Beauty Farming Life

OK, so this might be an odd inspiration, but it reminds me of my Grandparents.  My Grandmothers (both) had the T-shaped galvanized metal poles for their clothesline.  I remember one of my Grandmothers wondering why they couldn't be painted?  She wanted either a green one or a red one.  Well flash forward to when I saw this and I was reminded of that time long ago. Sure, we don't have a washer at the farm.  But we do have one in town, and we have a car, and we're out there almost every weekend...so why couldn't we take a load of wet clothes to the farm when we head out in the morning, and hang them up to dry? I found the perfect spot at the farm for a pair of poles.  Then I remembered this picture I saved a couple of years ago and so I did some Googling.  While I couldn't find a red one, I did find a green one!  And they are regular galvanized metal poles.  A modern take on the old style poles of my youth. Shhh, don't tell 2nd ...

So the first thing I did was move the hose bib to a new location. It's now along the side of the fence, so that it's in the middle of the garden beds instead of at one end (I think I owe that one to one of you who suggested that in a comment). I utilized this item from Gardener's Supply that is called the  Snip-n-Drip Soaker Hose System .  The basic kit comes with 25 feet of garden hose and 50 feet of the various connectors.  You just measure what you need, snip the hose with scissors and put a connector on one end... ...and then put the other half on the other end and screw them together.  It's really about as easy as you could want.  I had enough connectors and hoses to hook up three 4x4 beds and one 4x8 bed.  Should be enough for this first growing season.  After hooking it all up there was only one thing left to do, turn on the water and see what happens. I turned on the water faucet at the house and then a...

CHILDREN!  CHILDREN! Don't make me come in there! On this particular day, Sydney and Brisbane were apparently having a disagreement.  They spent the entire day sleeping on opposite ends of that window seat.  I guess they were "in a mood".  Silly kitties! Hey, it's Friday!  Yay! More this afternoon!

This is the latest acquisition (delivery delayed due to weather) for the farm! Presto Dehydro Digital Food Dehydrator I received a gift card at work for Christmas and we've been deciding what to get with it.  We didn't want to get just anything, like books or kitchen tools, we can always get those.  Instead, we wanted something that we've never had before and something that could help at the farm.  We started tossing around ideas and came to the conclusion that this would be a great choice.  With fresh produce from the garden this year, hopefully it will be the perfect addition.  We decided on this brand/model.  We like the timer feature and adjustable temp range.  I'm sure there are other fancier ones out there, but we want to start small, learn and work our way up to something bigger and badder, ha. CLICK HERE TO VIEW IT ON AMAZON We are excited to begin the process of learning to dehydrate things and preserving some of what we grow. ...

Sandwich bread ready for slicing 2nd Man made some fresh sandwich bread the other day.  It's his own recipe he just made up and perfected over time.  We love homemade bread, it makes for great sandwiches, or on the side of a main dish, and of course toast.  Best of all, if it doesn't get entirely eaten, bread crumbs for later use! Bread and pasta, my weaknesses, ha. UPDATE:  After many requests, recipe will be coming in an updated post as soon as we type it into something that makes sense.   Sandwich bread sliced and ready for eating

Flower garden, original source unknown This is so crazy pretty it doesn't even look real.  I could only dream hope that we could have something like this someday at the farm.  Of course, realistically speaking, I have to look at it and think that it's a lot of constant work and probably a lot of water and maintenance.  We might have to be more conscious of native plants and drought tolerant color in our neck of the woods. But hey, we can dream, right?  I think the contrast of the green grass and the island of bright color is just so pretty.  Plus we need some color in this long, cold Winter, don't we?  We're back down in the 30's at night now.  But never fear, I'm sure it will be 75 next week, ha.  Hope you are having a good week! Be inspired!

