Things I Learned This Winter

It is March 1st but the National Weather Service has said our winter will continue through March.  Just as I expect every year!  After this HUGE amount of “winter” we’ve had this year, I was pretty sure that turning a page today wouldn’t matter in the weather department.

1. I need a new cover on the small ironing board next to my sewing machine where I do pressing when I do paper-piecing.  I thought it was the iron but cleaned that.  I cleaned the regular iron that I keep there as well.  No, it must be coming from the cover.

2.  I like relaxing in the evening with stories on Instagram.   I’ve learned I can only make videos with my tablet to post!   @julesquilts  (It is farming, my flowers, the dog, and some quilting!)

3.  Even tho the fall onto the ice doesn’t hurt much then….  the next few days add very random hurting places!  Yikes!!
Yes, we went 2 for 2 at our house for how many went down on the ice.  The dog…. was really sick of slipping!!

4.  Everyone needs someone to hold their hand and pray for them when in the hospital.  I learned slowly but did what I could.  ♥  (I learned long ago that I need that!  Now I know I’m not the only one!) PLEASE offer that to one who is there.  Nothing fancy.  Just touch and ask if you can pray for them.  A hospital patient needs touched!  Sit near.  Ask to hold their hand.  Offer hand cream.

5.  Aldi plants and flowers in the winter are a wonderful prize for buying the groceries for the week!   I plant the bulbs outside when the weather is tolerable and enjoy my growing collection that returns the next spring!  The little jars they come in are great for rooting little new houseplants!

6.  It is hard to make my mind stop and read a book.
I’ve read: Sacred Holidays by Becky Kiser and Placemaker by Christie Purifoy.  Highly recommend them both!

7.  Subscriptionboxescanbeanadditiction!
#1 – Broglie Box (brand-new!!) I got one box, their first one!, and then subscribed for the annual and look forward to this box the most!  (no affiliate connection!!)

I liked the 1 box I got from FabFitFun and might do an annual of that one next year.  I was able to get less skin care products as I can’t use most of the ones offered.
I have an annual subscription to Causebox and will drop that when the year runs out.  (I’ve gotten Winter 2018 (& now) Spring 2019.)  I like about 1/2 the box that I get.  I need to sell some of the extra things.  This was my first one I found and my gift to myself… that comes every quarter!  Then I had to quit following the subscription box addiction site as it was all too tempting!

Do you get any subscription boxes?
What did you learn this winter?

 

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June Flowers

June 2018
As the month went on, here are my flowers.

Double clematis — a sweet friend that moved cross-country gave me this cone-shaped trellis with branches and birds.  I bought a double clematis last year for it.  This is the first year for blooms!  The stems on the clematis are so fine; less than a pencil lead.  I’m glad it survived the winter.

 

My striped iris are at the front porch. The leaves are striped.  I need to divide these after blooming.

White poppies at the front of the house.  Love them when they bloom.  They are ugly the rest of the summer.  Advice?

 

My old familiar clematis in dark purple.  I see this out my kitchen window.  Last summer it got in an accident with the weed whip! 😦  I’m thankful it came back!!

 

I have cheap trellis!!

Last year MIL gave us a double hollyhock plant.  I keep this one and one other that grows between the basement windows but pull the others.  Oh my word… weeds!

This one gets tall enough to peek in the kitchen window.  Takes me a few days to get used to it when I catch it in my peripheral vision!

Last year’s after-Easter sale on lilies!  I planted them and am THRILLED they came forth with blooms!!  (over my birthday, too!) I think they multiplied over the winter.  Yummy!! I put more out this year in another area.

 

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Growing Buckeye Trees

For 3 years I’ve gathered buckeyes off the ground near the fitness center in hopes of growing a tree.

 

Finally, last fall was the first that any got planted!  P dug a big trench for me near the house & deck where they would be protected and I could know if any came up.  It was even hard for P to dig as we had a dry fall (good for harvest, not for digging) and this was like a brick of ground.

