We Are Blessed - Garden - Circular Movement - Moon

This morning, I decided to cut the grass and cleanup the property, we had no real damage from the storms other than our corn lying down, our garbage can blew over, and a few branches were down on the property.  We were definitely blessed when those storms passed.

My poor above ground garden boxes desperately need help. Initially I used bamboo poles in the garden boxes to hold up the bird netting.  When the storms went through all the bird netting was ripped off the garden boxes.  Bulldog Man seen the frustration on my face and cut several of the 1x2’s we had picked up earlier from Home Depot.  He screwed the 1x2’s in each corner of all my garden boxes as stable posts to hold up bird netting.  On the larger garden box, he ran a complete 1x2 length-wise on the top of two sides for additional support. 

While Bulldog Man was attaching the 1x2’s, I was pulling up the remnants of kale (it was not growing, bad seeds) and transplanted 5 tomato plants in place of the kale. 

Notice on the large garden box an additional support running length wise in the middle of back.  Bulldog Man placed this to support the corn that blew over and was lying flat when the storms came through.  I have to say, Bulldog Man is wonderful in the garden.  Shhhh, don’t tell him, it may go to his head, lol. 

Back side of corn & complete view of large above ground garden box

Front side of corn

Green Chile plant growing like an octopus

Here are several pictures of the clouds forming circular movement during the start of the storms just over our house. 

Here is a picture of the moon beaming over the top of us tonight.

Bad Storms :-(

Everyone here is picking up their property from debris blown in from the storms last night.  We had bad thunderstorms, rain, hail, 85+ winds and tornadoes. Our hail size was about a quarter whereas; other areas of the state had grapefruit.  Round 2 will start 10:00 PM tonight.  We plan on being safe tonight and hunkering down in our safe space (the hallway) until the storms pass.

Anyone need a new car cheap?  There are all kinds of automobile dealers here with cars that were damaged badly from the hail and winds.  I can only imagine what type of discount one could get J  (teasing here).

***Blogger posting problems, are you having problems with paragraphs staying where they belong on your posts? 

Join - Thank You

I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Rose and Lotta Joy.  Thank you for joining my blog.  Hey Blogger friends, check out these blogs: Rose at Simple Everyday Living, and Lotta Joy at WITLESS RELOCATION PROGRAM  you won’t be disappointed. 

Ladies I am so happy to have you following my blog, please sit back and enjoy the ride.

*Clip Art from American-Online-cards.blogspot.com

Join - Thank You

I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Jane.  Thank you for joining my blog.  Hey Blogger friends, check out Hard Work Homestead blog, you won’t be disappointed. Jane has this beautiful farm and is living self sufficiently.  Glad to have you following my blog, please sit back and enjoy the ride.






*Clip Art by MyCuteGraphics.com

Shampoo - Conditioner - Garden - Ticked Off

I enjoy making my own hair shampoo and conditioner, this way I know exactly what’s in each container.  There’s no strange chemical name or number for a color I can’t figure out or pronounce.  The shampoo recipe was a previous post I copied and placed on this post.  As for the conditioner, I have yet to post it.

Make Shampoo (Recipe provided by Money Saving Queen)

Recipe   1/3 Cup Castile Soap, ¼ Cup Coconut Milk, ½ tsp of vegetable or olive oil.  Mix well (I use a mason jar and shake), place in an old shampoo bottle.

 

Make conditioner (Recipe provided by Money Saving Queen)

 

 

Recipe 2/3 cup water, 1 teaspoon melted coconut oil, ½ teaspoon Guar Gum (found at health food store, usually near the special flour and grains), and 10 drops essential oils of your choice (optional). Place in an old conditioner bottle or whatever bottle you have on hand.  *Only need to use a small amount when rinsing hair.

Bulldog Man and I went into town to purchase more wood to add to our garden boxes for netting support.  The existing bamboo poles are not holding up to the strong winds we’ve been having.  We also picked up potting soil.  I’m going to use some of my free food grade buckets as pots and replant several of the many tomato plants (that I don’t have room for in my raised gardens).  These projects will have to be completed in a day or two, when the temperatures are a little cooler.  It’s been too hot outside here. We are expecting rain with the potential of tornadoes tonight into tomorrow.  Then our temperatures are suppose to get back down into the 70’s and 80’s, instead of the high 90’s with humidity.

We’ve been also looking at used trucks with Tank. He’s been working diligently to save his pay checks along with the gifts from graduation to put toward a truck. This past weekend, we found a great looking 1995 Ford F150, extended cab Eddie Bauer edition, with a tool box in the back of the bed.  The price of the vehicle was within reason, there was a couple of minor door dings on the exterior and a little rear bumper damage to the back bumper.  The interior was fabulous; it had a dual gas tank.  The owner allowed Tank and Bulldog Man to test drive the vehicle.  We asked the owner if there were any problems with the truck, he stated “just a minor leak, nothing to really worry about”.  Okay, our next question, would he mind if we take the truck over to our mechanic to look at it so we know what we will have to do to the vehicle before buying it.  His response “no problem, I can’t do it today.  On Tuesday, I need to help my wife, Wednesday is better”.   This morning, I made the arrangements (since Monday was a holiday), with the mechanic to look over the vehicle.  I also called the owner of the vehicle to let him know we’ve made the appointment with the mechanic and to get his address to pick up the truck.  The owner was not home, I left a voice message at 9:07AM.  At 5:47PM, the owner called me back stating “I’m so sorry, I sold the vehicle yesterday. This man looked at my truck and had 100 dollar bills rolling out of his hand.”  (Needless to say, my son had money too) I was so ticked off, and I could think of choice words to call this man (like bastard oops….did I say that).   So tell me, what was this owner hiding?  Obviously, he didn’t want us to take the truck to the mechanic.  I know Tank will be totally disappointed when we break the news to him tonight when he comes home from work.   