For those new to the blog, Seda Bolsa is our farm name. For the first time in several weekends (three? four?) today is beautiful and clear and relatively cool.  Woo hoo!  So as this posts automatically, we're at the farm, 2nd Man cleaning and me doing the outside stuff.  There is a 50% chance of rain on Sunday.  Of course that means there is also a 50% chance that it won't, but still, I need to do as much as I can, 'just in case' I can't be outside on Sunday. Farm sky and happy sigh My list grows ever longer but I've pared it down to the essentials for today: First on the list, a little Zen Machine time (riding mower) Then mow (push mower) inside the garden and edge around the raised beds. Next I want to clean out the beds of dead plants and weeds that took over. Then, taking seed garlic and shallots and want to get them planted in a bed. Lastly, I'm planning on getting some holes dug for some of the plants so that  the ne...

Brisbane, the sleeping kitty OH, to have such a life of luxury as a cat.  Your own bed, covered up with a blanket of course when it's cold, allowed to just sleep and dream all day long while your human companions go to work to be able to afford to keep you in the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed...LOL! It's Friday, the weekend is almost here, more later this afternoon!

Vintage poster, WWII Win With Tin, image courtesy of NY public library This one is really neat.  As usual, this is part of the WWII recycling conservation effort.  I like the posters like this that, instead of just having only the message, in this case "Win With Tin", also gave you instructions on how to do it. Clean the can under water and remove the label.  Put it on the floor and stomp on it, ha, slip the cut off ends inside and give to a collector. I bet today, even with instructions, not many would do it.  Kind of sad in a way. We've almost always recycled, but I know many don't. Hope you are having a good weekend!

As some of you may know, and many of you may not, the gardening blogging world was shocked recently by the news that one of our favorites is battling a sudden occurrence of cancer (I refuse to capitalize that word) For those of you who don’t know this remarkable lady, please click to visit her blog, Annie’s Kitchen Garden .   "I'm a wife, mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. My interests include gardening, music, computers, recipes, my grandchildren and my two dogs, Annie and Otto. And, of course, Mr. Granny!" Those are her own words as she describes herself.  But she is so much more as well.  2nd Man and I personally owe her a debt of gratitude for exposing our blog to more readers.   Back when I was a young, fledgling blogger (OK so not THAT much younger, but I digress), Granny, as we all affectionately call her, stumbled across our blog and wrote a post about it.   She went back and read it from the beginning (I’m sorry to put you th...

Partly cloudy So...Saturday we get to the farm early, beautiful day, blue skies, a bit cloudy but a nice breeze blowing.  Yesterday I posted my list of tasks that I hoped to get done this weekend.  Sunday was a toss up, according to the weather forecast, so I planned to do as much as I could. I got quality time on the zen machine, which was nice.  The breeze was so cool it felt nice just riding around lost in thought...just mowing... ...and mowing (the driveway is my favorite thing to mow)... ...and mowing. Also edged and cleaned out the raised beds and mowed the inside of fenced in garden area with 2nd Family's push mower.  2nd Man cleaned inside the house while I did stuff outside.  Side note, it's amazing how many bugs find their way to the window sills during the week and die looking for a way out.  Where are they the rest of time?  I never see them flying around, but give it two weeks or ...

Grow More Sugar Beets, vintage poster image courtesy of USDA Archives I've posted images of two other posters similar to this, HERE and HERE , about this mysterious (though not so mysterious now after all your comments) sugar filled veggie.  Now this poster isn't as 'dramatic' as they other two, but it's still pretty neat looking. It dates from WWII and was from the US Department of Agriculture, urging people to grow these to help with the food effort during the war.  Apparently, they were in such high demand, this one reminded farmers that they could help them increase their income.  Nothing wrong with that! Hope you are having a good weekend.  Ours has been a washout.  Rain all day yesterday, and now all day today, so far anyway.  Went to the farm and got some inside cleaning done so that's always good.

Blue farm sky Saturday was such a great day, cool, no humidity, a breeze blowing and hardly a cloud in the sky.  Just big, beautiful blue Texas sky. Breeze blowing So of course, we opened the windows in the house and let the breeze blow through.  When you open them on opposite sides of the house, it gets such a great cross breeze.  The house has pretty much been sealed up all Summer because it was just so hot outside, we kept the windows closed.  So it's always nice this time of year to open things up and let it air out. Windows open You could hear birds chirping, the new wind chime I hung on the porch and the sound of the breeze coming through the screens...and a nap may have occurred here, I'm just sayin'.  Here's a funny story.  When we would go visit my Grandparents, I would always take a nap right after we got there (even though I'm sure, were he here, my Dad would say that I was asleep the entire drive up there,...

