See what I mean? That's a lot of strawberries. And every 3 days there is a whole new batch of berries to pick. This morning I ate my breakfast in the strawberry patch.....eating berries with morning dew on them, still chilled from the evening air. I'm telling you there is nothing like eating food grown from your own land....it just tastes better.
One of the chores I dread every spring is the annual "cleaning of the back porch". It seems that no matter what good intentions we have, all winter long the porch becomes a dumping ground for everything from dirty boots to farm implements. By spring I am ready to put everything away in its proper place and give the porch a good scrubbing.
Joel helped me scrub the walls, ceiling and furniture before Joyce and Dick arrived which gave us a clean place to sit and take in the views. I love sitting out here now that the spider webs and pollen is all gone. I even bought a third rocking chair from Cracker Barrel to add to my collection.
Joel got motivated by the scrubbing and finally replaced the old lights on both sides of the back door to the house. Now these galvanized cuties are more in keeping with a farmhouse, don't you think?
And remember this old washtub from a couple of years ago? It's so pretty now that it has been sandblasted and painted with powder coating. That should help it last another 75 years or so.
The opposite end of the porch holds my old farm house table from Florida. To give us plenty of seating I cleaned up, sanded and painted an old church pew. It's super sturdy and I was able to keep the painting on the end of the pew of a dove holding an olive branch.
I would love to know what little country church once held this pew and others like it.
When you come to visit us, this is where we will sit to enjoy a cool glass of iced tea while we listen to the birds in the oak trees and watch the alpaca roam their pasture. Makes you wanna hop on a plane right now, doesn't it?
Here's the newest flower bed I finished up a few weeks ago. It's hard to tell from this picture, but at the far end of the petunias is a barrel dug halfway into the ground. I'll have to take another pic from the side so you can see it better. Anyway, the crepe myrtle on the left used to have huge trunks. But the ice storm a year ago killed all the growth on the big trunks. Last summer the only growth that came back were little twigs. This spring I thinned out all but 7 or 8 of the thickest twigs to start new trunks and it worked! I am not sure if it will bloom this year or if it will need another year of recovery.
Ha! Looks as though we've been partying it up, doesn't it? Actually, I put out a request at my quilt guild for the gals there to save me their wine bottles. Well, they sure came thru for me! I haven't counted how many they gave me last Friday, but the boxes and bags of empty wine bottles filled the back of the Suburban. And, what am I doing with all those bottles, you ask? This is what I'm doing...
I've been digging a trench in the herb garden and "planting" the wine bottles upside down as a fun border. I have estimated it will take 100 or more bottles to complete the circle. So far I am 30% around the perimeter so I have quite a ways to go. I know, I know.....like I had nothing else to do with my time this summer!
I've got wine bottles laying around everywhere in the garden. Each day I try and spend a little time out there either picking berries or burying wine bottles. Eventually I hope to be finished with both. Whew! Especially since there will be 80 women from my quilt guild coming here for a picnic on June 17th and I would like these little projects completed by then. Huh....no pressure there.
Remember when I trimmed the blackberry bushes in the garden late this winter? Well, they have gone crazy and blooms are popping out all over the bushes. These are a thornless variety which makes picking the berries a treat. Yum, I can almost taste them now.
Well, as if taking care of all the animals and the gardens and flower beds wasn't enough, now we're putting up more fence. Yes, you read that right. I can't believe we are doing it again. Only this year, it's high tension fencing. These posts are monsters and are 6" or more across and 8' tall. Joel is determined to have perimeter fencing around our property.....could take us a while to do all that. So, yup, we're putting up fence. And that's what's new here on the farm.
Oh, my aching back,
Debbie
