My Stunted Garden

 My first strawberries! They were so tasty. Can't wait till more ripen.

 This is one of my garden boxes with different things in it. It started out with only strawberries and onions in it, wintered over from last year. A bunch of the onions died and I didn't want to take a chance replanting the berries so I left things where they were and planted lettuce, brocolli, dill, and cabbage (I think) in all the empty spaces. You notice the milk cartons. This is the way you have to plant in Northern Arizona to protect the plants from the wind and sun.

 The milk cartons not only make little green houses, they also give the plants shade. When the plants are strong enough and big enough that the birds and mice will leave them alone, the cartons will come off for the summer.

 I cover the tomatoes up every night but leave them uncovered during the day.

 I made these tomato cages last year using hog wire and compactor trash bags. The trash bags are so darned sturdy, they last for a couple of years. This not only gives the plant shade but keeps the ground moist after watering. I need to get some sturdy tomato cages pretty soon. The plants surrounded with the trash bags seem to grow faster than those left unprotected.

 Sweet taters! We never get many but they sure do taste good.

Looking down into a tomato cage

 If I remember correctly, these are cantaloupes. Ya have to replant so many times, ya forget what went where. I'm not a good one for taking detailed notes unlike our neighbor Tom who takes notes on everything. He can tell you what the temperature was 4 years ago!

 These are early girl tomatoes. I have these, Mortgage Lifter, Pruden's Purple and grape tomatoes.

 The strawberries are doing best of all.

 I keep them covered 24/7 to keep out the birds and mice.

 My Moss Rose is doing nicely especially since it is protected from mice and birds.

 Lavendar is starting to bloom. It does well here.

 Desert Spiderwort is doing great. The rabbits figured out they could at least eat the tops off the plants. Last year they were turning the cages over and eating as far down as they could.

 Petunias do great here. I'll bring some in for the winter but not all of them.

 Moss Rose again. It was doing great until something ate it down to the dirt level

 For some reason, purple petunias smell so good, kinda spicy

 I got so tired of my lemon tree in the house, I took it outside where the wind promptly blew off all the leaves.

 It seems to love it outside because it is not only putting out new leaves but is putting out new branches.

 This is the second or third year for my Peony. It has never bloomed....maybe this year?

One of our wild cactus. It's amazing how something so prickly could put out such a delicate flower.

We had a jack rabbit nibbling on the straw bale by the garden and was driving the dogs nuts. He didn't mind them barking at him and when we tried to chase him off, he would go a few feet and then stop. Pa finally got out the pellet gun and shot him. Well of course all Tilly could think of was bunnie, bunnie, bunnie so we let all the dogs out to investigate. Tilly dashed out and "killed" the bunnie and then tried to pick it up. She couldn't figure out why she couldn't pick it up. Maybe because it was bigger than she is? She couldn't even drag it anywhere. Meantime Harley was licking it's face, he's got such a killer instinct! Pa finally picked it up and threw it out back for the ravens to eat. He said it was surprisingly heavy.
The weather has turned hot and next week is the official start of our monsoon season. Come on rain! The garden will really start growing then.
Pa is calling me outside to do something so I gotta run!

Been Craftin'

 Since the wind has been so nasty, I've spent the past two days making some cards for my mom.

 I found some pictures of desert sunsets and desert scenery on the internet and printed them out the same size as the first layer of my card.

 Used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out designs, distressed the card stock with Tim Holtz Rusty Hinge distress Ink and Stampin Up Cajun Craze.

 Mounted the pictures behind the cut outs, glued that onto some matching cardstock and then mounted everything on a folded card.

 I'm really pleased with how they turned out. My fingers are permanently died rust color. 

 After making 12 different cards, I'm kind of tired of Southwest.

 My mom will like them tho. She doesn't have the internet or email so she sends cards out by snail mail.

 Unfortunately, my computer decided to shut down right in the middle of some cuts, ruining a half sheet of card stock. It also cut off my cutting program so I lost all the designs I made for the cards. I swear I saved them but can't find them anywhere. Luckily I  literally have thousands of cutting files saved on a flash drive so I was able to make the last 4 cards and stay with my Southwest theme.

 My crafting mojo took a vacation after making all those flowers so it was nice to feel creative for the last two days.

 If the wind doesn't stop soon, I'm going to go crazy, run down the road naked, screaming. Not that it will matter since no one lives near us. The wind wouldn't be so bad if you didn't get sand blasted along with it.

 The wind sure doesn't help the garden at all. I ran into Show Low today to take care of some things and bought some yellow squash, some zucchini and a couple of cukes. Will plant them tomorrow. The checker at Walmart gave me the name of an ortho doctor in Show Low. Said she heard good things about him so maybe I'll give him a call.

