What a month!

First we get a new puppy, who’s taken a fair amount of our time, then it was time to plant our garden. After that… time to sit and reflect on just how much more we’ve done this year than last.

Now it’s down to weeding, watering and defending against the unseen pest who insist on using our garden for their nightly banquets. From chislers (a cross between a prairie dog and a gopher) to some kind of ground-dwelling bug, to mice and rabbits… it’s a never ending battle.

Puppy progress… She’s nearly house-broken. I say nearly because we still must be very vigilant to keep her from making puddles in the house if we don’t get a door open fast enough. She’s doing exceptionally well at “sit” and “come”. We’ve yet to start on “stay” and “down”.

She’s still terrorizing the big dogs, although Sarah (my Finnish Spitz) has her number. One day last week, Sarah took Daisy the puppy to “serious school”. We could hear the yelps. Ever since then, Daisy shows repsect. Kiki, our German Shepherd wuss is still afraid of Daisy. She’ s progressing to a fierce growl when the puppy ventures too close. Of course, Daisy considers her “fair game” whenever possible.

What did we plant?

After our raised beds were done, we tackled a huge project… re-do the two beds bordering the front walkway. It took a couple of weeks, but the result is beautiful. We dug out all the old lava rock, ripped up the plastic weed barrier, dug down 20 inches and sifted every bit of dirt back into the beds. After that, we planted boxwoods, hot poker plants, and geraniums. The boxes are lined on the back with railroad ties we removed from an old barn last fall. We added a short white fence for accent and called it good.

Well, in our 30 x 60 garden, we’ve got beans coming up, tomato plants, eggplant, broccoli, brussels sprouts, cauliflower, carrots, radishes, assorted bell peppers, a couple kinds of cucumbers, some summer squash, melons, shallots, garlic, and decorative indian corn.

We also have a 32 x 12 corn patch.

Add to that several raised beds with lettuce, spinach, peas, strawberries, onions and garlic.

Mom gave me the greenhouse so I’ve filled it with herbs. I’ve planted onion chives, Chinese garlic chives, thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary, dill, scallions, hot peppers, italian parsely, genovese basil, cilantro and summer savory.

So far, we’ve lost half the melons, cucumbers and squash to some kind of pest. They’ve also been munching in the sweet corn. Something has climbed into the herb boxes and eaten all the summer savory and part of my cilantro.

One of our last eyesores was a woodpile at the end of our driveway. It has also been home to things we’d rather not make comfortable, like snakes, mice, chipmunks, etc. Much of the wood had been stacked there by the previous owner.

Cindy, Bev and I removed the woodpile and replaced it with a nice flower box for Mom. Now she has a place to plant flowers without getting on her hands and knees. Next year, we’ll add a lattice and plant something to grow up the wall.

We’ve begun the addition to the chicken coop, just waiting on more money to finish it off. Then we’ll order more chicks, expecting winter eggs.

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Tags: chicks, coop, front yard, garden, greenhouse, railroad ties, walkway

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Daisy makes it a six-pack again… that’s a six-pack of dogs. She’s Mom’s 80th birthday present, and is just the cutest, self-assured little ball of fur.

Meet Daisy! So far, she’s met each of pack, starting with Mindy, the big Black Lab. Next to get acquainted was Koda the Husky/Shepherd cross, who came charging out a door when no one was looking. After that, Coco the Lab/Redbone Hound cross came out to greet her.

That took over an hour. Then it was time to meet Sarah the Finnish Spitz and Kiki, the Shepherd/Border Collie cross.

Daisy is a Black Lab (daddy)/Aussie (mommy) cross that was a gift from the owner. Free is a very good price indeed.

So far, she’s been out to meet the chickens, the sheep, and the horses. She wasn’t interested in meeting the cows who just came home, but did get a ride in our old Ford farm truck when Bev and Cindy delivered 6 bales of hay to Clyde and Amber. There, she also got to meet Bruno, the boxer.

Now, after a romp in a very wet front yard (the sprinklers just went off), she’s sound asleep in Mom’s arms. No, she’s not sleeping there. Sarah gave her crate to Daisy and her “safe spot” will be in Mom’s bathroom.

We fully expect Mom will have to take her out in the middle of the night, and yeah… that’s not our job.

Please don’t wake us or the rest of the pack!

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Tags: dog, Dogs, pack of dogs, six pack

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Guess we were all on the same page today, when after dinner, we decided to go see about our cow. We hadn’t been over to Clyde and Amber’s since before the weekend. Where does the time go?

So, we piled into the Avalanche for a quick visit.

Clyde met us at the corral as he was just finishing his chores. Now, around here, corral is pronounced “crayall”, and chore is a verb as in “we’ll be over after we chore”.

He proudly announced that our cow is bred. Said he was going to load her and the calf up last Saturday, but when he went to bring the trailer around, she was suddenly “in season”. The bull wasted no time taking care of business.

The bull is a beautiful Beefmaster/Black Angus cross. He’s so laid back, even the granddaughter has been in the pen running the curry comb across his back.

It sounds like we’ll be getting her and the calf home later this week. In the meantime, we’ll load up six bales of hay to help pay a little for her keep and the breeding.

Guess we’ll also be trailering the sheep over to Flip’s this year where he has his big shearing trailer set up. It makes it much easier on everyone to have the sheep sheared under more professional conditions.

In surveying our hay inventory, it appears we’ll just make it to the second cutting. Here are pics of the hay we have left.

[caption id="attachment_370" align="alignleft" width="150" caption="horse hay"][/caption]

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Tags: angus cross, bales of hay, Beefmaster, breeding, calf, cow

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As promised here is a short photo blog of pictures from when Bev and Cindy first got here, compared with pictures I took today.

