During a break from the wind, my dad helped me finish taking out the Liberty apple tree. He also cut down the two grapefruit trees you see in the photo above (on the left; one is just a dead trunk). I still have the roots to remove on those two, but they are down…
It was another windy week, though there were some still hours in which I managed to get outside to do some work in the garden. I picked mulberries from my neighbor’s tree. The wind and birds had aleady claimed quite a few. It was too windy to risk picking on the extension ladder, so I…
About a year and a half ago, I found a beautiful piece of fabric on Black Friday. It was just a little bit (a yard and 3/8) and there was enough to make a dress for Ivory if I made it while she was young. This piece of fabric became my theme for her party–blue…
Some of you expressed an interest in knowing more about some of the things that Winter has been doing. This post will tell you. In our church, when a girl is 12 years old, she enters the Young Women’s program. This program goes until age 18. Each young woman works toward the goal of…
My first peony! I’ve seen Claus Darby’s name on several of the photos I’ve pinned on Pinterest before, but it wasn’t until Friday that I started reading his blog, inspired by the photo I saw on Pinterest of his sunken white garden. The more I read, the more I realize how much my white…
Iceberg roses, snapdragons, dusty miller, lavender, larkspur, and parsley flowers in the crystal pestal vase I bought the week before last at the garage sales for $2 I picked lettuce from the garden almost every day this week. We had many salads. I gave lettuce to a friend of mine, who trades eggs with…
The two most common complaints I hear people give about their home-grown fruit is that the tree produces fruit that is too small, and that the tree only fruits every other year. Both of these problems are easily solved by thinning. A tree naturally thins itself, to some degree. Wind helps with this, knocking down…
I cut nasturiums from the garden and brought them in to arrange in a vase. All of these nasturiums grew from self-seeding. I bought strawberries for $0.97 a pound, made strawberry shortcake, and canned strawberry jam. I bought 90 pounds of potatoes at $0.10 a pound. I made herb roasted chicken. By cooking the chicken…
Garden: Every year in April, shortly after just starting to set lots of fruit, my snow peas succumb to powdery mildew. I use drip irrigation and there hasn’t been any rain, but I still have this problem each year. So, I will be taking out my peas this week and planting something else in their…
Winter made these baskets from cardstock for our table. They are lined with a muffin liner. I put candy in the bottom of each one and a homemade chocolate rabbit on top. These were the children’s Easter baskets this year. I liked that they were small and fit on their plates, and that no filler…
This April brings Easter sales the first week of the month. Eggs and ham will be on sale this week, as well as Easter candy, potatoes, strawberries, and butter. This year for Easter I am planning to make chocolate rabbits again. I am continuing to work on filling in the holes in my storage. I…
I picked snow peas from the garden. I cut parsley, green onions, lettuce, and Swiss chard from the garden. A local reader offered me some hand-me-downs for my children. Winter now has 2 new pairs of jeans and a blouse, and Cyrus has a new pair of jeans as well. I bought several pairs…