Hmmm, got a little glue on the front of this one. Maybe Ma can send it to some one she doesn't particularly like, ha ha.

You should have seen Tilly and me last night. We were chasing a mouse all over the house. She kept trying to get into a desk drawer in the kitchen so I opened the door and a mouse jumped out and ran into the pantry. She was so focused on the drawer, she wasn't paying attention to me yelling " Here! here! Tilly it's in here!" Finally grabbed her and shoved her in the pantry and things started to fly. Harley decided to help so we were all running around, sniffing here and there. Well, the dogs were sniffing. I was yelling. Tilly almost got the mouse but it ran out of the pantry back into the desk drawer. I opened the drawer and here are two little beady eyes staring at me. We were both equally freaked out. By the time Tilly got back to the drawer, the mouse jumped out and ran into Pa's office and hid behind the file case. I gave up and set two mouse traps. After we went to bed I heard a SNAP and I gave a satisfied chuckle. This morning, both traps had mice in them. That makes a grand total of 11 mice caught in the house so far this month. I guess the word's gotten out that we run a nice mice motel. I put out 5 little boxes of D-con outside and they were gone over night. Honestly, I'm a clean person and have a fairly clean house. You'd expect all those mice in a hoarder's home, not in a new home. I bought 4 big boxes of d-con today which will go outside around the garden. I need to buy it by the bucket full until we get the mice under control. I'd like to get an outside cat but since the coyotes ate the last one, I don't think it would be worth it.

That catches us up for now! Ta Ta!

I DID IT!

It took me 1 year 7 months but I finally finished reading the entire Bible from cover to cover. This is the second time I've read the entire thing. I just wish I could have retained everything I read. As is always the case, my favorite books are Proverbs and Psalms. I've also been reading the book my daughter , Cathy got me, "Jesus Calling" by Sarah Young which I enjoy so  much. Daily nuggets to read and apply to my life. Now I have to decide if I want to start all over and read the Bible all the way thru again. Maybe this time I should take notes. I find the Old Testament to be so fascinating, just from the historical point of view. The main thing I got out of the Old Testament is that God is a God of second chances....and third and fourth. Those people of old kept getting rescued over and over by God and still kept turning away from Him and he kept taking them back. Thank God, he still does that today. I can't count the many times I've fallen off the path and got back on.

Got the garden all planted. Every thing looks so sad. The sun really does a number on the seedlings which is why they are covered either by shade cloth or milk cartons. It looks like I am growing milk instead of veggies.

 One of our snakes came out for a visit. I should put him in the house so he could eat the mice. We've caught 9 mice in the house this month! Aren't they supposed to go outside in the spring and do mice things? The other morning I went to use the guest bathroom and found two mice in the toilet. One drowned and one looking up at me with those beady little black eyes. I just flushed those little suckers right down the pipe. May they rest in peace!

 Anyway, the snake lives under one of the containers. We have 3 or 4 of them now. They are so beautiful.

 Even tho everything is covered, all the plants look so sad. The milk cartons act like a mini green house plus shade the plants. Once they get a good root set going and get used to the sun, I'll take the milk cartons off and then the mice and birds can eat them!

 My strawberries are doing great so far. They've been covered with a shade cloth since day one so haven't suffered sunburn. They are getting blossoms on them so hopefully we'll get some berries before the mice get them. I'm putting D-con in the garden today so hopefully the critters will die before anything ripens. I've gotten to the point where I don't care if the Towhee birds eat the D-con. I was planning on shooting them with the pellet gun. They are fun to watch but so destructive in the garden.

 Good thing we save our milk cartons all year long.

 There are some pepper plants and broccoli in here. I planted some other peppers and cauliflower in another section of the garden and put some shade cloth over it. The wind came up and blew the shade cloth back and forth which acted like a lawn mower and cut them all down. End of those poor things. Gardening is so hard here in NE Arizona. If the sun doesn't kill your garden, the wind will. You also have to water every single day since it is so dry here. This may be my last garden unless we get some kind of hoop house and some decent gardening soil.

 I made this lattice thing to hang some plants from so the mice and rabbits would leave them alone. I got the planters from Dollar Tree. I think they are waste buckets. I cut some wire to form handles which I looped over the lattice. There are Petunias, Marigolds and some Nasturtiums. I hate to see everything die over the winter so bring a lot of plants inside and baby them. I got so tired of watering all those plants so may just let nature take it's course this year.

 Finally the lilac bushes are looking healthy in their little prisons. Everything you plant here has to be protected by some kind of barrier to keep the critters from devouring it.