 

I did have a day when P was in the field and the dog had something she wanted under the deck and she dug up where I planted the buckeyes.  Most of this digging is on the weed-full side so not such a big deal.  When she moved to the side with my herbs and buckeyes, I wasn’t too happy!

I rearranged the dirt and straw for mulch after she was done with the digging/hunting fit and hoped for the best.

This spring I’ve been watching intently and about 2 weeks ago I knew these were buckeyes and not weeds!  They have jumped up out of the ground.  Now about 6″ tall.

Two are like this and a third one is struggling and only about 2″ tall.  They haven’t done much in the last week as it has been cold and rainy.

I’m excited! The tree at the fitness center is full of blooms right now.  I will nurse them along in this area until they are big enough to be on their own in the big yard.  I assume at least for another winter.

I didn’t do any soaking or turning or starting these inside.  I just put all those in the trench about 4′ long and a good 6″ deep.  Covered them with the clumps of hard dirt and mulch/straw.  I watered them in hopes the ground would settle.

ETA: Here is the mother tree at the fitness center the end of May.

In another generation, someone will be not so happy to have a messy buckeye tree in the yard.  I’ll giggle.

O-hi-O!

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Celebrating Creation!

4/21
I’m thankful we have a great Creator who has given us —

at the fitness center

daffodils

home

rhododendron

soil for crops,  flowers, and vegetables

cotton for fabric

flowering trees

This is my Japanese Weeping Cherry that we got last year.

And from the ground up as the blossom clusters hang down!  It was lovely and I was glad it made it through the winter.  Even though the winter was mild for us, maybe that gave it a good start here.  The blooms stayed until we had a big wind with heavy rain.

 

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Garden Club Sale

Today I returned for my 2nd year to a nearby small town for their Garden Club’s sale. A room of perennials — first-come, etc!

I got there about 8:20 and I assume over half was already gone. Sadly, one had a whole table of her loot including ALL the bleeding hearts. Now my heart was bleeding!

Large meat tray with at least 15 baby iris.  The whole tray was $1.  They kindly told me to put water in the tray once I got home since it has been raining for 4 days and I couldn’t plant outside.  They really perked up with a drink of water.

 

For $13 total, I brought home:

2 mini ground covers for my hope-to-have fairy garden, $1
15 (at least) mini iris bulbs (above), $1
2 – 6″ pots full of small iris bulbs, $2 each
2 large pots of coral bells, $2 each
3 pots of grape hyacinths, 0.50 each
2 plants of lily of the valley, 0.50 each
2 small pots of columbine, 0.25 each

 

 

 

I visited with Mrs. E, who went to school with my MIL and is the mother to a friend at our church.  I chatted with a lady my age that helped load up my car.  I found a guild friend and we made plans for the end of the week pending the schedules for our men.  Cold, wet, drizzle, but friendly shopping!

It will be awhile until the ground is dry and my hole digger is done with his crops but I have all but the mini iris and ground covers outside, protected by bigger plants.  They got a HUGE gulp of rain yesterday and are eagerly awaiting warm & sunshine — like a few humans around here!!

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Here We Go… spring rush!

P was gone for work on Monday and then Tuesday was to check all the equipment for a good day to run on Wednesday.

He went back to a less expensive fertilizer because of the low market prices and applied that all day Weds, Thursday, and Friday.  Just a bit he is putting in other areas to empty the tank and it is already here for today.

He would like to spray his cover crops but the wind is supposed to get to be too much today so we’ll see.  Yesterday was 70′ bright blue skies!  The dog & I sat outside and I brushed her.  Too bad she’d prefer the shade and I want to sit in the sunshine!  She wins…. she is hard to move and has much more fur than me!

When I got a photo of the tractor back home, I found a sleepy dog on the porch.

Earlier while I was out brushing her, I also checked on the lilac bushes.  We trimmed them after blooms last year, as I learned online to produce more blooms this year, and it looks like it is working!  This area of bushes is packed with little buds of blooms growing!!

