Category Archives: Arkansas

May 23, 2018 · 12:55 pm

Yesterday’s Harvest

I’m grateful for the harvest yesterday. In the picture above you can see that my spinach plants are not enjoying the heat. Lettuce and spinach are cool weather plants and I usually enjoy quite a harvest before the too-hot begins. I’ll harvest as much spinach as possible because I can freeze it.

 

The head lettuce leaves are still okay, but looking a bit stressed. These plants are happier than anything else, with the exception of the radishes, in the square foot garden right now.

 

I’m sad because the really hot-too-soon in the season weather we’ve been having is causing the romaine lettuce to bolt. I’m not sure how much more I can harvest before the leaves taste bitter and I have to compost the plants.

 

We’ll enjoy the fresh lettuce and spinach for salad each day for as long as possible. I’m not sure whether I’ll get more broccoli, but the hope is that I’ll get more from the shoots from the main plant after the center has been harvested. The radishes and onions are doing fine, although some of the green tops of the onions are shooting up and trying to make seeds. The tomato plants on the other side of the house are growing rapidly. They like the heat. I have a few blossoms, so I’m hopeful we’ll enjoy a nice crop this year.

 

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May 16, 2018 · 1:14 pm

Garden Harvest – May, 2018

broccoli

I harvested this yesterday when it was super hot. I didn’t harvest any romaine because I just got too hot out there. I’ll do that later today.

 

head lettuce

 

Spinach

I also wanted to show you our tomato plants in the two planters we converted to square foot gardening on the east side of the house.

 

The first tomato blossom of the season!

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May 14, 2018 · 1:24 pm

Ready for Another Harvest!

Our raised bed square foot garden is doing well so far this year. We have six 4’x4′ boxes on metal ‘tables’ at about my chest level. I can just walk up to them, planting, weeding, or harvesting without having to get up and down from my knees or bend over double – a thing I can’t tell you how very MUCH I appreciate!

 

We are growing iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, sweet onions, radishes, spinach and broccoli. We have two converted planters on the east side of the house with tomato plants.

 

I’m going to go out and harvest some things today, but I wanted to show you how nice the plants look before I do.

 

 

 

I have some celery started in the kitchen that I’m hoping I can transplant to these empty squares soon.

 

 

On the lower right, you can see the start of radishes in the square.

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May 7, 2018 · 5:56 pm

Garden Update – May 7, 2018

This afternoon we went out to check on the garden – weeding, harvesting, and taking pictures. I got hot and tired, so I didn’t do any harvesting today, but will tomorrow. We got the weeds taken care of, and everything seems to be very happy.

 

I was surprised to see how the broccoli has grown! Last week I had to look really carefully to see any sign at all of the broccoli head. I’ll harvest some of this tomorrow. I learned last year that the broccoli goes from this to really spread out like a bouquet and not good to eat fast. I’m hoping that I can encourage shoots off the main plant to produce more.

 

I lost one lettuce plant, and I have no clue what happened, since all the rest looked like this. We have romaine and iceberg head lettuce.

 

The onion plants are tall and strong looking. The spinach is still looking happy, although it prefers the cooler temperatures.

 

 

I planted several squares of radishes last week, and you can see them here.

I decided to spread my plants out a lot more this year. I think that the square foot garden guy, Mel Bartholomew, gets a lot more involved with his garden than we do. My plants grew into each other last year and where the plants met, they seemed to smother. Everything seems happier this year, so far, with my idea of more air circulation around each plant.

I didn’t get pictures today of the two tomato planters on the other side of the house, but I’ll try to get some soon. They seem to be happy right now.

We turned on the irrigation system for the planters in the front yard and found where we had a blow-out. My husband said it looked like a ‘critter’ had been chewing on the pvc pipe that runs across the front of the yard, down over the edge between the ‘civilized’ and ‘woody’ parts. He had ordered a special repair tape a couple of years ago. This seemed a perfect time to try it. He wrapped the pvc pipe where the chew marks were and we’ll test it tomorrow, after it has time to adhere to itself fully.