The spiderworts are doing great. I transplanted these a couple of years ago from the field next door. Without the cages, the rabbits would eat them all. I read that people can eat these also.

The fence is all finished in the front of our property. Pa and I worked out butts off and got it done in less than two weeks. The gate is gone from the road. We heard we are going to get another letter from the POA because after we took the gate down, we temporarily put a chain across the road to keep the cows out while we were fencing in the front. Wouldn't you think they would know it was only temporary when they could see we were fencing in the front? Pa and I drove all over the north side of the ranch and found all sorts of properties that were not in compliance with the CC&R's. Just about anyone who fenced in their property, put the fence too close to the road. We took pictures and notes and are planning to do the same on the south side of the ranch. Then after we get our letter, I want to see an attorney and have him write to the POA and ask them to provide him with a list with other properties they targeted just to make sure we aren't being singled out for personal reasons. Our POA president says there are no exceptions which makes him the biggest hypocrite because one of his properties is a dumping ground, covered in old dried up wood that is blowing all over the ranch and is a terrible fire hazard. The CC&R's clearly state that you can't use your property as an uncovered storage area. He tore down a bunch of buildings and dumped all the wood on one of his properties. It's been there so long, it's useless and all dried up. We got lots of pictures of that!

I've been having trouble with my right knee. I can hardly put any weight on it. It's not the front of my knee but most of the pain is in the bend of the knee. Last night, my right calf was pretty swollen. I've tried ice and heat. The heat gives me the most comfort. Sometimes it feels like the knee is going to bend the wrong way when I walk. The front of the knee is swollen a bit also. I'm too old to be in pain so , yes, I'm calling for a DR. appointment. You know, I have to be dying to call a Dr. so you can imagine how much this hurts.  Plus Pa is tired me limping around and groaning in pain.

Lets see, what else is new? I got a hair cut this past week. My hair was so damaged and dry, the stylist said I really needed a hot oil treatment. She also said I need to come in every six weeks to get a trim till all of the split ends are gone. She asked when I last had my hair cut. Professionally, it's been years so I told her I whacked at it a couple years ago. She just shook her head. I don't have any pictures but it is basically a long shag. She cut about three inches off the back and layered it. Gosh, it feels so light now! I hated to get it layered because my main goal was to get it all one length so I could braid it and forget about it. Ah, the price we pay for beauty!

Pa really got after Tom the other day because of his AT&T phone. You can barely get two words out and lose the call. He has to stand on top of his 5th wheel to get a signal and that's iffy. Pa finally blew up and told him what a cheap @$$ he was. He is on his sister's plan which cost him $10.00 a month. We've offered and offered to put him on our Verizon plan. With taxes and all , it will cost him $14.59 a month. He finally agreed but I told him I wouldn't do it unless he let me buy him a phone like ours which is a 3G Barrage phone. It is heavy duty, lightly water proof and works all over the ranch.  I just got one for Pa off of Ebay. He agreed so I bought one off Ebay for Tom and it should arrive shortly. He refuses to keep his phone on because he doesn't want to be bothered by the world. We told him to just not answer if he doesn't want to talk to anyone! Plus it is harder on the battery to turn it off and on. One nice thing about the Barrage, it charges up in 15 minutes and stays charged for a week or more being on all the time. I'll have to ask the Verizon people to give him a pep talk. Pa has been helping Tom to get his truck fixed. He hasn't had any transportation for a month. He ordered parts and apparently needs more parts so ordered them yesterday. We took him to Show Low with us Wednesday so he could buy groceries. When he goes alone, it takes him the entire day to shop and he gets home after dark. That's only visiting 3 stores! When I go, I get there by 8 , visit 6 or 7 stores and am on the way home by 11:30 a.m. He can't believe it. But then, he has to compare every price, talk to every person he sees, compare more prices ( this bottle has 30 pills, each pill lasts for 4 hours is is such and such a price. This bottle has 20 pills, lasts for 6 hours and cost such and such a price. Which is the better deal?) Imagine doing that with nose spray, this bottle requires one spray up each nostril, this one requires 2 sprays up each nostril, this one has x amount of liquid in it and this other one has x amount of liquid in it and this is the price. If I shopped this way, I'd hang myself!!!!!  Ya gotta love him tho. He's really funny and entertaining and is a good friend plus being my garden mentor.

Well, friends and family and who ever else reads my blog, that's it for now. Yak at ya soon!

Shanty Town Garden

First of all, I just had to share this picture of my Grand-daughter, Sarah. Isn't she just beautiful? She was all gussied up to go to her boyfriend's senior prom. Seeing this picture just took my breath away.