We tried winter garlic for the first time with planting in November 2015.  So far … all right.  One of 3 varieties is doing well.  Another has fair population, and the 3rd is all but absent!  Thankfully we marked our rows when we planted.

Friday night supper was homemade pizza.  Not totally healthy but better than take-out!

I make 3 small pizzas when I do this so we have one fresh and now I have 2 in the freezer for that night where all I can imagine doing is heating a frozen pizza!

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Pumpkins

Finally in January there are some days at home to cook pumpkins that we harvested this fall.  They’ve been happily waiting their turn in the basement and garage.  One day I cut and deseeded 2.  I roasted them in the oven until soft and then processed in my Victorio strainer.  Love it!!  I had close to 8 cups of pumpkin!  In the evening I made a double batch of muffins with fresh ground wheat.  I was short 2 eggs so read and chose a banana for the substitute.  I put in 1/2 chocolate chips and half pecan pieces.  I don’t need all the amount of chocolate chips to cloud my thinking of how many muffins I consume!

I also announced that night that I needed someone else to cut pumpkins!  So while the muffins were in the oven, my farmer cut 3 more pumpkins for me.  And in the meantime, I had looked at the Victorio book closer and it said to cook in 1″ – 2″ cubes and then process.  Yippee!!  That takes away the scooping hot flesh out of the rines.  The next morning, I cut one more pumpkin.  I was glad to have the oven on most of the morning since the temperatures outside were struggling to find only 0’F that day!

With the pumpkins cubed before cooking, I was able to get 22 cups of pumpkin in the freezer and had only about 7 cups of trash of skin.  The skin came out all dried and cleaned of the nutrients.  I’m glad to have more pumpkin in my puree than back to the trash.

Using 10 pumpkins has barely made a dent in what P grew this summer.  He did admit last night that I don’t have to cook them all.  🙂

Here is my whole wheat muffin….. ummmmm…..

I’m done with processing pumpkins for now.  Three days worth gave me about 40 cups of pumpkin puree in the freezer and 4 batches of pumpkin muffins (most in the freezer).  I think that is plenty really.

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Ornamental Tree

Here is our new tree — a Japanese Weeping Cherry.

This is at the nursery when I picked out the tree.  I know the blooms will be gone by the time it is home so this is what we’ll have in future springs.

 

A few flowers were still hanging on when they planted it the next week for me.

Just planted – April 27.

Great crew – just 2 men and I’m not sure they were even here for 10 minutes.  Dug a hole, planted, mulched, and watered.  Very polite and kind men!

This one is only about an 8′ tree at full height and I can trim the weeping branches when needed.  We also put this one a bit farther away from the corner of the house.  We haven’t redone the grass or the rocks yet.

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Assorted August

A few bits of August ~

My phlox plant is large & loaded this year with fragrant blooms at the front door.

 

New specialty plates arrived!

The sweet corn was large & yummy & with the cooler temps the season lasted a bit longer.

New kitties were born including an unusual brown one! (they only visited in the kitchen for a few minutes as I’m allergic to them)

Showing that the corn is so tall, the ears are up to my shoulders!

New beginnings!

Those left behind…

It was foggy at 6:30 a.m.!

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Mother’s Day ’14

One dear daughter made a quick run home for a 21-hour visit —

Flowers and gifts for my studio (to be decorated & posted later)!

One dear son called and chatted with me and sent the first of many yet-to-come final grades —

He has finals this week so I’ll see him soon.  The weekend was for studying!

My brother & SIL brought my mom out for the weekend.  I think this is the 2nd or 3rd time I’ve seen her on Mother’s Day in the last 30 years.   My brother mowed for us, SIL planted 12 tomato plants in the garden, they maybe got a bit of R&R, and were spun in the chaos of our spring lifestyle but endured!  (Since P had eager helpers, he quickly smoothed the garden for the tomatoes with the 4-wheeler and the best red-neck garden leveler ever! But at speeds that made my photo taking difficult to catch 3 in one frame!)

 

 

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