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May 2, 2018 · 12:42 pm

New Iris

Last fall I cleaned out the planter where the ‘new’ iris were, the ones from Nanna’s Iris Garden in Charleston, AR.  I transplanted iris all over the yard, and still have some that need to be planted. This is one of our new ones and I think it’s really nice. I cut the top bloom and brought it into the house for us to enjoy, leaving the rest to bloom outside.

I love this time of year, each time I take a trip around the yard, I find something that fills my heart.

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May 1, 2018 · 10:50 am

Survey Tape

Arkansas Valley Electric Company

This picture shows some of the equipment being used, but the season is wrong, showing them clearing branches after a bad winter storm.

The Arkansas Valley Electric Company guy woke us up this morning, telling us that they were bringing their equipment today to cut branches that were too close to electrical lines. We have seen them on the main arteries of Greenwood over the past few weeks, sawing down countless branches so that we hopefully won’t lose power during spring severe weather due to trees falling on power lines and bringing them down.

I just came in from trying to mark all of our guy wires on the ham radio tower, plus electrical lines going low across the area where their equipment is coming up to make sure they see them. My husband brought a PVC pole we use in the garden for them to use to hold up the low hanging lines so the equipment can go under them safely. I also unplugged the electrical cord that goes from the house out to the greenhouse so it wouldn’t get run over.

They have a regular pickup truck, a big vehicle that has a radial type saw on the end of a long pole that can cut horizontally or vertically, as needed. There is something else that is causing big chips to fly in all directions, so we’re keeping our animals inside until they are finished.

The biggest problem area that I can see is our triple evergreen trees that are practically grown together, home to countless birds. The tops of the trees are really encroaching on the power lines. They might have to aggressively attack those to protect their power lines.

We are due for severe storms Thursday, so I’m delighted that they are out there now cutting away the stuff that might cause problems.

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April 29, 2018 · 10:59 am

Hummingbird Bird Bath is UP!

Last year I saw the prettiest picture on Facebook of a hummingbird bird bath. This one is very different from the one we saw, but we enjoyed putting our spin on the idea.

This tub has a hole in the center where the water can come in. We have a trashcan under it with a pump. The system is set up to recycle the water, only using more water if the level in the trashcan goes down below a certain point, at which time the hose automatically turns on to add the needed amount. The PVC pipe is drilled with holes to make the spray.  The system is on a timer, so it starts up at about 8 am and turns off at about 8:30 pm.

 

I put bricks and stones in the bottom to be at a level where hummingbirds can sit or stand. They can play in the water, then warm up and dry off on the rocks. For some reason, we didn’t have a lot of hummingbirds visiting our deck, even though we had several feeders out and then built the bird bath.  I like the bird bath enough, though, if only for the calming sound of the water, to make it well worth the effort – whether the hummingbirds like it or not. :0)

I’ll put out feeders this morning, just in case we have some hummers around.

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April 29, 2018 · 10:21 am

Greenwood Arkansas Tornado – 1968

April 19, 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of a tornado that practically wiped Greenwood, Arkansas off the map. It happened just after school let out on that day in 1968. 13 people died and hundreds were injured. Half the town square was obliterated, the tornado blowing away over 400 businesses and homes in the space of 4 minutes.

Greenwood Tornado 1968 – GreenwoodDemocrat.com

On April 19th of this year commemorations were held all over the city. Books were published by the Greenwood Democrat that we could buy, showing photos and giving details of that day. Farmers Bank also published a book that they were giving away to citizens.  People gathered to see a video, ask questions of the survivors, and appreciate what happened.  Others gathered at the square. Survivors recounted their memories of the day that devastated Greenwood.  The tornado was national news in 1968. They figure now that it was an F4 tornado.