 We have our first hummingbird of the season. I can hear you thinking, "Oh no, another summer of hummingbird pictures!"  Ha, ha, you are probably right.

 Since this was the first one, he/she can claim property rights and spend the entire summer chasing the other hummers away. We've already seen another one. Pa said they buzz his hat that has a red brim when he is puttering around outside.

 We tore out part of the garden fence to haul all the sand out of it. Wayne came over to drill some holes with his auger to help Pa fence the front of the property to make the POA happy. I asked him if he would take a few minutes to scrape the sand out of the garden.

 You can see how deep the sand is by where the shovel sits in the ditch where the fence was.

 Kind of hard to get any sense of depth, but just think at least 6 inches deep.

 We wanted to just scoop some sand  up but Wayne had other ideas.

 He used the back end of the tractor and scrapped out way more than 6 inches. A lot of my garden soil went with it. He dragged it over to the field. So I am back to square one with the garden.

 He dumped a couple buckets of horse poo in after he was done. I raked it all over and will roto till it after we get the front fencing done to our property. Won't do much good to plant yet because it is supposed to freeze tonight. My new strawberries are really doing well tho. If it freezes, my asparagus will freeze again.

 We decided to line two sides of the garden with corrugated roofing, hoping that would keep some of the sand from blowing in. Not too pretty but if it works, I don't care.

 Remember when you were a kid and went on Sunday drives and you would see junk yards or those road side zoos? They were always surrounded by corrugated roofing, rust and all.

 Pa said it reminded him of Shanty Town so I will have to make a sign saying "Shanty Town Garden".

With my expert help......we got two strands of barbed wire strung on the short side of the fence along with rehanging the gate. It now goes across our drive way. We are going to keep it locked and give keys to a couple of friends. Don't know what is going on in Wayne's head but as soon as he drilled holes for the pipes and rail road ties, he took off like he was on fire. I had planned on inviting him for dinner but he didn't even stop in to say bye. I told Pa that I felt weird feelings coming off him in waves like he really didn't want to help or even be here. I think the only reason he helped was because we've done so much for him. People are so strange out here. One minute they are your best friend and the next minute they don't want to have anything to do with you. I told Pa I am done helping people. DONE, DONE, DONE. Ok, there are a couple , three exceptions but I'm done being used.

 For the past couple of weeks, I've been making a bouquet for my mom for Mother's Day. Everything except the Spanish Moss is made from card stock, even the ferns and vase.

 I've got it all wrapped up and ready to send. I'll probably faint when I go to the post office to mail it but heck, my mom is worth it.

All the flowers were so time consuming! I got to the point where if I saw another flower, I was going to scream! But I had to keep going so I had enough to fill the vase. I hope it goes thru the mail ok. She may have to fluff the bouquet out a bit.

Pa and I celebrated out 18th wedding anniversary on the 26th of April. We made each other a card and neither one of us even put it in an envelope. Celebrated is stretching it a bit as it was just another day in paradise. He did his thing and I did mine. I cooked dinner, he did the dishes and that was that. Having never been married this long, is this normal? Oh well, it works for us.

Since starting seeds in the house, we have little fruit type flies all over the place! They came with the planting soil. I will be so glad when I can plant everything in the garden and get it out of the house. Usually I put a flea collar on top of the soil and that kills them off but we have so many trays of seeds, it just isn't possible. So when the time comes, I'll gently take the trays out side along with the majority of the flies and that will get rid of a lot of them. I usually bake the soil in the oven first but I had too much soil and didn't want to take the time to do it. Maybe we'll get a bug bomb and set it off in the house after I get the seedlings planted.

Poor Pa, this fencing business is exhausting him! We have to get it done as soon as possible so the cows can't get in and eat my fruit trees. The cows have so over grazed the ranch, there are very few places that still have any grass standing so I know they are just waiting for the chance to come and eat ours. Not as long as I have a pellet gun and Pa has his sling shot!

Alrighty then, that catches us up for now. Toodles!

Such a discouraging week!

