handsful

Caught this guy hanging out on my coneflowers the other day…love his color.  Thankfully, he wasn’t eating the flowers.

Took this from the back deck.  The field gets cut one day, then a day or so later they bring in this funny tractor attachment that stirs it all up so it dries.  Another tractor comes next to push it into rows.  Finally, it’s baling day!  I love watching all this, if you can’t tell.

We had a few sunflowers this year, including this monster one (see the smaller ones beside?).  We harvested some of the seeds for next year, and will share the rest with the birds.

Think we need an extension ladder?  We’ve been needing to clean the spider webs from around the top windows for a while.  Today, Randy got creative with the tallest ladder we have, an extension pole, and a duster head.  Yes, it made me nervous to watch him.  Wondering about the tire?  We might use it for a tire swing.

Randy finished the mowing today.  This is down by our shop building, with the area in front where we have bonfires.  With as much land as we have, it can sometimes take a couple of days to get all the mowing done.  The boys usually help with another rider and a push mower, but they ditched him today for a day at an amusement park in Charlotte.

Walking back up towards the house.  We desperately need to add more gravel to our driveway.  And, see the very overgrown garden on the right?

And, there you have it.  A few random shots around our house.

I love it here.

We had a wonderful garden last year, full of tomatoes, beans, peppers, corn, watermelon, and cantaloupe.  With the weather warming up, we’re preparing to start again.

But, the winter was unkind to the garden and it was a big mess of dry weeds and grass.  How to begin?

Weed-eat it?  Mow it?  Till the soil and grass together?

Thankfully, our wise neighbor Mr. Fesperman showed up.  He’s lived across the street for decades, everyone knows and respects him, and he owns about 200 acres of land.

Burn it.

My response:  Really?  Are you sure?  I mean, is it safe?  How do we control it??  What if it gets OUT of control?  And, what if…

Randy’s response:  Now, where did I put those lighter sticks…

He started the darn thing before I was even down there to help!  What was he thinking?!?

And, notice that Randy is IN the fence.  Counting on the wind to blow the fire AWAY from him and down the garden.

Did I mention he had ONE hose?  The rest of us were watching like hawks, yelling “hey, over here!” and “watch that left side!” and “Oh, oh, it’s coming this way!!”

I was amazed at how fast the fire swept through.  Obviously, the wind helped it along.  At one point, the wind turned and was blowing the OTHER way, but it switched back quickly.  Yes, I was nervous.

Right about now, Randy yells “I can’t see a thing”.  Oh good, cause it’s not like seeing anything would be HELPFUL right now!!

See Randy behind all that smoke?

Almost to the end…

And, finished.

After he sprayed it well to make sure nothing else was smoldering, he let it sit a while to cool off.

Then, it was time to do the first pass with the tiller.

So, the moral of the story is…

Randy can handle himself when it comes to fires.

Burning the garden is definitely the quickest way to a freshly tilled garden.

And, always listen to Mr. Fesperman.

While Randy and I were dating, we made plans for our future, like all young couples do.  We were going to have 2 (maybe 3) kids.  I would work for a while, and then stay home to take care of those kids.  Eventually, we would buy an old farmhouse (to fix up) that sat on 10 acres.

Stop laughing.

We hit it outta’ the box on the kid thing.  I worked up until Abbey was 16 months old, and then called it quits.  My job for the last 12 years has been home school mama.  This house was move-in-ready and although it’s not really a farmhouse, I couldn’t be happier.  The acreage thing worked out, too.  We currently have 11, and are looking at our options to buy the other 8.  A good bit of that extra land is wooded, so last Saturday we decided to check it out.

Marley, Payton, and Ethan were away for the weekend at friend’s houses, so it was just the 6 of us….including Abbey’s friend, D’Qota.

D’Qota was kind enough to give Dylan a lift…the terrain was hard to maneuver for the little guy.

It was chilly…by the way, WHERE is Spring?  But, quite beautiful.

D’Qota proved himself to be quite the spider monkey.  He shimmied up a tree faster than I could contemplate doing it.  Jumped down from said tree, at least 10 feet.  The guy has no fear.

We came up to a big crevice with a big tree across it.  We were a little astounded to discover it was a dumping ground from (most likely) the previous owner.  We decided to investigate a little.

A set of twin mattresses, large chest freezer FULL of yucky water (thankfully, Randy and D’Qota were able to dump it over), electric fan, liner of an old pool, flower pots, 2 (yes, 2) clock radios, various bottles and glass, an old steering wheel, and a full set of electric curlers.  In other areas, we found the back axle of a truck, a rusted metal plow attachment for a tractor, and at least 20 hub caps.

Not even sure what to say.  I mean, seriously!?  Why in the WORLD would anyone just dump this stuff in the woods?  Why is that easier than taking it to a…oh, I don’t know…a DUMP?  Now, we’re trying to figure out if clearing all of this is our responsibility or if we should ask the current owner of the land to clear it before we buy.  Talking to our realtor on that one.