[caption id="attachment_357" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Birds and Blooms side of front yard"][/caption]
[caption id="attachment_363" align="alignleft" width="300" caption="Our lower patio, under the trees."][/caption]

That gives you a quick idea of the changes we’ve made so far.

Also today, we put another new cover on the greenhouse. That makes three covers in three years. This one doesn’t look good. The fabric has several flaws which we’ve documented.

Tomorrow, Cindy and I will begin digging out the south side of the front walk, hoping to have that completed in two days.

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Tags: birds, birds and blooms, currents, front yard, garden, garlic, greenhouse, homestead, lettuce, spinach, strawberries, trees

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Today, we moved closer to our “summer living” with still more yard work and the setting up of our summer patios. Yes, that’s two patios.

I promise, tomorrow I’ll get pictures. Today we had a stiff breeze from nearly sunrise, so we concentrated entirely on the tasks before us.

We did more work on the major project, the rebuilding of the front walkway by adding railroad ties to the area between the yard and the future planting area for our entry hedge. We also added a nice top-dressing of compost.

Next week we’ll do the other side of the walk way. All the gravel is being added to the circular drive. That cuts the bill a bit for more gravel out there.

We also used the Mantis in “edger mode” to trim back the grass from all the concrete “dividers”. That’s a project that has been on our radar for over two years.

The glass tables and chairs emerged from the garage and were set up at our kitchen door patio, and also at our “lower patio”. That one is under the elm trees and overlooks the big garden, the chicken coop, the sheep, the cows, and the horses.

We think there was some kind of a shop that was torn down, as we’ve moved more than enough shingles, old wood, electrical wire, and even car parts from the area. This is all on a big concrete pad, approximately 30 x 15.

What’s really nice, is now we can walk around in the garage again, something Mom really appreciates.

Ok, tomorrow, I promise a gallery of what we looked like in Aug 2005 when Bev and Cindy first got here. Remember they bought this place “sight unseen”. Bev’s cousins had seen it and they’re first comments were, “If we were 20 years younger, you wouldn’t get to buy this. It would be ours.”

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Tags: circular drive, compost, garden, mantis, railroad ties, walkway, work

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Here’s a new twist for Shari’s Gone Country! It’s my new Facebook Fan Page.

You can get to it by clicking on this link.
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Beryl-UT/Sharis-Gone-Country/179522430653

Don’t expect me to always give you that whole, long link… just become a fan.

I’ll be working on it quite a bit over the next week or two. I’ll be including things like a crop report, our market schedule, and other things.

Oh, and if you’d like to become a Facebook Friend, just let me know. I’d love to chat with you.

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Tags: Beryl, Facebook, fan page, market, new twist, report, Shari, work

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Last evening was great fun for us. We got to watch “daddy owl” give flying lessons to two little ones. They’re about 5 weeks old now, and it’s time to go to school.

Here he is a couple of hours before his first lesson.

Over the next 3 to 4 weeks, they’ll hone their flying skills and learn to hunt. We’ve got plenty of small rodents around, so hunting will be more a function of learning to fly, dive, and kill the prey.

There’s at least one more baby still in the nest.

The first little guy we saw plopped down in the front yard. He did one of those really ugly “chin landings” and then lurched around the yard a bit. I would imagine the grass felt pretty funny on his feet. Pretty soon, he sought refuge on the back tire of our truck, before again trying out his wings.

He flew to our turnaround, and then to the top of the truck before really becoming brave and heading for the Chinese Elm trees. Daddy was never very far away.

At one point, Bev got a little close and he actually scolded her. She really felt bad as all she was doing was walking down our front walk. Guess she got in the way of his line of sight.

Cindy and I stayed outside until nearly dark, watching the little baby climb to the top of the tree. With Daddy’s encouragement, it even flew from tree to tree.

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Tags: chinese elm trees, fly, hunting, landings, long eared owl, owl babies, prey, wings

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Ever since 2005 when Bev, Cindy and Mom bought this place, they’ve wanted to do something with the “rock beds” lining the front walk.

Today, Cindy and I tackled the project in earnest.

Over the past four years, we’ve planted a couple of yuccas, a couple of “red hot pokers”, and a couple of bird feeders, along with some solar-powered night lights.

Today, Cindy and I began digging out the rocks, rotted plastic weed barrier, and dirt. First problem… the wind. It blew at least 20mph with gusts to 35 the whole time we were out there.

Next problem, not much work space…

We ended up handling each shovel full of dirt at least three times. Dig it out. Pile it on a tarp. Throw several shovel’s full of dirt back onto a big screener. Physically separate the dirt from the rocks and plastic. Then dump the rocks into the wheelbarrow.

It took us five hours to dig out about 8 feet, and there’s another 9 feet on this side, then the full 17 feet on the other side. In all, before we even consider planting, it’s about 4 days work (4 hours a day is about it for us).

I know I’m dog tired tonight… sure hope they wait for a day or so before tackling the next section.

I think our plans are to plant a boxwood hedge accented by the “red hot pokers”.

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Tags: boxwood, landscape project, red hot pokers, rock beds, weed barrier, wind, work

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Once in the house, Cindy, who was having a hard time catching her breath… gee I wonder why. She’d been thrown from a horse twice in the past 3 hours, and then had to walk the beast over a half a mile across the desert.

While she was showering, that is… getting the tumbleweed out of her hair and place on woman should ever have tumbleweed, we called Amber, who is an RN. Our main goal was to see if we should do anything special for Cindy. read the rest of the story

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