Through the tragedy, though, people rebuilt. Survivors with homes intact offered rooms, clothes, and food to those who needed them. Ham radio operators helped with communications. Surrounding towns provided help. Help was offered from far away, as well.

There were 2000 residents of Greenwood in 1968. Today there are around 10,000. Instead of giving up and going elsewhere, the strong people rebuilt the town, building a stronger sense of community than ever before.

The photos of the devastation tear your heart out. The people of Greenwood were stronger than 4 minutes of Mother Nature’s wrath, though – stronger than anyone knew.

My husband and I found Greenwood, Arkansas when he took a job in Fort Smith in 1987. We feel lucky to have found such a wonderful place to live.

 

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April 29, 2018 · 9:49 am

Greenwood AR Car Show 2018

Photographer Unknown

We went to the 31st Annual Greenwood, Arkansas Car Show yesterday. I think it gets larger every year as word of mouth spreads about how enthusiastic we are about incredibly restored and souped-up cars.  Proceeds go to local scholarships and charities. There are the wonderful cars of all types, models, years, of course, and there is food and drink, country music, door prizes and awards given in several categories for the entrants. Many of the cars are for sale.

The good businesses around the square shut down for something like this, knowing that the events are good for the town, the charities, and fun for the people. They close off three sides of the square to traffic, allowing the main road to stay open.

We spent about an hour there. My husband was interested in the engines. I was interested in the shape and colors of the cars. The oldest car I saw was a 1926 Ford. Something older than we are! :0)

My favorite is always a 1932 Ford Deuce Coupe. There is something about the size and shape of that vehicle that calls to me.

Photograph by Dave Koontz

I have to tell you, though, that as much as I like a Deuce Coupe, I’ve been drooling over a deep purple Jeep that is in a lot on the way to Fort Smith lately –

The 1st Greenwood AR car show was in 1987, the year we moved to Greenwood and had our home built. It has been wonderful to watch it, and the town grow and thrive.

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April 26, 2018 · 10:36 am

Square Foot Garden Progress – April

 

Yesterday I showed you the first harvest from our spring veggie garden. I’m delighted that everything seems to be happy so far.

The raised bed square foot garden consists of six 4’x4′ wooden boxes about my chest level filled with Mel’s Mix (a combination of peat moss, vermiculite, and three or more kinds of compost.) The boxes are divided into ‘squares’ by stretched string. I have opted to space things out a lot more this year because I lost a lot of produce by having the plants growing into each other. I decided to opt for a lot more air and space for each plant and see what happens.

We also have tomato plants in two converted brick planters on the other side of the house. We’ll plant another group of tomato plants soon so that we can space out our harvest and extend it as much as possible.

In the picture above you can see broccoli plants, spinach, iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, and onions. I’ll add some radish seeds soon (as soon as I get the squares weeded) and also celery (when the ones I started in the house are large enough.)

Each box has a sprinkler in the center that are connected by pieces of hose. These are all tied to a main hose that connects to a rural type outside faucet. We put a timer on it so that the garden is irrigated each morning.

I’m going to wash spinach, romaine, and iceberg lettuce for our salad today harvested yesterday from the garden. I hope that one day we can eat our own broccoli!

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April 24, 2018 · 1:02 pm

Companionable Amber

quotesgram.com

 

Amber – April 2018 – 13 months

I grabbed my camera to take a picture of the entertainment center and the winterized deck for the previous post. Amber, of course, wanted to come with me.

We ended up walking all over yard, taking pics of flowers, veggies, etc. Amber would watch me, then run off and do doggly things for a while, and then come back on her on, or when I called. We did this over and over, walking out to the greenhouse, then all the way across our land to the square foot garden, then back around the house.

Amber is a really sweet, wonderful dog. I particularly enjoy her when it’s just the family here. She responds eagerly – probably in anticipation of a ‘cookie’ when we go back inside – but is truly fun, affectionate, curious and playful. (It’s when others come here, or we go out in public that she tends to go ‘maniac,’ requiring all our tools, skills, and dubious intelligence to handle things. We have agreed that we need to invite more people here, and put the no-pull collar and leash on her when she is allowed to get out of the car on our outings, giving her more occasions to meet people, LISTEN to us, and hopefully, do what we say.

