Gardening and Such

Everything is growing and growing!  We are getting a nice rain right now to cool things down after a week of blazing hot temperatures.

The flower beds keep surprising me with flowers that I haven't seen for a long time.

The garden is getting greener (and not from weeds this year!!)

Tomatoes, Peppers, Pumpkins, Chard, Cabbage,
and the Blueberries...

...Everything else

I've been harvesting plenty of stuff:

Blueberries and Rhubarb

Blueberries and Sugar Snap Peas

Two Varieties of Cukes

The Blueberries are finished for the year.  Usually I have more than I can use and I beg friends to come and pick.  This year I only got about 4 gallons, which sounds like a lot, but I also have been using a lot:

Blueberry Basil Lemonade

Blueberry Cheesecake

Luckily we finished the new pool last week in time to cool off on those sweltering days.  It is much smaller and has significantly easier upkeep.

And finally, we acquired some new mousers for Poplar Ridge, meet Zelda and Fitz:

They have been a lot of fun!

Keep cool and Happy 250th Americans!

Kitty Komfort

Cats seem to be bred for being 2 things:  1) Creatures of Comfort - they seem to gravitate to the best chairs, lovely shady spots, and other comfy areas, where they spend infinite hours dozing, and 2) Cold Blooded Killers - if you've ever watched cats stake out a bird feeder, or be the recipients of their "gifts" of dead rodents on your doorstep, you'll know what I mean.

In the past couple of days, I've noticed our two kitties in some unusual spots - not unusual for cats, but simply that I haven't seen them there before.  They used to doze all summer long in the shade of my flower garden, but they also used to use my mulch in there for a litter box...ew.  Now that they have been banished from the flower bed through the use of much chicken wire, they need to find new resting spots, I suppose.

During the winter, they soak up the heat in first the Kitty Kastle, and now the Kitty Kooler.  They are almost always close to the house during the day, but during the long summer days, they can be hard to find.  This has made me a bit frustrated lately, as I have been trying to take Lizzie to the vaccination clinic at Tractor Supply for a rabies shot for 2 months.  She is never around on Saturdays between 1 and 2:30.  That may be why I was surprised to see her in the garden with me this morning!

Soaking up the sun on the picnic table on our veranda
 - notice that they are both snuggled up to the
pillow and hammock!

Lizzie was sleeping in the carrots but came
out as soon as she saw me with the camera!

She was sleeping amongst the tomatoes as well.

 

Last night I caught Ernie curled up in the hay mow in the barn!

Things You Don't See Every Day Take 3

Partridges in Pennsylvania?
Wikipedia says they are indigenous to Europe, Asia, Africa & the Middle East!

Skeletons in the back seat.



Redneck Leaf Rides



Kitties in a Kooler

So, just a jumble of thoughts today:

I saw a partridge cross the road on my way to PT on Friday morning...had to Google "game birds" to figure out what it was!

We had a pleasant weekend.  L and I checked out the annual craft fair at the Elementary School.  We also dropped off my mini skeleton, Freddy Jones-Bones, at Mrs. M's house.  Being the illustrious Kindergarten teacher that she is, she is doing human science this week using props!

JP mowed for what he HOPES is the last time this year, and blew all the leaves on to several piles in the process.  We gathered these up for the garden, and all of us took rides in the bucket of the tractor!

We decided to tear down the incredibly messy Kitty Kastle made of straw bales this Fall.  JP made the kitties a new warm spot in a cooler.  There is a swinging cat door at the end to the left, and the "picture window" has 2 layers of plexiglass for when it's really cold.  There's also an electric warming pad inside.  They seem to like it!

We have a 4 day school week next week for Veteran's Day...hooray!

Morning Has Broken

I went out at Dawn to hunt on Saturday morning...the first time I've ever done that. I sat with my Dad up in the cupola above his house, watching for deer as the sun rose. It was beautiful to watch!

I had a completely open view of the entire Southern sky, which slowly became swathed in peach, rose and plum. The black sillouttes of the skeletal trees against the bright sky was unbelievably beautiful, especially with the foreground of white frosted meadow.

Once the sun was almost up, the birds began to arrive. Chickadees, Tufted Titmice (Titmouses?), tiny Finches, and Red Bellied Woodpeckers flew to and from the bird feeders and suet to the trees. A flock of crested Blue Jays arrived, chatted awhile, then moved on. It always amuses me to see the little Nuthatches scamper up and down the tree trunks head first!

Later on, we saw a flock of 25 or 26 turkeys meander out of the woods behind our barn, make their way, scratching and pecking, below the orchard, and disappear into the woods behind the compost bin.

I sat for almost 3 hours, scanning the tree line with binoculars periodically, and saw not a single deer. Dad saw the tail end of one through the trees, but we could not identify gender or size, and didn't want to shoot that end anyway, so it made it's way further into the brambles and out of our sight.

It wasn't a completely wasted morning, though. I was able to spend the time with my Dad, and see the beauty of the sun warming up the day, which is not something that I usually get to do. I hope to go out again this week in the evening, to look again for deer.

The rest of the day, we spent building this winter Kitty Kastle for Bert and Ernie on the back porch. Last year they had a temporary sort of shanty made of packing pallets and plywood...resembles some of the housing further down our road!



