Beauty Farming Life

Vintage Poster:  Harvest Legume & Grass Seed Here's another fun poster (aren't they all?).  Found this one at another library archive site.  It was pretty simple:  Remind everyone to be sure and harvest legume and grass seed...for your use and the Nation's need. So they used this image of a strong man (John, you there?? LOL!) carrying a huge bag of seed after the harvest.  I understand the legumes being food, but I'm not sure about the grass seed and its necessity for the country. Still, great graphics and a nice visit into our history. Enjoy!

We had yet another rainy end of week and start of the weekend.  Saturday was a washout, a little over 3 inches of rain.  We didn't go out until yesterday and t his was the sight that greeted us when we got there to work on the yard: super saturated ground.  It's a great thing to see, it means the ground is so wet, it won't absorb more, but it also means I can't start on the yard projects just yet... There is a drainage path/depression that pulls water away from the house which is a good thing.  I believe 2nd Family did this for "Ma" a few years ago.  You can see it in this picture.  Our end of the property, where the house is located, is the high end, and so water eventually works it's way down toward the road...  This is the area near the burn pile we used recently.  It was very flooded, ankle deep water over a wide area.  To be fair though, it is part of the direction the water flows toward the drainage areas so I guess that's to be ex...

OK, let's try this again! 1. Where is your favourite place in the world? Tell us why? Other than our farm (even though it's not finished!), I would have to say it was a vacation spot we went to a few years ago; San Miguel de Allende in Mexico. If you've never heard of it, google it.  It's the most amazing place. It's in the mountains, it's an old town with cobblestone streets and hills and awesome old world European style buildings and gorgeous flowers and plants everywhere, beautiful weather and great food.  Oh and the friendliest people we've ever met. 2. What person has inspired you most? I would have to say my Mom.  We lost her a few years ago, and I miss her terribly, but she was one of the kindest, nicest, most generous people you'd ever want to meet.  She welcomed 2nd Man into the family just as if he was her own and never thought twice about it.  She had some major back problems in her life, several surgeries, etc, but...

If you'd like, you can prep it the night before.  Here I prepped it all the night before to make it easy to throw together before leaving for work. 1 lb white beans 1 lb sausage, diced 2 stalks of celery, chopped 5 whole sprigs thyme 2 small white onions, diced 1 glove garlic, minced pinch of red pepper flakes 8 cups chicken broth 2 cups torn/chopped kale 2 TBSP cider vinegar salt/pepper to taste The kale can be torn by hand or chopped into small bits, just be sure and remove any hard stems or woody pieces. Put about 2 cups aside in fridge until slow cooker is done.   Place beans, sausage, thyme, celery, onion, garlic, and seasonings in crock pot. Add the chicken broth and put the lid on.  Set your crock pot for 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high and forget about it.   It should look like this after you take the lid off later when the cooking time is done.   About 30 minutes before you are ready to eat, remove the lid, pour in your k...

Wall Mounted Coat Rack Found this WONDERFUL coat rack last week and got it put up over the weekend.  It mounts on the wall!  Too cool!   It's a metal rack, based on a vintage French design and is distressed to look old.  It's got four levels of hangers.  Coats, hats, umbrellas, and whatever else, right as you walk in the front door.  This seemed like the perfect location for it. Update: I've gotten lots of requests for where I found this.  Hobby Lobby.  On clearance.  Get there fast if you have one near you! Above it, I hung our first real picture on the wall.  This is an old oak frame that my Mom found once upon a time.  In it, is a really cool old print... ...a hen (rooster?) and her babies some ducklings in a pond.  We figured it seemed an appropriate "farm related" picture.  It's funny how when you start hanging stuff on the walls, it starts looking just a little bit more like home.  This entryway/f...

Driveway view In the interest of sharing, and seeing more of the property, here is a view (right after I mowed it all!) that I thought I'd share.  This is looking down our driveway toward the house.  It's from where 2nd Family's house is.  It isn't from the main road though because we share the main driveway that goes from the road to this point (about 3 acres away) with them.  Here you can also see, on the other side of that large post, where our property begins.  So this part of it is our driveway, all the way up to the house. On the left in both of the photos, you can see a fence line that separates it into what we all call the 'back pasture', which belongs to them (2nd Family).  We hope to someday share some livestock with them in that pasture.  Sheep?  Goats?  A couple of milk cows?  Pigs?  Time will tell I suppose. The photo below is about halfway up the driveway so you can see a bit closer view of the house.  We...