   I have been so down this week. The only bright spot was getting so see P and B and having M and E over for dinner one evening. We haven't seen M and E for almost a year. They own property here at the ranch. They are such a lovely couple, we really like them and wish they could move here full time. Unfortunately they have to wait till they are old enough to retire. I told them that by the time they retire, we'll be dead of old age!
   The wind has been getting me down. It has blown in 6 inches of sand into my garden space. The only part that is pretty much sand free is where I placed my planter boxes. That leaves 60 % of the garden under sand. I started digging the sand out but after 3 wheel barrel loads, the wind started up again and my back was hurting. I dug out my poor asparagus so their little heads were above the sand. Not that it did much good because we have had freezes the past couple of nights and their heads were frozen. It didn't hurt the roots tho so they should make a come back.
   Pa's truck has been broken for a couple of weeks. He finally got it to run after replacing the spark plugs and plug wires yesterday. We washed all the mud off of it from rescuing Wayne.
 UPDATE 4/23/2013 I removed my ranting. My daughter said I sounded pathetic. I'ts amazing what rage does to you. Tried to shovel more sand out of the garden but my friend, the wind, showed up so it was fruitless. Told Pa that this is my last year for gardening. I'm tired of fighting the sand. We need a hoop house, like that will ever happen. Wayne said he would bring his tractor over so we could put railroad ties in where needed for the fence that we have to put in. Pa and I are going to Show Low tomorrow to buy barbed wire. He went to the scrap yard today and his friend who works there gave him a killer deal on fence posts. Bless his heart!
 

Spring....Part 2?

     Old man Winter and Spring have been battling it out for the last couple of weeks. One day it's in the 70's and the next it is in the 40's. Makes life interesting for sure!
     My friend Nancy and I went to Springerville/Eager to pick up our Bountiful Basket order last Saturday. I ordered two regular packs, the Italian pack and bread. I also volunteered to help  sort produce into the baskets and got an extra asparagus for helping. My fridge and freezer are so full, you couldn't get a gnat's butt in there anywhere.

 Mini peppers

 Seedless tangerines or mandarin oranges, like Cuties, only a bit bigger.

 Asparagas

 Strawberries, which were incredible. Not at all like the ones you buy in the store.

 Grape tomatoes, again, just bursting with flavor.

 Eggplant, peppers, parsley, onions, garlic. I gave an eggplant to Tom. When I was forced to eat it as a child, I threw up right in my plate! My parents never made me eat it again. Honestly, it tasted like slime.

 This is basil, I think. It sure smells good and tastes great.

I had so much parsley from last time, I let the birds eat the it. I froze a bunch of parsley in ice cube trays with water.
    So Monday, we had winds up to 64 MPH. I think it blew that hard most of the day. My garden has 6 inches of sand in it. There is no way I can dig out that much sand so I will roto-till it and hope not too much damage has been done to the soil.  We woke up Tuesday morning to 3 inches of wet, soggy snow. It melted pretty fast but continued to snow all day. The snow didn't stick but it was cold. Thank God for our wood stove! It kept us warm and toasty all day.

Pa made stir fry. OMG, it was delicious! Who cares about snow when you can have Stir Fry?

     Wednesday morning at 6:30 the phone rang. It was Wayne. Turns out he decided to go to town on Tuesday during the nasty weather and on his way home, he drove off the road , here at the ranch. The roads were soggy and slippery so of course he got stuck. Instead of calling us Tuesday, he spent a cold, chilly night in his car. He used up all his gas trying to keep warm. He had groceries in his car and the dogs ate his hamburger. Doesn't this sound like a comedy? Pa went to rescue him in his just washed truck and got stuck himself!!! Pa had to call another neighbor with four wheeled drive to come and rescue him. When Pa got home, his truck was caked in mud, inside and out. He was not a happy camper.
    Thursday, Pa decided to go to town to pick up a weeks worth of mail. The roads had dried out except for a couple of pot holes. I called him to tell him that he left the package pick up slip in my truck and guess what? His phone was ringing in his office!!!  A little later, my phone rang with a strange number on the screen. I wasn't going to answer it but glad I did. It was Pa. His truck died on one of the ranch roads and wanted me to come and pick him up. I had just spent 3 hours on Sunday, washing my truck inside and out and my heart sank. But duty/love calls, so mud be damned!  Turns out a nice rancher, not our local rancher, stopped by to see what Pa needed and loaned him his phone. I knew I had packages in the mail so suggested we just go on into town and get it. Once we were there and read the sale ads, we also went to Springerville and picked up a few groceries. When we got home, Pa ran down to Tom's to get help towing his truck back to the house so he could work on it.
   It has warmed up considerably today. A good day to work on the truck. Unfortunately, the truck is not co-operating and doesn't want to get fixed. I hope we don't have to tow it to town! I'm on my third load of laundry and also working on something for a Mother's day gift for my Mom.
  We will be having visitors in the next few days. Our friends who own property at Sierra Highlands are moving here, kinda.They don't have a house yet so will spend time between Sierra Highlands, Show Low and So. Arizona.  And our friends from San Diego are coming here to the ranch to visit their property. Pa is making dinner for our guests, bless his heart!
    alrighty!  That catches us up for now. We sure hope a certain someone has enough sense to stay inside during bad weather from now on.