Fresh Air and Sunshine

Isn't that what we all need right now? Adam's still recovering from bronchitis/pneumonia/tracheitis, and now Julia and I are coming down with some ugly upper respiratory bug. Grr. But today was a glorious day outside! We enjoyed it fully.
Our Japanese magnolia (called a tulip tree by some) is ready to burst into bloom. I've seen two others in full bloom elsewhere in the county, but they're in full sun.

 Both my climbing roses look superb! I'm encouraged that they survived transplanting and the winter.

 

The one on the left is a very prickly rose moved from the orchard. On the right is my bought-from-the-nursery Lady Banks Rose.
Today Adam finally lit an interesting contraption -- an alcohol jet stove -- on the front porch. Here's a photo:

 Isn't that cool? It's moments like these when the Mad Scientist comes out in my husband. That's camp-stove fuel in the little Mason jar. The copper tube has a wick threaded through it. A tiny hole allowed the fire to eject and heat the top of the copper coil. And it does heat it!
He'll put that heater inside two of these clay flower pots, which will be suspended from the top beam of the hoop house. The pots will heat up and keep the hoop house warm on those cold March nights.

 

Don't you wish you had  Mad Scientist for a husband?
Yesterday Adam decided he'd had enough of sitting on the couch coughing so he trimmed a pear tree.

It felt good to be outside in the fresh air.
He'll keep the straight cuttings (the new growth) and try his hand at weaving a little wattle fence.

 Meanwhile, I pulled some of my plants off the front porch-cum-greenhouse for a good hosing down. The basil plants and lemon verbena both had aphids and sticky leaves. Hosing them down aggressively combats the aphids.

 The hoop house is steamy.

 Here's a shot of our automatic window-opener with its thermostatic control. It's working! It opened this far on its own, by about 10:00 AM.

 Our pitiful old easy-set pool is dying. The upper inflated ring punctured, so it barely holds water.

 We still have this 1000 gallon water tank lying around. Adam hopes to use the old plastic pool as a liner for it.

Today I dug random daffodils out of the lawn. I enjoy doing that. I'm gonna have the most amazing daffodil bed when I get them all together! And Adam put up some higher-and-stronger fencing around the chickens. I will be gone all next week to visit family, but hopefully the following week I'll start my tomato seedlings in the hoop house. That will be grand fun. If you don't hear from me, it's because there's nearly no internet access or cell phone coverage where I'm going. It should be a very restful week :)

The Hint of Fall

Temperatures are a little bit cooler.
Humidity is a little lower.
The air feels a tiny bit fresh.
The trees' leaves are brownish.
A few are yellow.
It's not fall yet -- still a month away. But fall's prelude is happening, that vague and indescribable turning of summer's corner. And lo, there is much rejoicing among those who suffer through summer!

 Adam's favorite farm activity is beginning again. It's time to make dirt!!! He's mowing and bagging the grass. Soon he'll be raking leaves and pine straw.

We picked the gourds from the massive plant, and Adam pulled out the vines for compost.

The gourds don't look that great, but then again, this plant was a volunteer and we weren't planning on gourds.

And I picked one little pumpkin and one pretty gourd.

Ned the Farm Dog is still on watch.

 

 Last night he chewed up Adam's water hoses that runs water from the barrels to the pool. A bit of a mess. Adam says clearly it's time to work on the underground PVC piping for water collection to remove the hose temptation.
Some of our garden plants are on their last breath, like this cucumber vine.

 Or this indeterminate tomato vine which looks a little tired on the bottom but is still growing on the top and putting out fruit.

Another cucumber is younger and more vibrant on the left.

And our pepper plants are doing great on the right.

 

Our newly planted zucchini and squash plants are looking healthy.

Our bees are quite happy in their location facing the morning sun each day.

 The chickens are delightful.

 Isn't Bernie getting big and handsome? He's a true roo, and pesters his ladies and does his fancy chicken dance side-stepping at them.

 Above, he dances with Punkin.
Below are Ruby and Lucy.

 I was collecting one egg daily, and then one day I collected three! They were laid all over the coop, but always back in the corners where I had to dig through the straw to find them. I asked myself, "Why do they lay back in the corners instead of using those nice, comfy nesting boxes full of straw?" I answered myself, "Silly woman! You've turned the whole coop into one giant nesting box with all that straw on the floor! Rake out the straw and give them a dirt floor like all the other coops you've seen. Put straw only in the nesting boxes, and they'll lay eggs there."
So I did. I raked out the straw. It went into Adam's compost.

Did they use the nesting boxes then? No, of course not. They're chickens.
But I'm back to getting only one egg each day. I think I scared those other two. Punkin laid one of them (because it was blue, and Ameraucanas lay blue eggs) and either Lucy or Ruby laid the other. Poor girls!

 
We're always tweaking their coop, improving the fencing, etc. The next job is to fix their little coop door. The barn siding is deteriorating because of termites, as you can see on the "threshold." Adam plans to put a new board there and cut a new door in it.

