Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Spicy Bell Pepper

Forgot to mention that I've picked 30 of those Cajun Bell Peppers off of one plant!!!! There are still more on there. These aren't little peppers either. They are the size of regular bell peppers. I may just plant them and not the regular bells next year. Our tomatoes are not ripening. What the heck is going on with that? We have lots of them. On the Early Girl tomatoes, for every ripe one,we get one with blossom end rot. Every time a tomato ripens, those darned Towhee birds eat them. No vine ripe tomatoes for us. I have to pick them when they start to get pink. I've had a huge Prudens Purple just sitting there for a month as green as can be. The nights are getting colder so I hope I get some to can before it freezes and the garden is done. We really have to watch the night time temps now. If they predict a freeze, I'm going to cover as much as I can with blankets. Plus I want to bring in as many of my out door plants inside for the winter, the decorative ones in pots. My lemon tree, my hydrangea, my African Sumac tree, geranium , lantana, and so on. It will look like a forest inside the house during the winter but I can't stand to see them die. Of course it would help if I grew plants that do well in Northern Arizona and survive the winter on their own.

Fall is here early!

I am so disappointed!  I had a lot of pictures to show you but they seem to have disappeared from Picasa . There were picts of an outstanding rainbow. The brightest I've ever seen. It was so bright, it reflected pink onto the ground. There were picts of my garden in all it's glory. All gone. What a bummer to discover that I hadn't set Carbonite to back up Picasa. Well it is now.

So what have I been doing the past month? Not much! Been trying to figure out a way to get to Oregon to visit my mom. There are only 3 airlines that fly directly into Eugene. Allegiant is pretty much sold out. They leave from Mesa, AZ at 8 in the morning which means Pa and I would have to drive down the day before and leave the dogs alone all night. I checked on flights on United out of Albuquerque and I would have to fly to 6 other places before getting to Eugene so it would be an all day flight. Even flying to Portland out of Albuquerque is pretty much an all day thing. I considered flying out of Vegas on Allegiant but my daughter and her husband are going on vacation so they can't take me to the airport and pick me up a week later. I may put my plans on hold till spring. My mom gets too tired driving herself to the airport and flying so from now on, it will be me flying to see her. Or driving.  I found some nice tractors on Craigs List in Roseburg and Cottage Grove so am trying to talk Pa into taking Tom with him and driving to Oregon, rent a trailer and bring us home a  nice tractor. The prices are so much lower there than around here. Tom said he would love to go.

Went to the card making class last Saturday. Poor Katie, she works so hard getting the class ready and only 3 people showed up. I guess this will be the last class since it is costing her so much money. No use going in the hole. We got done with the class pretty quickly so Katie and I got the bright idea "Lets go to Flagstaff"! It's almost two hours from Holbrook and every thing closes at 9. We left around 3:30 or so and hit Flag with a bang. Tuesday Morning, Saver's, Michael's, Joann's, the Goodwill Weigh and Pay, and the regular Goodwill. Got a great cardstock deal at Tuesday Morning. Found a knife block at Savers. My old one kept falling forward with all the knives in it. We grabbed a bite to eat at Wendy's and munched on the way home. I left Holbrook at 10:21 and entered the ranch road at exactly 11:21 and got home at 11:45. Yes, I was speeding but there wasn't a single other car on the road either way until I was close to St Johns. We had so much fun! It's nice to do something different. We get into such a rut and routine.

I had two goals this summer. Go explore Big Lake and explore El Morro National Monument which is just around the corner from us, maybe 50 - 60 miles away. Well, trying to get Pa to go exploring is like getting hens to lay cement blocks. I checked the Internet for information on El Morro and discovered there is a fall festival October 5th & 6th which includes an art show and farmer's market. Ahhhh ha! Tom loves those things so I told Pa to tell Tom to save those dates. Pa will go  if Tom goes and will enjoy it more.

Something happened to my canned green beans so I had to throw them away. Guess at this altitude you have to pressure can them. When I lived in Illinois, I always canned 100 quarts of green beans using the water bath method. Live and learn!

We've had so much rain this year, goodie goodie. All the water we've put on the garden has been rain water and we still have over 3000 gallons stored. Our roads aren't in the best of shape but as long as we can get in and out, I'm not concerned. On the other hand, the roads out at Sierra Ranch are a disaster. One guy totaled his truck when the road washed out and left a huge hole across the road. It was dark so he couldn't see it. It's a miracle he wasn't killed. He had to hike 10 miles or more out to the road to get help. Some friends of ours who have property there got stuck and gave us a call to help them. By the time we got there, they'd dug themselves out. There was at least a 2 foot deep wash out across the road. After they crossed that, they decided to sleep in their truck and wait till morning so they could see the road.

A pack rat has decided to make my truck his home. He keeps building nests under the hood. Now before I go anywhere, I pop up the hood and check for nests. They can get pretty huge. Saturday, I had to clean out both sides of the engine before going to Holbrook. All that nesting material could cause an engine fire.

Hmmm what else? Been working on Christmas cards and cards in general. I need to find a way to sell them. Etsy is too crowded. Being in the boonies, no one will come out here if I put things on Craigs List. When Katie had things to sell at a craft show, most people just wanted to take pictures so they could steal the ideas for themselves.
 Made this decal for my Cameo.
 Had this visitor come thru the yard about a month ago
Birthday card I made for my grand daughter.

Pa is planning a trip to Reserve, New Mexico with Tom to get some fire wood. The guy gives Pa such a great deal. It's not far away and the drive is beautiful. Pa always has to keep busy. He's not one to sit around and read or do nothing. He's been splitting wood left over from last year so we have a pretty good stack already. He always seems to pick the afternoon to do this. I go out and stack while he splits. Problem is, I can't be in the sun much so after three wheel barrows full, I'm done. I keep telling him I'd be more help if he would do this in the morning. He's been helping our neighbors with their house. He plumbed in all the gas pipes which doesn't sound like much but we are talking about a huge, huge, quonset hut with two stories of rooms. It's pretty much two houses in one. There will be a kitchen upstairs and downstairs, 7 bathrooms. They want to be ready in case Doomsday comes so they will have room for their children and families. What they don't consider is if Doomsday does come, how will their children get there? They would have to travel cross country, stay off the roads, try to find gas, fight off zombies and the list goes on. We don't really worry about such things. If need be we will live off the land and eat range cattle.

Guess that catches us up for now. Sorry about the lack of pictures.