As to what we saw on our walk this morning –

The deep purple iris is fading, but the yellow iris is all over the yard in clusters. My husband is less than impressed with the yellow ones, but the display is very impressive to ME.  (Each pic displayed here is a different clump of iris, plus there is more going down the driveway!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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April 16, 2018 · 11:21 am

Purple Iris

Deep purple iris are our favorites (although I like a lot of other colors). I’ve been working on trying to spread the purple iris all around the yard, since my husband loves them above all others.  Right now we’re feeling rich in purple iris!

 

This is toward the top of our driveway, on the right as you drive up. We have an antique computer tower perched on one of our brick planters. My husband put it there as a conversation piece years ago, but the birds now build nests in it each year. You can see some parts of the ’emu’ planters just past the brick planter. We’ll place my husband’s favorite periwinkles in those as soon as the weather warms up.

 

This is one of the clumps of purple iris that are finally happy along the side of the driveway. They make us smile as we go down the driveway. My husband remarks about them each time he sees them, thanking me for transplanting some there.

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April 15, 2018 · 10:02 am

Square Foot Garden After Storm

We had bad storms with a strong cold front Friday afternoon and evening – including tornadoes, damaging winds, rain, hail, and flying hair balls. I was worried that my fledgling square foot garden plants would get battered.  Yesterday and today we’ve had cold temperatures for April in Arkansas – barely 40 and gusty north winds.

As you can see, the garden is doing fine. WHEW!  Thank  goodness these are all cool weather plants!  I may lose some of my tomato plants, but the rest of the garden is good.

 

 

Broccoli

 

Iceberg Head Lettuce

 

Romaine Lettuce

 

Spinach

It’s almost time to start snipping!  I can gather the outer, larger leaves of the lettuces and the spinach soon. As soon as it warms up a bit, I’ll get some radishes started.

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April 14, 2018 · 1:14 pm

Mother Nature in a Snit

Mother Nature was in a snit yesterday afternoon and evening, bringing us a cold front with accompanying 60 mph winds, hail, rain, tornadoes, and flying hair balls. The sky was black in mid afternoon and I watched the hard-working local weather guys try to warn people in our area and all around us about when to dive for shelter.

Happily, though we got wind and rain, all the bad stuff either went north or south of us. We came through her bad temper well. I checked this morning when I took the doggies out, that the greenhouse was still standing, we didn’t have any damage to the house, my roses were still intact, and the square foot garden was still looking good.

We planted 3 new rio samba rose bushes recently. I’m just thrilled that they seem to be happy.

 

 

 

Even though it’s too cool to be comfortable outside today, I’m thankful to see the sun and our thriving plants.

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April 6, 2018 · 10:19 am

“City Rock Bluff”

City Rock Bluff Overlooking White River in Calico Rock AR – Jennifer Price via Cindy Basnett Thurman

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April 4, 2018 · 10:05 am

Beautiful Arkansas

Lake Ann-Bella Vista AR – Douglas Keck – Only in AR – via Cindy Basnett Thurman

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April 3, 2018 · 11:46 am

I’ve Definitely Quit Dancing!

piccsy.com

Okay. We were in the middle of a drought and it even caused bad problems with our water supply, making the turnovers in the lakes cause our water to have a bad odor and taste.  Wildfire danger was high. Warm, windy days were worrisome.  I started doing mental and physical rain dances, trying to get our area over the problem.

Mother Nature listened. I’m not sure if she saw and heard ME, or if a whole lot of people were also doing rain dances, but she delivered. Big Time. We’ve had rain, rain showers, heavy rain, storms, sleet, and more rain. I’ve definitely STOPPED even thinking about rain dances, but now I’m thinking Mother Nature is saying, “You wanted rain. Okay. Here it is!”

