January 26, 2010 by Debbie.

This sunset was so beautiful I had to run out and snap a picture of it.  And as always, the picture doesn’t do it credit. Spring lettuce, arugula and a stray garlic are growing well in this cold frame. When the temps get too low I add the old sheet seen at the bottom edges.

I held up the big cold frame while John crawled in and planted the onion sets between the cole crop rows. No picture of that adventure.

Rudy-Tuddy, Too and his harem are enjoying the above average warm weather we had last week.

The lettuce bags are sprouting! I’m not sure how the soil cracking is going to work out but at least the sprouted seeds are not falling down in the crevices …. yet!

Since the lettuce bags seem to be working out, I planted the two potato grow bags as well. The grow bags are called Smart Pots. I made a bed of chicken made compost then some potting soil, adding small seed potatoes in the soft soil bed. I covered the seed potatoes with more potting soil, only filling the grow bags up about 1/2 of the way. As the potatoes grow I’ll add more soil, hilling up the potato plants.

Here’s the pictures of the Topsy Turvey tomato plant. After setting the tomato seedling in the bottom of the planter, John filled the planter 1/3 of the way full with an extra light potting soil.

Next a foam disc is added and soil added to the top of the planter.

Last, the planter is hung on the hook John set in a stud the night before.

Ta-da, a Topsy Turvey Tomato that pees all over the floor when I water it!

This weekend, or next at the latest, I need to put in the English peas, Swiss Chard, Spinache, more Kale (I have about 6 seedlings the guinea didn’t eat), more onions and another bed of lettuce.  I’m finally getting excited about gardening again!

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January 18, 2010 by Debbie.

One of my favorite things about Texas is the unexpected warm spells that break up the cold spells. Actually, the cold spells are the most uncommon but this year it feels like we’ve had more cool/cold and rainy weather than usual. I could go back to my years of gardening calendars where I’ve written the daily weather down but it’s not worth that effort. I noticed the rainy days this fall and thought to myself how like Ohio weather it was. (OK, I LIKE overcast rainy days sometimes! It’s not always a negative.) I’ve come to conclusion that’s why things have not grown the way they normally have in the past. The same cold frame, sitting in the same place (with enriched soil) and planted with the same variety and brand of seed did not produce any where near the same amount of lettuce and greens as prior years. The seedlings I set out at the same time as last year (again, same situation and seeds) are growing so slowly I’ve wondered if  they’re growing at all. I find this comforting as we sure didn’t go all out planting this year - at least we didn’t waste the effort and time.

Today is suppose to almost hit 70 but it will have to turn up the toaster to make it today. The cloud cover and winds blowing over wet, cold ground have kept my laundry wet for hours on the line. It’s 3:30 and the sun is just now peeking out. Still, it’s not hard to pretend spring is just around the corner! A huge flock of  robins visited our side yard last week and John and I thought the same thing, “Wow, that’s early” before we realized we were thinking Ohioan again. Robins equal spring time up there! I guess they were just passing through down here and enjoyed the corn the guinea missed.

All the animal and fowl have spring on their minds, too.  I see guinea pairs running through the yard, the male chasing the female who is running as fast as she can, either teasing or seriously running away, I’m not sure.  I had to move Chase (herd sire) from the does’ fence as he WILL push it down to ‘visit’ with them. Even the two baby bucklings are feeling their oats and driving the 4 doelings crazy. As I milk I hear the doelings holler and jump up on the play toys to get away from the bucklings nibbles. They can be together for another month and then it’s separation time - just in case. I remembered to get a picture of Mercy’s udder before I milked her today. She gave 1# 14 1/4 oz. this morning. I forgot the picture with SugaBaby but she gave 2# 1/8 oz.

The babies are weaned now that they’re 2 months old - it gets crowded gathering around the feed bowl .

As I mentioned in my last post, it was only the mercy of God that our cold frame veggies survived. You would laugh if you could see how we covered it - that’s why I cropped the pictures! Recognize the chicken tractor here???

Inside more seedlings await outside planting. The two tomatoes are a Siberian variety as I planned on putting them in the covered grow house …. improvision is the art of homesteading. One of the tomatoes will go in the Tops Turvey planter FaithFull Friend gave me.

