Happy Spring!

 Taking it easy is hard when you are used to being busy!  I did some laundry and we ran some errands in town, we recycled and then dropped off old medications at the Sheriff's Office...they dispose of old medications properly.   Someone once told me it is more fun for them to identify medications so I tore all the labels off. 

I ordered some seeds in December we will grow two kinds of tomatoes, carrots and several varieties of lettuce.  The containers I used for lettuce worked just great last year and kept us in lettuce greens all Summer into the Fall.   We purchased a Sheep Tank ( a short water tank) it is galvanized  and will be placed on some landscape timbers out by the Sauna...Far Guy will come up with some kind of fence for it so the Deer can't help themselves to tomatoes and carrots. 

Our weather is so Spring like...we have to contain our excitement a bit because we do live in Minnesota and we could still get Winter in our Spring.  One of my old friends planted her tomatoes and pumpkins already...I can only imagine those vines and limp tomatoes:)  We cannot safely plant gardens here until June 1st.  Before that you may have to replant...or be dedicated to covering stuff up.  Luckily we have the old greenhouse /woodshop to use for a bit of early planting...like May 1st.

I worked on my Mosaic Crochet project and watched Anne with an E and then had a nap.

I feel much better, still tired and my tummy is a bit "off" ...I wouldn't call it nausea.   The headache is mostly gone...and my arm is still a bit sore.  I feel like my body is trying to fight something...guess it must be making antibodies to beat the band!

My Mom's Lilies and in the background Hollyhocks last Summer.

Happy Spring!

Far Side

Sunday happemings

 We listened to church...they are still having some problems with the sound system.  Apparently someone watches for comments on facebook when the live feed is happening...and they got it straightened out.  Truth be told the songs/music was much better imagined! 

I did some housework and then joined Far Guy outside...he was woodcarving and I carded some dog fur.  It was very windy all day.  

I finished up some small gnome hats for a project that Jen has going. 

Lots of ends to weave in after we are sure they will work...some may be too tall and need to be shorter and that can be accomplished much easier if the ends are not sewn in! 

My brothers and one bride visited in the late afternoon. 

Far Guys relatives Wayne and Craig visited on Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening Odda came to visit cause she was missing us and knows the way to our house...so I talked with Jo through the window.  

Always good to see someone else besides each other...although we are quite accustomed to a hermit lifestyle. 

The Yellow Pear tomatoes are ready...we enjoyed a few with supper. They are packed with flavor!   Pork Burgers and the last of the yellow carrots was also on the menu. 

Far Side

Special Delivery

One of our neighbors brought us a box of produce!

The tomatoes are the best ever!  We had the sweet corn and one of those huge tomatoes for supper last night.  The tomato was so meaty you had to cut it with a knife into bite size chunks….talk about flavor! 

Curt has been growing produce especially tomatoes since he was a boy in Arkansas, he started growing tomatoes to sell to help out his family.  He never tired of growing them and now at 80 something he still grows and sells them.  He puts a sign out by his driveway and is known locally as The Tomato Man.

Curt knocked on the door yesterday and said here try these!  Far Guy took him a whole bunch of “flats” the flat boxes to put produce in earlier this summer.  Occasionally he has computer troubles and we try to help him out. He is all alone, his wife died several years ago.

He explained why tomatoes sometimes crack.  We always thought it was uneven watering.  Curt says “Night time temperatures that are cool makes the skin of the tomato tough and inside the tomato is still growing and finally cracks the skin.”

Curt grows mostly old fashioned tomatoes …ones he had good luck with over the years, if he can find the seed.  We used to plant all of his seeds for him, he would come visit the seedlings in the vegetable greenhouse and about Memorial Day he would bring over his van and fill it with seedlings.  Far Guy used to breathe a sigh of relief when those plants were gone.

This year we had two tomato plants out in the raspberry patch…they both died.  We are not the gardeners that we used to be.

Wistful Wednesday: Sixty Years Later

This is a photo taken at my Maternal Grandparents farm.  This photo was taken about sixty years ago in 1949 or 1950.  Left to right are: A neighbor lady and her child, my Aunt Marion, Uncle Al with his hand on his chin, Aunt Toots, unknown little girl, and standing in the background one of my other uncles..Delbert, Dennis or Butch..he is too far away to identify. 

I always thought my Grandparents driveway made a circle behind the house..in this photo it is quite obviously that at one time the driveway was in front of the house and you entered directly into what I would call the dining room.  Later a porch must have been added to the front..that is where they kept the two deep freezers full of wonderful food, and the Christmas tree at Christmas time..and a rocking chair with a magazine rack.  A Cuckoo Clock from Germany hung high on the wall..the little dancers would pop out of their doors on the hour and on the half hour.  A row of windows lined the porch.  There was a funny little window high on the wall in the kitchen that looked into this porch..I am not sure what the function of that window was..a pass through..or maybe my Grandmother wanted a pretty stained glass window there to look at while she sat at the kitchen table.  She sat some of her favorite knick knacks on the ledge of that window.

My Grandfather had a garden back to the east of the old chicken coop where the soil was rich and black..he grew everything there.  If you could grow it, he did, and my Grandmother canned and froze all the produce.

The other day we drove by.  Grandpas Alfalfa field is now a garden.

The new occupants are Amish and they have a produce stand and bakery, but it is not open on Sunday.  We will try to go back another day.  My Grandpa would have been happy to see that someone is gardening properly again.

 The only things that are the same is the old garage which is not visible in these photos..the machine shed on the right and the Oak trees out front.  Everything else has changed:)