Today we’re due for MORE storms, particularly between 11:00 and 3 this afternoon with possible severe weather.  We did a group of errands this morning, paring our list down to one appt this afternoon, in an effort to be ONLY blown away, rather than blown away and DROWNED trying to get our stuff done.

The doggies came and demanded that I take them out a couple of minutes ago, insisting they would blow up if I didn’t take them out NOW. I complied, then came back for my camera, to record some of the beauty I found while walking around the yard. The storm today might wreak havoc with our yard, so I wanted to try to catch Mother Nature at her BEST – first.

Every day the wisteria gets more lush and more purple.

It SMELLS wonderful, too!

We have purple iris blooming in planters, in clusters around the yard, even off the edge of the civilized part of our yard, plus down our driveway.

 

We have buds on the three new Rio Samba rose bushes, and now some of the buds are starting to open up!

 

A knock out rose bush is starting to have blooms.

 

This is the north side of our square foot garden.

And the south side.

The winds really picked up while I took pics and walked the dogs. We’ll probably be right in the heart of the thunderstorms this afternoon, since we have to be out at 1:30. It’s a good thing we don’t melt in the rain. We’re thankful for our warm, dry home. Our doggies have already snuggled down for a nap, and even the two cats came in with us.

Have a wonderful day. Stay warm and dry!

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March 26, 2018 · 11:00 am

Lake Chicot, Arkansas

Susan and Brad Whittle-AR Pics via Cindy Basnett Thurman

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March 24, 2018 · 12:41 pm

One of the Perks of Living Out in the Sticks

One of the many reasons we love living on top of our ridge line outside the city limits of Greenwood, Arkansas is the privacy.  We have our space without having to speak to lots of neighbors or having them look harshly at us because we don’t make sure each blade of grass is cut to the neighborhood specifications.  We have created out own little world up here and we love it.

We can pretend we own all the land we can see. :0)  We own about 8 acres. Our land goes down to the street in the front. Picture a hill with the top part cut off horizontally. That’s our land.  We keep a small part ‘civilized’ and let the rest be natural.

We absolutely love our view from our back yard. We can watch the seasons change. We can enjoy the firework displays of our neighbors in the valley below.

If we can SEE it, it’s OURS, isn’t it? :0)

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March 24, 2018 · 11:57 am

Radiating Spring

We are enjoying a pretty early spring here in Arkansas. It makes me feel a bit guilty, so I’m trying to send some nice spring weather in all directions.

In my trip around the yard with the doggies, I found some nice things –

Even though it’s cloudy, the redbud is till showing up nicely around the yard.

Here is a close-up view of some of the redbud blooms.

The tulip tree is fragile, already losing a lot of its petals in the gusty winds we’ve been having off and on, but it makes me smile each time I see it.

Here is a close-up of some of the blooms.

These hyacinths are in one planter beside the front porch. We have some more in the planter on the east side of the house.

 

I love the contrast between the lingering winter and the redbud, plus the nice greens of the iris.

 

The first blooming iris of the season!

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March 23, 2018 · 9:29 am

The Unofficial State Tree of Arkansas

The official tree of Arkansas is the pine tree. I thought it was the Redbud, but that’s the state tree of Oklahoma, where I lived much of my childhood. We have three or four Redbuds on our property, and we carefully cut stuff away from around them, trying to encourage them to get as large as possible and have a nice show each year in the spring.

 

 

 

You can also see our larger propane tank and the shop here.

 

HAPPY SPRING!

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March 22, 2018 · 12:04 pm

Young Veggie Garden

Our spring raised bed square foot garden is off to a good start. We have six 4’x4’x8″ boxes at about my chest level in our vegetable garden. (We also have two brick planters on the other side of the house we use for our tomato plants.)