And that brings me to yet another big project that he's in the middle of: termite treatment of all the buildings. We know we have termites because of the damage in the barn, but he wants to prevent them from damaging the house, garage, or out-building, and to stop the damage to the barn. Paying someone else to treat the buildings would cost about $1400-$1500.

So Adam read up on the job, ordered the equipment and chemicals, and is doing the job himself for about $350. It's back-breaking, unpleasant, and a little dangerous, and was really nasty during the bad heat. But he's about halfway done.

Never a dull moment here! He is working on moving Goldie outside more. Julia has returned to school for the fall semester. I'm about to begin working again. Hi-Ho, let's be happy!! Autumn is almost here, my favorite time of year!!

Getting Busy on the Farm

Tuesday:
Spring feels just around the corner, and when I see bulbs just about to burst, I know it's true.

That means we don't have much time to get a lot done on the farm.
Adam's making plans to add boxes to his beehives and feed the bees. This year we will have the bees produce honey to sell. He'll use that money to buy hive frames (the big expense) so he can increase the number of hives next year.

Water collection is still a priority, and the rain is falling as I type. Adam set up our old soft-side swimming pool as a water collection tank. I forget why it's preferable to the red metal tank; perhaps because it has more nozzles and such already installed in it, for siphoning water out.

Maggie helps inflate the top ring using our shop vac.

Adam ran hose all the way from the back of the barn where the water butts are, into the pool.

I go in the orchard about every day to check on the trees. We're pretty sure the tree in the front of the orchard is a peach tree. I found leaves on her today!

And a fat bud:

Adam gave her one last quick pruning:

She's a lonely peach tree. To get fruit, we need two peach trees. Unfortunately the other peach tree looks like this:

It's as dead as the post it's tied to.

Adam is busy preparing all the beds that he'll need, once our seedlings are ready to be set outside. Today he put together a trellis (of sorts) for cucumbers, squash, and other vining veggies. He made it from an old metal frame he found on the back of the property. He attached some chicken wire to it.

Here it is, set up in its bed, attached securely to its posts.

See what he used to join all the chicken wire together? Clever man! One thing's for sure ... grapevine is something we have LOTS of.
We'll have high winds and perhaps tornadoes in the area this afternoon (Wednesday), so Adam is outside battening down the hatches, as they say. Tell me -- do we use the verb "batten" in any other context in our language other than "batten down the hatches"?
Thursday morning -- We survived the stormy weather and strong winds. The greenhouse is intact!

Soggy Christmas Eve

I went sloshing out in the field this morning wearing these:

Lots of rain last night, and the ground is saturated.

Adam has yet to get water pipes into some of his trenches, after all this time, because they have never yet been dry enough.

The rows in the winter garden are full again. Those poor greens, how they do soldier on!

It's Christmas Eve and it was 85 degrees this afternoon. Thus is the South! The bees were flying, but we really wish they wouldn't, as there's not much for them to eat right now, but they burn energy (i.e. use up honey stores) when they fly.

Adam's trying hard to get his compost wet. You wouldn't think it would be hard with all this rain, but the rain only seeps in a little ways, and the compost remains dry inside. So he has to turn and turn it.

From the bottom of his first bin you see dark soil beginning to form.

Maggie loves the outdoors. She leapt onto the burn pile happily.

Adam still works on his water system. Here are the pipes he's removed from nearer the house (where it's wetter), to the back of the property where it's drying. A little. Not much.

He got his four barrels up on the backside of the barn. He rebuilt the table on the left and built the one on the right from scratch.

Barn roof water flows into the gutters and into the blue barrels as before.

He put in some PVC lines to direct the rainwater ...

And attached that line to the new black barrels too.

And attached a spigot to one black barrel. A hose attaches there.

He was excited about all our rain last night and went back to the barn first thing this morning to see all the rainwater he'd collected. He'd found an old toilet float in the barn and put it into one of the barrels with its little stick pointing up, so he can easily see when the barrels are full.

He was rather disappointed this morning though. He's accidentally left the spigot open. All that rainwater came into the barrels and right back out again. All in one place. Needless to say, the area below the barrel tables was quite wet this morning.

I think this weed is sorrel. In spots where all else is bare, healthy tufts of this herb thrive anyway.

Adam and Peter have been working on the orchard, and Adam's pulled out lots of grapevine. Here's a stretch of vine that's not yet been pruned and pulled out.

Here's a portion with vines removed but a few scrubby pines and wax myrtles remain.

Here's the front of the orchard where the most clearing has happened. There's little remaining except the pruned grapevine stumps and a line of fruit trees down the middle. We're unsure what they are exactly.

The mass of grapevine Adam's pulled out for me to work with.

Our pecan trees continue to drop nuts, but I think we're done collecting them for this year. It's been so very wet, and they sit in the soggy mud. It doesn't do them good. We'll hope for a dryer fall next year.

Merry Christmas to everyone from our little farm! We'r'e eager to see what the new year will hold for us.