Abbey and D’Qota did go back and gather the hub caps.  Randy is going to use them to decorate a wall of the Shop, after the kids get them all cleaned up.

D’Qota was the only who actually got down into the bottom and found all this stuff.  He obviously likes danger and adventure.

The littles were content to climb around the fallen trees.

I’ve always wanted land…spread out, country, no-one-else-close-by LAND.

This just might be it.

As much as I love our kitchen in this house, it’s not what I would have designed.  I’ve always envisioned a farmhouse kitchen…cozy and rustic.  Picture Olivia Walton’s kitchen :)  So, I’m trying to find little ways to make it more my own.

For instance, handles and knobs.  Replacing all of ours could have been $$$, but I found them in bulk on a popular online site.  See above?  Here’s a closer look:

Nice, right?  But, the knobs (being oblong) were constantly coming loose and becoming crooked.  Drove me bananas.

The new ones:

I love these!  Matte black finish, that resembles rawd iron.  And, the circles on the knobs match the ends of the handles perfectly.  And, they aren’t even from the same manufacturer.

I’d love to change out the pendant lights above the bar, and paint the bar stools.  Change the tile behind the stove.  Replace the tile floor with hardwood.

One thing at a time.  This will go slowly…

On Friday, the weather was clear.  Sunny, maybe mid 50’s.  No sign of winter weather at all.  That night, we had our bi-weekly Shop meeting and the kids were saying it was supposed to snow on Saturday.  Yeah, right.

That morning, it was cloudy, cold…and we saw a few light flurries.  Then, around 3pm it snowed.  And, kept on snowing.

We’d been out running errands, so as soon as we got home, the kids got snow-ready and headed down to the hill behind the shop.  Abbey missed out on all this, because she was on her way to Winter Jam in Greensboro.

I followed a little later, with camera in hand.

Marley didn’t let her boot stop her from playing in the snow.  Not sure what her orthopedist would say.  We won’t tell him.

This was Dylan’s first time playing in snow!  He’d seen it a couple of years ago, but he was still in his cast (from when he broke his leg less than a month after we returned from China with him) and couldn’t get IN it.  He loved it.

Watch out Dylan.

Jack loved it, too.

Best shot of the day, I think.

Payton stares deep into the camera, as he walks back up the hill.

belly sledding!

Best way to end a snow day?  Snow cream, of course.

Less than 24hrs later, the snow is just about all gone.  But, we’re thankful that we had at least one gorgeous snow day this year.

No, not for me! I could use one…but, this time I’m talking about our yard.

Since we moved here 5 months ago, we’ve gotten quite a bit done in the house. We’re mostly unpacked (storage rooms and garage an on-going project…), and the walls are slowly getting decorated.

The landscape, though? Completely neglected. It all looked nice when we moved here, but we quickly realized that they had slightly over-planted.

See? Layers upon layers of bushes and plants…that looked good when they were first planted. With not much thought into how they’d look AFTER they grew in. Combine that with the fact we’ve had zero time to do any weeding or maintenance…

A beautiful Japanese Maple that’s totally out of control. Blocks the entire porch area.

Down the side of the house

And, around the back. We have ideas for expanding the deck (it’s to the left of this photo) across the back of the house, this area is really a blank slate. One day…

Here’s a closer look…

and even closer…

We realized this wasn’t going to fix itself (ahem), so I visited our downtown garden center. It’s been there FOREVER, so I figured they might have a good reference for a local landscaper who needs work. Boy, did they ever. A husband and wife team spent about 5 days here.

Here are the results.

Wow, huh? Amazing how much better it looks…more open, spacious. Love it.

The Japanese Maple is now a smaller version of the original. I had no clue how to prune it. It would have looked like a hacked up tree in my hands! Larry said it had never been pruned before. I’m still not a huge fan of where it’s planted, but it does look so much better.

The bushes have a white look to them because that area was loaded with BEES and he had to treat it before he could work on it.

He also trimmed all the front trees, and mulched around them.

Around the side

and, the back. We planted a small gardenia there so far, I’m excited to plan the rest.

Having all of this done feels SO good. I’m thankful we found great landscapers who knew exactly what to do with our overgrown mess! I think the facelift was a success.

This post will chronicle my first try at putting up green beans. Not canning…haven’t made that jump yet! We’ve decided to freeze most of the beans, so I had to learn the process of washing, trimming, blanching, etc. These pics are from last Tuesday, but I did another 3.5lbs today. :)

4lbs, washed and ready to go!

Trimming the ends. This time, I cut each bean into about 3 pieces. Today, I snapped the beans into two. Lainey helped.

Brought the pot to a rolling boil, dumped the beans (in shifts) and blanched for 4 minutes.

Then, cooled them quickly in an ice bath for another 4 minutes.

Shiny, bright green and ready to bag!

I realized, when I cooked a bag last week, that I didn’t put enough in each. There were only 4 of us, and there was barely enough. I added more beans to each bag today. Our garden, canning, processing…it’s all a learning process :) And, we’re enjoying it all!