Homemade Bread Loaves 2nd Man spent the rainy day baking, and I spent the day running in and out of the kitchen taking pictures for the blog.  I'm sure he thinks I'm crazy.  :-) Here is some of the bread he made.  It was SO good.  We have had it sliced and toasted for breakfast the last couple of mornings, and a few slices with dinner.  It's so nice to wake up to the smell of bread baking in the oven... One of these days, I'll have to get him to give me step by step instructions and let me take photos...if he slows down long enough.

I've always liked this picture.  It's just a simple wooden bench in a garden meadow.  But it represents so much of what I love about the country.  Peaceful.  Relaxing.  Reflection.  Book reading.  Napping.  So much to do on a bench like this.  I think I love the fact that it's just sort of "there", more or less in the middle of nowhere, beckoning you to come and sit for a spell.   Ironically, I have a bench very similar to this, in kit form, in storage.  Found it once upon a time at a garage sale and it has never been opened, I just need to put it together.  Haven't done that yet because I want to find the perfect meadow for it to be in.  As random as this one looks, my guess is that they planned it to be there in that spot.  I can do the same!  Blog day off, see you back here tomorrow!

There was a fundraiser/bake sale at 2nd Man's office, and so we spent the night baking about 4 dozen chocolate chip cookies. Here are two dozen cooling... ...while another two dozen bake in the oven.  It was a regular cookiepalooza at the house, and I only got to eat one of them.   After they were baked and cooled, we packaged them up in cellophane bags, two per bag, and tied them off with some twine.  We let them set the price since it was a fundraiser, and they sold them for $2 per bag. Hmm, maybe we should start selling them?  LOL! OUR CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE RECIPE (makes about 2 dozen): 1 stick (4oz) butter – softened ¾ cup of granulated sugar ¾ cup packed light brown sugar ½ tsp. salt 1 TBSP. vanilla extract 2 large eggs 2¼ cups of all-purpose flour 1 tsp. baking soda 1 12 oz. bag of chocolate chips   Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large bowl, beat the butter, sugars, sal...

Photo courtesy of: Mt Washington Valley New England  Ah, it's here!  It's been a long, hot summer.  Thankfully, we were rainy here enough times that our rainfall is about normal but sadly, many parts of the country are still in a drought.  But now it's only a few hours away  here.  Autumn, or Fall as it's more often called (I still prefer "Autumn"), has arrived and we are happy.  With it comes all the great stuff of the season. The trees above...wow, American seasonal tree change is astounding. If you've never seen it, it truly is a sight to behold.  Aren't the colors of the season pretty?  I just love this color palette.  It's so warm and comforting and inviting.  They certainly can make a place feel like home.  Green, gold, orange, rust, brown...it's the colors of the leaves! Image courtesy of: Southernliving.com And who doesn't love the veggies and fruits that Autumn brings? Squash in ...

Bench with Arbor, Photo courtesy of  Dave's Garden Website For today's inspiration photo, I looked around online for pictures of arbors.  I found a lot, of course, but not the kind that really inspire me.  Either too modern or too big or too 'new'.  Then I found this one.  We LOVE it. We really like the old support posts/columns used for each corner.  I'm sure the top is made from reclaimed wood of some sort as well.  The whole overall look is great, even the bench, the flowers, it all just cries out for us to do the something similar.  It's one of those things that looks like it's been there for years (and who knows it might have been!) I guess I'll be keeping my eye out for old posts/columns, and then I can just put them aside for that weekend when I need to knock out a project.  This is one more thing I can add to our list. Today is my blog day off, have a great day and see you back here tomorrow!

Image Courtesy of US National Archives This is a really different poster.  They were definitely sounding the alarm about the "alarming shortage" that existed.  During World War I, there was a shortage of corn and the quality/quantity was not where it needed to be in order to get a good supply of corn harvested for the country.  They even urged people to report any surplus to the bank and they would arrange the sale of it. I love the line "the quality is poor".  Um, yeah, that's true today for sure if you buy and/or plant the GMO seeds.  But I'm guessing we'd never hear that from the corporate owned media because Monsanto and those companies like them would never allow it.  They'd say "buy GMO, it's all good!" (NOT!). Don't forget to enter  this months book giveaway contest ! Hope you are enjoying your weekend and this second full day of Autumn.

I saw this and started laughing.  I figured I'd share it with you. A little "bee humor" for the beekeeping friends out there. Hope you get a laugh or two out of it as well. Enjoy!