I also took down a section of the deer fence around the garden and wrangled the chicken coop inside. Now the hens are free to come and go out of their coop for the winter, and I'm hoping that their scratching will help till the beds and fertilize them a bit...get them ready for Spring planting!

Today we refilled the wood stashes near the house, and grilled burgers and dogs for dinner while it was still warm enough to do so. Grilling in December...who would have guessed?

The girls decided that they didn't want to go to the Christmas Parade this year. It made me a teeny bit sad, since it's the first year since we've been here that we didn't go. The sorrow was short lived, but flashed on and off several times this weekend.

The girls have been begging to put the Christmas tree up. I am not ready to give up that space yet! I did break down and put up their tiny tree downstairs, and got out my snowmen, with which I decorate the bookshelves every year.

As we move so swiftly into the Christmas season this year, I am desperately trying to not be so overwhelmingly busy that I can not enjoy it.

Inspired by Nat King Cole

Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer



Days of soda and pretzels and beer.



Roll out those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer



You'll wish that summer could always be here!

Sing it Nat!

Bert is my Hero!

Bert the Barn Cat caught his first vole this afternoon. While it is not exactly a mouse, the voles have terrorized my baby trees, so it is a legitimate and worthy kill. Any fewer rodents around Poplar Ridge is an improvement, in my opinion, so Bert Buddy, hunt on!

Labor Day Weekend

We passed a quiet extended weekend on Poplar Ridge. It was a peaceful one...the first time in several years that we haven't had plans.

We did get a lot done here, along with relaxing. After extensive internet research, I decided to pickle my hot peppers and keep them in the refrigerator where I can continue to add to the jars as the peppers ripen. I have been stringing these some little red ones and hanging them to dry, and I have also popped quite a few jalapenos into the freezer whole. These are (from left to right) pepperoncinis, long red slims, jalapenos, and serranos.



I also managed to pick and freeze another 5 dozen ears of corn.

JP and I finally installed my "Amish clothes line" up. This is a line on pulleys that allows me to stand in one place to put the clothes on and take them off...very nice. JP had me in the bucket of the tractor, 20 feet in the air installing one of the pulleys in a big hickory tree. Being quite fearful of heights, this was not a pleasant activity for me, especially since I also sawed off 2 dead or broken limbs while I was up there.



We began watching the Anne of Green Gables movies with the girls yesterday. It is such fun to share one of our all time favorite movies with the girls and have them fall in love with it too! We played soccer: Daddy and J against Mommy and L. We lounged in the hammock and in the lounge chairs on the porch, watching a tree full of Cedar Waxwings.



We played with the dog and the kitties (finally named Bert - on the left, and Ernie - on the right).



So we passed the holiday weekend, quite pleasantly. All that calmness ended quite abruptly today with the resuming of cyber school, violin & soccer practice, and a Pre-School field trip to one of our favorite parks. This afternoon, our builder returned with a jack-hammer to replace our front stoop that settled over an inch. This is what our front entrance looks like now.



How was your Labor Day weekend?

Feelin' Groovy

Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning (summer?) last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and Feelin' Groovy.
-Simon & Garfunkel

Our much anticipated summer vacation week blew by in a flash, but we enjoyed every minute of it. Now I am trying to get my head around the fact that summer is coming to an end. Next week the girls start soccer practice, and it is probably just another week or two after that until school starts again. This year L will be attending Pre-School for 3 days a week, and J will continue Cyber-School in grade 2. I'm ok with it though. I gave myself the opportunity to play this summer, and although it was mixed with periods of hard work in the gardens and yard, we packed a LOT of fun stuff in.

JP and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. We spent Monday afternoon - Tuesday afternoon away from the girls. We ate Indian food, stayed at a Hotel out of town, watched a movie, and had time to converse...just the 2 of us.

Unfortunately, we returned home to find my Mom unwell. She got worse over the next 2 days and finally ended up hospitalized for Pneumonia on Thursday. She is consistently improving, but still not home. The girls have had a crash course in Hospital Etiquette, and although their behavior there is not stellar, they do pretty well. My Dad can remember the days when children were not permitted as visitors in Hospitals, recalling a day when his mother spent over an hour visiting a relative in the Hospital and left him alone in the car in the parking lot.

Missy L won a coloring contest sponsored by a local community newspaper, and was awarded 4 tickets to the county fair AND some money for food and games. We went out in the heavy heat Wednesday evening to take it all in. We ate food-on-a-stick, rode crazy carnival rides, and looked at the 4-H animals until dark.

The following morning we got up early and headed for our favorite amusement park, Idlewild. J earned a free ticket there from the bank by making deposits twice a month to her account throughout the school year. It was overcast and not crowded, so we enjoyed a fun day there and were on our way to the van to leave when it began to rain.



The past couple of days have been lazy...just doing a little around the house and visiting Mom in the hospital every day. Today we got 2 kittens from a friend so that we will have barn cats to keep the rodent population down.



As you can see, the black one is a bit more skittish than the white one. We are waiting a bit to name them until we are sure they are going to stick around, but we are tossing around some names: Bert and Ernie, Flotsam and Jetsam, Tom & Jerry. I don't know...any ideas?