attempt vegetables that don't grow well here. We'll focus on crops that thrive here: okra, sweet potatoes, peas, asparagus, strawberries (we hope).

3. I'm moving all my tomato plants out of the veggie garden next summer. They'll be in large pots in the house lot. I'll only plant Matt's Wild Cherry tomato plants. My tomatoes in the garden got progressively more diseased year to year, and they take up so much space.

4. I will never, ever try lavender again. I gave it my absolute best try, and it all died ... again.

5. Elderberry bushes, however, do quite well! I want more of them.

6. My gourds did well. My herb beds continue to flourish. The willow saplings are doing well too.

Now for some photos of what's been going on.

Henny Penny hatched four chicks in late summer. They're now ten weeks old. I think I have two hens and two roos.

I continue to weave occasionally.

 Adam installed a new water filter in the kitchen.

 I continue to paint many watercolor cards and sell them. Here's a roo.

 Adam vastly improved the chicken run with a supporting pole for the netting and new mulch underfoot.

 He built himself a desk in the house too, for all his writing/editing/podcast/youtube work.

 We had enough figs to make my mother a few jars of preserves in August.

 We had wonderful okra! I planted it late, so it produced after the drought had mostly passed. It did well when nothing else did.

 I continued to knit for autumn.

 Adam and I sold my wares at the farmer's market each week.

 We survived Hurricane Dorian. The north side of our house was splattered with shredded leaves.

 I painted the walls and floor of the guest room.

 Adam pulled out the entire termite-eaten floor in the little building.

 And he put in a new floor after treating/killing all the termites.

 And I painted it.

 Our trees and shrubs are so very confused after two hurricanes in two years. The crabapple tree is now used to blooming in October.

 Molting season has arrived in the chicken coop. Poor Sheena looks awful!

 I picked a few herbs before frost, hoping to make sachets with them.

This is the extent of our sweet potato harvest! So very sad. Adam worked hard, and dug out a very long bed. That's what a drought will do to you.

 I'm saving dried okra pods for next years planting.

 Drying herb leaves in jars. Tarragon flowers also.

 And one last woven scarf.

We are keeping busy, but farming/gardening has been a disappointment this year. We're hoping for better rains in 2020, and healthier crops. It's raining right now! Praise the Lord!

More Empty Nest Behaviors

I now know what The Empty Nest feels like. Hmm. New, different, wonderful but sometimes a bit empty and quiet. I enjoyed the first week or two, throwing myself into moving furniture and clearing things out, setting up my oh-so-fun craft room. Today is the first day I've sat around thinking, "Hmm. What do I do now?"
Anyway, before this pondering, I did finish some curtains for the other little house, AKA Julia's old room:

 They give privacy but allow some light in.
And a new one for the door:

I also, at last, made a simple skirt from this chicken-themed fabric. I'd bought it to make an apron, so (as you'd guess) the skirt has ended up shorter than my preferred ankle-length. I plan to buy some muslin to make a built-in underskirt or slip, that will hang longer.

Cute fabric, huh?

 I finished a rather unusual weave:

 And for the first time in a very long time, I went to Prayer Shawl at the Methodist Church on Thursday! It was delightful to see my old yarn buddies again and sit and click some needles in their company. I started a basketweave shawl:

The yarn is actually very blue; size 15 needles

 These are NOT our farm pumpkins. We have no pumpkins this year. I photographed these at WalMart.

 Our second go-around with potatoes are sprouting up now:

 And it appears we will have a good pecan year ... we hope. Some of the trees are loaded.

 Lastly, I had a bit of a scare today, walking back from the chicken coop (where Punkin was trying to lay). We'd noticed Ned had a swollen neck (jowel, hanging down below), and we wondered if he'd had another run-in with a snake. Here, they sat in the sun (after the thunderstorm), but notice the foreground ....

 I stepped so close to him! I squealed, oh did I squeal! Thankfully, Ned had already killed him. You can't see it here, but there are flies on him.

This is another one of those yellow-bellied (really orange-bellied) water snakes. They are pretty creepy to look at, but they are not venomous.
So THANK YOU, Ned, for being my protector and killing all snakes on the farm! Oh, how I do loathe the look of them.
Punkin was on an egg-laying strike for about five days, but she appears to be back up and running again. Life is generally quiet on the farm. We do hear from Julia, and she seems to be doing very well at college. That makes my mama heart at ease.
I hope you are enjoying your September thus far! Cooler days are coming!

November on the Farm

 Only a few leaves remain on the grapevines in the orchard. That golden one caught my eye.

 Only the weeds are in bloom now. Our roses are about spent. The camellia buds are full and near bursting. We will see them ruby red in January.

 Most mornings are frosty now on the farm.

Adam has very nearly finished the red metal roof on the little building. He has a bit of caulking to do, that's all. He put some new fencing around my chickens ... again. Escape artists that those hens are! He's growing his compost pile, of course, gathering the cut grasses from the big field. In the photo above, you can see the scythed part of the field, and then in the distance the beige color of the taller grass, not cut yet.
This month he also ripped out and rebuilt the pantry cupboard in the kitchen. We're discussing the continuing project of the house floors -- what to fill the weak parts with, and how to finish them. Simply, I hope. I like simple wood floors.
The pecans that fell after Hurricane Matthew may be the only ones we get this year. I gathered two mesh bags full.
Adam plans to plant little slips of Christmas trees on the property, hoping to cut and sell them down the road. It's cheapest to buy them 1000 at a time. We barely missed the deadline to order them this fall, so it will wait until next fall. They will go in the damper area of the field that isn't suited to farm crops. Pine trees grow here like weeds, and I do not joke!
We are busy, busy with work and the Christmas season, and the farm is quiet. The chickens are producing. The worms are doing very well. The bees are quiet. Ned the guard dog is barking and chasing squirrels, doing his job. And in my mind I'm thinking of the quiet hours I love, fiddling in the spring greenhouse, mere months away.

Up on a Roof!

 The past two days Adam has been on top of the "little building" (as we call it), putting on a new roof.

 He drove to Jacksonville to pick up the new roof materials. Thankfully the weather has turned decidedly cooler.

 He pulled off the old junky metal roof.

 And you know how we are on this farm -- we will definitely repurpose all that metal in some way!
This exposed the wooden roof beneath, which had some rotten spots. You can see one area on the right hand side, near the ridge line.

 He's my hero. I made him pose.

 Then he ripped into the other side that faces the road. You see that the vines have kept encroaching on this structure in spite of Adam's valiant efforts.

 He ordered a nice deep barn red color. I love it!

 He put on the black tar paper yesterday. Then it rained lightly last night, but all is well. Today he got one-half of the new roofing on.

Through an order mix-up, the other half of the materials won't be here for almost two weeks, unfortunately :( But doesn't it look good so far!
 This was supposed to be Adam's "practice run" so he could also put a new roof on the main house later. But this roofing experience has shown him that he is a bit too old and wobbly to attempt the steeper pitch of the main house. So we will buy the same materials over time and find someone to do the labor. This wife is now breathing easier for that decision. I was not eager for the nervous days I'd spend with Adam overhead, skittering around. That's the latest from the farm.