I told my FaithFul Friend I’m starting to do some ‘wild’ things. I bought some grow bags from Gardener’s Supply - that’s wild for me.  Today I planted them with arugula, Black seeded Simpson Lettuce and a lettuce mix. I put them on an old retired dolly that I’d converted to a plant mover. I’m going to pull it in and out of the garage/house as needed during cold spells so I don’t have to mess with opening or closing an other cold frame. Behind the grow bags you can see the seedling tray where I started some spring/summer Brandywine tomatoes and cabbages. I also bought two potato grow bags but I’m waiting on seed potatoes to plant those.

Here’s the finished ‘cat protected’ grow bags.

Another glimpse of my wild side - I’m going to plant that Siberian tomato in the Topsy Turvey planter and hang it in the living room. John’s going to set the hook for it tonight. Maybe I’ll get pictures as we plant the seedling and post those later.

You may ask why are these such ‘wild’ things for me? Cause they’re very out of the ordinary - out of my normal living box - for me. I don’t usually buy things to plant in when I could plant in the ground here. I mean, 55 acres and using a grow bag instead of planting in the ground??? I also bought the soil to go in the planters - ouch! That was wild for me. I did use our own chicken made compost for the bottom of the grow bags but the Topsy Turvey planter needed super light soil so I splurged and bought it. It wasn’t even on sale. But I did get free shipping for it.

I guess you could say the warm spell just went to my head.

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January 14, 2010 by Debbie.

This was typed out Monday 1/11 - It was a balmy 49 degrees here today. Tonight should be close to freezing but not down to 7.3 that we had yesterday morning.

Today was what I’d call a ‘pick up day.’ No, no one came to the door and tried to … oh, well, never mind on that. It was a day to pick up everything that was disrupted by the cold snap. I was so glad to push the couch, chair and table back into place. We had pulled them up close to the wood stove over the weekend. Our living room is quite large so being up close to the wood stove kept us much warmer. I’m wondering why most Americans keep ‘moving up’ to bigger and bigger homes so they can work more to pay more utility bills. I’m embarrassed to  post this picture as you see all our ‘living’ clutter - quilts, books and sewing things laying out within easy reach.  We even brought the dogs’ food bowls out for them to eat while laying on their Christmas beds. I did hold my sanity with the blind and curtain darkened room, but barely.

The north windows don’t have blinds as I usually only use blinds to keep the sun out in the summer time. Strong, constant North winds convinced me it was worthwhile to cover these windows, even temporarily with quilts and an insulated batting.

The sunlight coming through the windows made the quilts look like stain glassed windows in the afternoon! I’m so glad for this special effect encouraging me to keep the window coverings in place. I liked it so much I’m investigating making either fitted window quilts or Roman shades. Instructions for making Roman shades can be found at joann.com. The insulated batting (on the door above) really worked well. It’s actually batting to use in ironing board covers. 

All the quilts had to come off the windows and then folded up and put away.  All the extra waters - both in pitchers on the counter for drinking/cooking and buckets for flushing and dogs’ waters - had to be used up and containers stored away til next time.

Same in the barn, plastic walls had to be pulled aside to let the babies out to romp in the sunlight. The two bucklings continued to knock the lights loose so everyone lost the lights now that the weather is warmer.  The cold frame covers came off for the day as soon as the sun was strong enough. We only lost one bed, which I was lazy about covering. There’s a couple of questionable seedlings in the big cold frame - not sure if they will come back or not but a good chance of it.  Laundry had to be done but the drain hose had to be thawed out first - I spent the first washer load hanging over the washer back watching the water to make sure it freely flowed out. After several false starts and quick stops I got the hose thawed out. It goes out to a gray water hose that sits on top the ground, not buried  like the ones going to the septic tank so laundry in the winter time truly depends on the weather.

It took all day to get life back to normal and I’m glad it’s done.

BTW, I finally put up my design wall in the sewing room.  Here’s the Monterrey Star Medallion quilt I’m working on. The benefit of the design wall is evident in this quilt - the blue points on the  center star are too dark for the rest of the quilt so I’ll have to tear those out and replace the points with a better matching blue. Fortunately, most of the blocks are not sewn together up here on the wall - just sticking on the flannel background.

Now that life is calm again, maybe I can get a little more quilting done …. but while baking John’s lunch cookies I noticed how dirty the kitchen cabinets are so maybe not. Spring cleaning is just around the corner.

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January 8, 2010 by Debbie.