 

You can see the sprinklers and hoses that run over the top of the boxes on either side, making up the irrigation system. I added the timer a few days ago to the outdoor faucet, so the garden gets watered for 10 minutes each morning. There are drain holes in each box so that excess water runs out freely.  I’ve planted onion sets, iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, broccoli, and spinach so far. I’ll plant some radishes later, plus bring out starts of celery from the house.

This year, except for the onion sets and radishes, I decided to only plant one plant in each square. There are only two of us eating salad in our household, so 4 lettuce plants to a square is too much for us to eat and the plants grow rapidly, crowding each other. I’m experimenting to see if this spread out version works better for us.

 

The spindly plants around this lettuce plant are onion sets. The tops of the onions don’t look great, but I’m hoping that the actual onions are doing well. I won’t know for a long time.

 

Here you can see broccoli in the foreground, a spinach plant in the middle, and lettuce toward the back.  I’m planning to start the tomato plants we bought very soon.

 

 

This is

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March 22, 2018 · 11:31 am

While Walking the Doggies….

White hyacinth and frog

The daffodils are starting to fade now, but the hyacinths I planted last year are bursting forth now. Such a showy, happy flower.

 

Purple hyacinth and kind old gentleman

 

 

New Joseph’s Coat Climbing rose birthday plant and camellias.

 

 

Purple hyacinth and hydrangea.

It’s a good thing I planted several purple hyacinths, since Amber ate one of them.

 

Hyacinths

glorious purple hyacinth

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March 13, 2018 · 11:11 am

Taking the Plunge

Belgian Nursery

My husband goes outside when the weather forecasters tell him it’s raining in Greenwood – on the Lewis’ house – right now.  I have a bit more faith in their abilities, though we both realize that trying to forecast the weather is a complicated task. I just looked up the 10-day forecast for Greenwood on the net and see that today was the last forecast freeze through the 23rd. I’ve decided to go ahead and take the plunge, planting the veggies we are holding in the greenhouse.

 

Gardening Know How

I have iceburg lettuce, spinach, romaine, and broccoli plants, two six-packs of each.

I have my raised bed planters filled with Mel’s Mix and the string stretched across in two directions, creating the squares for planting. My planters are at about chest level so I can just walk up and plant things without having to bend over, get down on my knees or back up again.

I planted Texas Sweet Onion sets a couple of days ago. It’s such a pleasure! I’ll take pictures when I get the plants in. I’m excited to be starting a brand new spring crop!

I’ll watch the weather carefully, leaping up to put sheets over the plants if they say it’s going to get near freezing for the rest of the month.

 

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February 25, 2018 · 10:07 am

In Case Anyone was Curious…

Sonia Rod via Nora Hall

The sun is shining! It’s not raining!

We lucked out in our area of Arkansas. My greenhouse is still standing! We’ve received about 5-1/2 inches of rain in the past 6 days. There is some bad flooding and some damage in the state, but none that I know of in west central Arkansas where we are.

I found some pictures this morning that I wanted to share –

 

Heber Springs AR-Marcy Effinger via Cindy Basnett Thurman

Heber Springs is south and east of us.

I did find some really glorious pictures of Arkansas taken after the latest – and worst – of the storms by talented people from Arkansas Pictures –

 

“God’s Rainbow Artwork after Storm” – El Paso AR – Amazing Shotz by David K. Niece – Arkansas Pictures – via Cindy Basnett Thurman

 

 

Four Winds Chapel – Conway AR – Mike Hall – Arkansas Pictures via Cindy Basnett Thurman

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February 20, 2018 · 10:04 am

Arkansas Sunset

Christopher Moore-AR Sunrises and Sunsets via Cindy Basnett Thurman

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January 31, 2018 · 9:53 am

Good Morning!

“Catching Bubbles” – Jabbok Dawn

 

We missed the Blood Moon and the eclipse this morning. Abby, one of our cats who is supposed to go out at night, jumped up on our bed this morning (at 0-dark-thirty – but AFTER the eclipse) meowing to go out. I’ve hugged both Molly and Amber first thing this morning, so my clean tee is now covered in dog hair, and I feel good – that this day is ripe with possibilities.