On this weekend's cold and rainy day at the farm, there wasn't much I could do outside, so we decided to tackle this mess.  Here it is for the world to see, our secret shame, LOL. This disastrous corner is in the mudroom!  It's my  gardening , tool , chemical , paint , outside stuff , OK, junk pile, corner of the world. Well, here it is after cleaning it up.  We just had to get it organized and find homes for stuff that could go elsewhere.  Most all of it will eventually go into the barn we hope to get built later this year.  Since this IS right by the back door, it probably will still be a place to keep the stuff we need to be handy, but things like paint, gardening stuff, etc can go outside in the barn.  Until then, it's neat and organized and not a thing we need want to keep hidden from view. Zombie sign in mudroom Oh, and better late than never, I finally got the zombie sign up in its ne...

A break today from goings on at the farm.  This is Sydney.  One of the stars of the Funny Feline Friday posts and certainly the star of our household. Sydney Ray, our 18 year old cat Today, he is 18 years old.  Yep. Born just before Halloween way back in October of 1995. Hard to believe! He still gets around pretty well, though his joints are a bit stiff when he walks (we do give him Cosequin which we've found helps him tremendously).  More recently, he has lost the vision in one eye due to cataracts.  Unfortunately he's too old for risky surgery, so we just have to help him along when needed. He is still a very happy kitty, he eats well, he sleeps in all his favorite spots, and he even plays a little bit every once in awhile.  He has a great quality of life and we're happy to have him sharing our life with us. Happy 18th to the best cat in the world!

So, a few weeks ago, I needed to get a few seedlings started.  I didn't have one of those grow boxes/mini greenhouse things so I decided to make my own.  I had this "Rubbermaid" storage container... First thing I did was make sure my seed starting trays fit in the bottom.  They did, two of these eight-cell ones fit nicely and that was all I needed. The next thing I did was drill some large holes in the top that would allow air in and moisture out. I just randomly drilled until it looked like enough, no science behind it. Then I planted my seeds in some seed starting soil medium and put them in the bottom of the box. I watered them well, and put about a quarter inch of water in the bottom so that the trays would soak it up as well.  After it was sufficiently wet, i just popped the lid on (which actually locks into place) and I put it under a desk lamp that has a 'natural light' light bulb in it. I u...

It's time to play another farm edition of what lies beneath! So I get out to the shed where zen machine is kept.  I saw this! A huge hole, dug under the mower, precariously close to the rear tire.  Whatever it was even shredded up the bag I had with some garden tools in it. So the next thing I had to do was remove the cover. I'll be honest, I didn't really want to stick my hand underneath this and pull it off, but I had to.  First, I pulled it off the rear tires and jumped back to see what might run out. Nope, not an armadillo.  Thank goodness.  I know I grew up in Texas and they are everywhere, but they creep me out.  Next, I pulled the cover over the seat and steering wheel and jumped back... Nope, it wasn't a skunk, tail up and ready to spray.  I swear I smelled a faint skunk odor in the wind though, perhaps my mind playing tricks on me.  Finally I pulled the rest of the cover off the...

A few days back, I blogged HERE  about our new dehydrator purchase.  We couldn't wait to use it!  We tried tomatoes for our first attempt.   Here is how they looked when I sliced them and put them in.  I think next time they should be sliced a bit thinner. And here they are after about 12 hours at 125 degrees.  It's amazing how much they change during their time in the dehydrator.  We did four trays of tomatoes (the machine comes with six, next time we'll max it out).  We periodically rotated the trays so that they dried more evenly. We put them in jars, just sort of layered them in, they even sort of stacked up nicely and in an orderly fashion. Dehydrated tomatoes in jar They filled 3 jars nicely and then I vacuum sealed the jars with the Foodsaver. Dehydrated tomatoes They are so pretty aren't they? I think for our first attempt, it went very well. Dehydrated tomato pasta Then Sund...