My house is all closed up to keep the cold and winds out and the heat in. I have quilts on the north windows, hanging over the curtain rods, and when the sunlight shines through them they look like stained glass windows. From that I decided I’m going to make window quilts for those windows to use in the wintertime. I have all the blinds in all the other rooms down and shut and the curtains drawn over them. It’s warm in here with just the wood stove, but it feels like a cave. Thank goodness the sun is shining or it would look like a cave and I’d really be going nuts. I’ll post pictures of the window quilts later.

I don’t do well being cooped up; I even feel uncomfortable in an elevator. But the 72 hours of predicted below freezing weather makes me resort to drastic measures like these. And to staple plastic over all the openings in the barn and completely envelop the goat babies’ stall so they won’t freeze. There’s still good ventilation for all the animals, just no straight line winds from the North like outside the barn walls.  It makes for an adventure getting into and out of the babies’ stall. I have to tunnel in between two sheets of plastic til I reach the gate, then scoot in before the babies escape. I do that every couple of of hours so I can make sure they’re warm enough and break the ice on their water bucket if necessary, and to check on the lights because the two bucklings have decided it’s neat to lick the lights. Twice I’ve found the group of babies huddled together under the play slide trying to hold in body heat because the boys had knocked the lights out again.  So I trek in and out of the house to the barn. I do feel like a pioneer.  Tired.

Today was busy making cheese so I could use the warm whey to give the chickens a warm meal. I wanted to save some whey to homemake some bread to go with the pot of chili in the crock pot but I didn’t want to add another draw on the electric. We only use the furnace as a back up. Since it’s set on 61, it only comes on when the wood stove dies down overnight. I’m very grateful for my husband’s wisdom in insisting buying more wood this past weekend when all I wanted to do was go home and take a nap. Last night we slept in the living room with the couch and recliner pulled up close to the wood stove so we’d be warmer and so we could more easily feed the fire. During this cold spell I’m not as much worried about our electric cost as everyone using so much electric the company may burp it’s output and we’d all be hurting then. So I skip the homemade bread but my taste buds still crave it - served warm and slathered in butter and dipped in the hot chili, it would be a real treat.

A friend brightened my day today and brought by Christmas/New Year’s  gifts so I’m gratefully munching on homegrown, native pecans as I type and feeling so blessed. The friend’s little 1+ year old boy came with her and he is so delightful - light red hair and pure country. First thing he does is sit on the floor and pulls off his cowboy boots and socks!! See, he can’t stand to be cooped up either. Before he left I snuck a hug - a warm gift on such a cold day.

My friend apologized for getting the Christmas/New Year’s gifts to me late but to be honest, I’d forgotten Christmas had just passed. Time has such a light effect on my life (’til I look in the mirror) that I forget what ’season’ it is based in normal society. My mind knows the seasons I live with - winter gardening, spring planting, fall rest, etc. and my year is almost switched mentally to the school year so that New Year’s isn’t really the beginning of a new year. After 10+ years of not wearing a watch exact time isn’t really a big part of my life unless I’m going away from  the homestead for subbing or an appointment or church - where our pastor can tell the time based on us - 10 minutes late. I just recently started wearing a watch to school and John laughs at me because the watch doesn’t keep time. I have to keep adjusting it throughout the day. He asked me why I don’t just buy a new watch but it’s hard to explain that I don’t want to be that tied to time. I can and do verify the time by the classroom clock so I  have a backup plan but I used to live my life by such time restrictions that I even slept with a watch on. All my watches had to have glow in the dark hands and faces so I could see the time at any given moment I woke up. When watches with timers came along I thought they were fantastic - I could not only keep track of every minute, but time life as well.

No, I don’t want a new watch. I like my life the way it is now.  I usually wake up between 4:30 and 5:30 even without an alarm . About 10:30-11:00 my stomach tells me it’s lunch time. About 11:30-12:00 my mind tells me it’s reading and nap time. About 2-3:00 my mind and body wakes back up and it’s time to fix supper. John comes home about 6:00 and we eat. When we’re tired we go to bed.

Maybe the reason I don’t like being cooped up is it’s hard to connect with nature - sun rise, sun set, the daily ’seasons’.  Like the chickens, I like seeing the sun set and darkness easily fall to know it’s time to roost and rest my body for another day. These window quilts aren’t going to be up long!

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