Our son is in Thailand, living and working with some good friends also from the states. He is in the process of applying for a ‘wider’ passport which has more pages and more space for stamps. He is moving into a new rental HOUSE in Chiang Mai tomorrow, where he is far enough away from his neighbors that he can play his electric guitar, drums, and other music makers without bothering anyone. The longer walk to meet with his friends is a small price to pay to be able to fully enjoy creating. (I’ll post some pics of the house when he moves in.) He is taking classes in both Mandarin and Thai. He is living life in a beautiful place where he can work hard for clients they choose, play hard, meditate, and enjoy life.  We couldn’t be happier for him.  We communicate with him on an almost daily basis via a chat program, and sometimes on a program called appear.in which, like Skype, allows us to see each other as we visit.

We have an absolutely free schedule today. The day is wide open, waiting for us to decide how we will spend it. I love days where we don’t have a bunch of ‘have-to’s, appointments, pressing things that MUST be done today. My spirits soar on a day like this. :0)

I think I’ll fill this day with things I’ve been putting off with my emphasis lately on cleaning out and purging around here. Today I’ll –

  • change out the water in the aquarium, scrubbing it and its contents (except the fish) before filling it again and changing the filter.
  • I’ll do routine stuff, such as changing sheets, doing laundry, and vacuuming the unending supply of dog and cat hair
  • We’ll change the mailbox decoration today from the Cheshire Cat to a Cherub Holding a Valentine Heart for Valentine’s Day
  • I’ll work on repainting the jack-o-lantern mailbox decoration in the shop
  • I’ll choose my next clean out project from the wide array of possibilities around here
  • I’ll transfer my new celery plants to soil-filled pots and put them on the window sill
  • I’ll start a roast in the crock pot

Such is “Life-in-the-Fast-Lane” at the Lewises in Arkansas. Can you see us grinning?

Enjoy your day!

 

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January 28, 2018 · 12:04 pm

Shhhhh!

I saw a set up for selling plants at the co-op as we drove by last week. I did some research and discovered that February is a good months to start onion sets in Arkansas.  We’ll check there tomorrow and see what’s what.  We had such good luck last year that I’ve been enjoying them since harvest and still have two nice hanging mesh bags of onions in the pantry. :0)

 

We have six 4’x4′ raised bed planters like this in our square foot garden. If we DO get onion sets, I’ll first have to mix some Mel’s Mix to top off a couple of the planters. We don’t have string strung yet to create the ‘square feet’ for the garden, either.  I’m not really in planting mode yet. I’m still thinking about how I’m going to set up my greenhouse so that I can get seeds growing. And I really wasn’t planning to start THAT until March….

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I’m still in cleaning out mode, feeling better and better as I get areas around the house finally cleaned out and decluttered.

I’m working upstairs today – the second day of working on my bookshelves on my side of the bedroom, plus the shelves in the guest room. I’m hoping to finish that today.  During this process, I found a bunch of books that I no longer need, so I brought them downstairs to the office. About a third of them were saleable on Amazon, and the rest I listed to donate to our local library.  I have to concentrate on the ‘cleaning’ part of this because I see a book on art, want to sit right down and look at it, drooling over the pictures…

My goal this year is to continually gather donations for our local library fundraisers and the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith. I would like to be able to make a donation each month this year. I’m also trying to gather an extra large bag of trash each week. This week I’ll be putting out TWO extra bags!

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I hope you’re having a nice Sunday,too.

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Filed under Acting Like a Grownup, Arkansas, Greenwood, Housekeeping - Maintenance, I'm a slob, Organizing/DeCluttering, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

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January 27, 2018 · 12:03 pm

Welcome Visitors

Recently we’ve received a wonderful gift of being able to look at lots of birds we don’t often see. When we’re eating breakfast, we love watching the birds come to eat the seed we put out. We’re not official birdwatchers, and identify most as just ‘pointy headed birds,’ ‘cardinals,’ bluejays’ (my husband tries to shoot the bluejays because he read they eat the eggs of other birds), and more.