Here is a great DIY I did with my recent thrift store find, turning something meant for one purpose into something for another purpose.  I did it as a surprise for 2nd Man.  It gave me something fun to work on and he gets the end result to use while cooking up something wonderful for dinner or dessert. Wait a second...I guess that would be a win win for me?? Ha! Here is how I did it, hope you enjoy! DIY cookbook holder First I started with this metal easel.  I found it at the thrift store.  It's made for a photograph or small picture frame, stands about 16" tall and is made of a wrought iron type metal.  I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be perfect. Painting the cookbook holder First, I decided on a color, in this case red, since that will be the accent color in the kitchen.  I got out my trusty can of Rustoleum and took it outside to spray paint it.  Rustoleum is always good on metal objects because it goes on so well a...

Can someone tell me what this is called?  Not the clock or vase, LOL. It's a piece of crochet (I think?) that my Grandmother made.  My Mom had it in storage for a long time and we pulled it out recently when we were looking for something to put under the glass on this end table in the guest room.  I'd like to buy/find some more or at least something similar, assuming they aren't outrageously priced of course, to put elsewhere in the room. I just don't know what to call it when I'm looking for it online or even at a thrift store/tag sale.  I'm assuming it has a name of some sort, or a style or description, just don't know what that would be. Thanks!

Almost missed it this month, but here it is, this month's batch of seeds from the  SEEDS OF THE MONTH  club.  Not only do I love it when they arrive in the mailbox (it's like Christmas!), but I love sharing them and getting advice. This month brings the arrival of the following varieties: Pea, "Sugar Snap" Cabbage, "Late Flat Dutch" Broccoli, "Waltham 29" Kale, "Dwarf Siberian" Anyone grown any of these vegetables and/or varieties?  I always like to ask so I can see if there is any advice you all can give on best methods of planting, growing tips, etc.  I'm never sure what is best for Fall planting, or Winter, or wait till Spring, etc. and so I have to divide them up into what I can maybe plant in the Spring or save until later. Thank you, as always!

This is 2nd Family's horse, grazing in the front pasture as we were pulling in. They move her back & forth from the front pasture to the back pasture as the grazing area changes.  We love when she's in the back because we can see her from the front windows and porch, and i t's always nice to see livestock out your window, you know, instead of your neighbor's SUV, ha.

Frostweed on each side of the trail When I've mowed recently, this is the sight that greets me on a certain part of the property.  No worries, I didn't mow over them, this is one of the paths, I've been continually mowing and it seems to have created a border of these flowers.   According to my  Wildflowers book , it is called "Frostweed".  Its other names are Virginia Crownbeard, Ice plant, Tickseed, Tickweed, Squaw-weed, and Indian Tobacco.  Believe it or not, it is actually a member of the Sunflower family. Frostweed in bloom It is a perennial that grows between three and seven feet tall.  As you can see above, there are a variety of sizes in one grouping.  It blooms from August until November, so I'll have them to look forward to until the mowing season is finally over for the year. Field of Frostweed Here is what they look like when viewed as a whole.  Isn't it great?  It's so pretty to see so much white in the Summer...

We've wanted this farm for so long (years and years) and we finally got it, last April, not even a year ago.  So much has happened, and there is still so much to do.  But lately, the harsh realities of time and finances and priorities caused us to pause, take a breath, and step back.  We want the garden of our dreams, but looking at the calendar, I realize I'm rapidly running out of time to create it.  The inside of the house doesn't even have all of its furniture yet.  We don't have mattresses for the beds.  We have two storage units full of stuff from my parents to go through and bring out.  We still need the outside of the house painted and get new exterior doors.  Heck I don't even have the flowerbeds around the outside of the house done.  Then I started worrying about trying to get a large garden put together and planted with only a month or so to go. It just seems there are times in life when plans for what we want to...

Boy, how did the stars align for this? Today is usually when I have an "Inspiration Thursday" post.  This is also my 1000th post. And it just so happens that today, we also turn two! Yep, it is the 2nd anniversary of the  blog.  I believe in the world of blogging this is called a Blogaversary.   Or Blogiversary.  Or Blogoversary.  I'm never sure which one is right but the sentiment is the same. However you spell it, it means the same thing; two years ago today, I turned on my computer, sat down to a blank screen and used my fingers to type into the scary world of blogging.  My goal at the time was to just keep track of buying the house and property and have a record of sorts of the progress we made on it.  I always thought it would be great if people found me and even better if they came back more than once, but of course, I didn't know if it would really happen.  I just enjoyed the process, it allowed me to be creative and it ...