Recently, though we’ve seen –

a wonderful roadrunner who looked like a baby. He sat in the dish of one of our deck planters, then finally made it over to the shovel bird and found sunflower seeds in the shovel part.  We see full grown roadrunners from time to time in the summer, running in their characteristic, comedic way, where they put their head and tail down to form a kind of horizontal line with their body, run like mad for a few feet, then stop putting head and tail up – frozen as they survey their surroundings – and then the ‘horizontal line’ runs again as they cross the yard.

We also saw –

TWO robins! I guess we probably have a lot of these around, but recently was the first time we remember actually SEEING them on our deck railings and feeders. I realized that I didn’t know if we were seeing two males, or two females, or a pair. I found this –

 

So we saw two males – meaning that we hopefully have at least two pairs of robins close around!

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January 13, 2018 · 11:35 am

Sow What?

mycraftilyeverafter

I’m gathering suggestions as to what to start when – and a bit on how – in my new greenhouse!  My goal is to be ready to start some plants the middle of March. I’ll have to see what the temperature is in the greenhouse, since I don’t have heat out there, but if it’s too cold, I can start the seeds in the house and move them out there later.

 

Our greenhouse is 10×14. It is not heated or cooled with electricity because it would cost us a fortune. We do have the ability to have lights, and we do have an automatic venting system tied to the thermostat, so we can get reasonable ventilation in there, particularly when I leave the door open at the opposite end of the greenhouse.

So far I just moved things out there and stashed them somewhere. I’m giving some thought now to storage and work areas.

 

I would like to keep as much table area as possible for either planting seeds or staging the plants I’ve started. If we have some warmer days (like in the 40s or so) I’ll try to start moving things around, trying to get organized for the initial planting. I’ll take pics as I make some progress and share them with you. I’m hoping that I can stretch my growing season, growing my own plants to transplant out to the square foot garden when they’re ready and the danger of frost is past.

 

Our square foot garden used to look like this, with two rows of boxes on the ground.

 

Now we have six 4’x4′ boxes at chest level so I can replenish the Mel’s Mix in the boxes, mark the squares with string, plant, weed, and harvest without having to bend over or kneel down on the ground.  The boxes have a fence all the way around them, reinforced with chicken wire to keep critters out. We have an automatic irrigation system set up.

I’m dreaming about plants, greenhouses, and glorious harvests this spring!

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Filed under Arkansas, Dreams, Gardening, greenhouse, Greenwood, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds

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December 27, 2017 · 9:50 am

Mr. Bountiful

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My husband and I work in harmony each morning to get all the animals fed, breakfast fixed and eaten, dishwasher unloaded, and our basic chores done.

He usually takes the animals out first thing, stopping at our big bucket of sunflower seeds in the garage to take out to the deck for the birds. We put out both sunflower seeds and the small seeds you see in the picture above.

After he comes in and we are sitting at the dining area table for breakfast, it’s like the memo went out – “Mr. Bountiful has come!”

All of a sudden we’re awash in lots and lots of birds of all stripes bouncing from feeder to feeder, plus a squirrel or two, entertaining us as we eat.

We put a special squirrel feeder up, right on the other side of the window. It has a gallon glass bottle held up by a wooden closure. The squirrel has to come into the wooden enclosure and then stretch out to get the seed in the bottle. We get a really great look at him. There are little pointy-headed birds that also use this feeder, popping in and out with regularity.

With the birds and squirrels outside the window, our two dogs and two cats sitting on the floor around the table, and the fish happily eating in their aquarium, we feel happy and rich.

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Filed under Amazing Animals, Arkansas, Delightful Surprises, Family, Favorite Things, Greenwood, Mother Nature

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