 

 

Veteran's - Graduation - Garden

Happy Saturday Everyone!

I want to say “Thank You” to all our troops and veterans whom selflessly sacrificed dearly in order to protect our country and freedom.

This week has been a bit hectic with commitments regarding graduation practices, graduation ceremonies, high school picnics and family / friend gatherings. But in the end our son, Tank (Dakota) graduated from his technical school and high school with excellent grades. Bulldog Man and I are extremely proud of Tank. It’s so hard to believe our son is grown up. It feels like it was just yesterday that we were bringing him to school for the first time. Boy, do I feel old!!!


Technical Center Graduation, Dakota is on the Right





High School Graduation



We harvested the last of our spinach and decided to flash freeze it for a meal in the near future. 

Bulldog Man and I also thinned out our carrots in the garden, giving remaining carrots in the ground a chance to grow much larger.

I apologize for the short post; life has just got in the way this week.  I will catch everyone up on the next post. 

Oklahoma Prepping

For over a week our local News Channel 9 advertised a segment on prepping, making it sound as if you were going to learn something. Their commercials ran numerous times daily for approximately 5 days. “Tune in Monday, the 21st of May at 10:00PM for the story.” Okay, so Bulldog Man and I stayed up to tune into the segment. To our despair we were totally disappointed, the segment only last 2 minutes and 42 seconds and we learned absolutely nothing. Am I being petty, was I expecting to much? What are your thoughts?

Annular Solar Eclipse

Here are my pictures of the Annular Solar Eclipse, time 7:59PM Central Time.

Parallel Parking - Yard Sales - Car Show - A Treat - Garden Tool Find

Unusual for me, this morning I actually slept in until 8 AM.  I hurried and grabbed a shower since I promised Tank (our son) to take him out and into town to practice parallel parking.  He wanted to get familiar with this parking since he knows it’s on his driving test with the state (which he should be taking soon).  I have to say, he did a pretty good job parking, and of course driving.  On the way home, he noticed several yard sale signs and wanted to check out the sales.  So, we hit a few yard sales (I found this little tea pot, creamer and salt shaker for $1.00 total). 

We also came across a car show in town (and it was free).  We drove back to the house to pick up Bulldog Man (everyone in the family loves old vehicles).   We all headed over to the car show (the show was small, but we still enjoyed ourselves).  Here are a few pictures of (MY) favorite finds. 



Bulldog Man and Tank checking out the Mustang



Sweet truck and it has a surf board setup in the back for surfing

Afterwards, Tank wanted to treat Mom and Dad to a brief lunch at Whataburger (he’s very proud of his new job and treating his parents out).  We drove further into town, ate at Whataburger (nice little treat from our son) and then dropped Tank off at work (he just loves his new part time job).  Tank works at a Ranch/Home supply store.  They were having a sale on returned items.  Well, Bulldog Man and I were looking for a Roto –Tiller for the garden.  Guess what we found at the returned items sale?  A functioning, gas powered Roto-Tiller. We saved approximately $120.00 on this find today.  It looks like the tiller was used maybe once.  Bulldog Man looked at it thoroughly and it appears to be just fine.  Boy, I tell you this will save on our hands.  We’ve been doing all the work by hand for some time now.  Garden tools are very high on my wish list. 

I must be getting old, I had a headache and decided to lie down and take a nap.  The nap was nice, it helped with the headache and now I feel much better.

Have a great Saturday, and remember taking a nap is a good thing.  You may want to take advantage of this every now and then.

Welcome, Thank You, Join

I wanted to take this opportunity to welcome Tffnguy.  Thank you for joining my blog.  Hey Blogger friends, check out the Terlingua or Bust blog, you won’t be disappointed. Tffnguy states he’s a resourceful fun loving Texan.  He’s into classic cars, bikes, living off the grid, building stuff out of metal, guns and shooting them.  Glad to have you following my blog, please sit back and enjoy the ride.

Wicked Witch Of The West, Bye Bye Bugs - Radio - Cookies - Beans

When I went out today to check on the garden, I found flea beetles on the potatoes.  I mixed up a concoction of 2 parts alcohol, 5 parts water and 1 tablespoon soap (Dawn) in a spray bottle and sprayed the potatoes.  Hopefully, this will kill the little bastards!!!!!

I'll take care of you my little pretties (the wicked witch of the west)

Bulldog Man has been looking at two way radios.  Checking prices out, he decided to place them on our wish list for camping/bugging out/and use on the property.  He wanted the radio to have the following options:  30+mileage range, privacy codes, sos siren, call alerts, hazard/weather alert radio, direct call, vibrate alert, 50 channels, waterproof, head piece, chargeable batteries with option to use regular batteries.  He had checked several stores; prices were a little high and the options he wanted were not always available.  So the radios remained on our wish list, that is, until Tuesday night.  I was looking at two of our credit card bills on the computer  to see what we owed and when we will be paying them off when it hit me, hey silly goose.  Check and see if there are reward points available.  Lord knows, you haven’t used them and heck you already paid for the points.  Maybe you can get a gift (which you already paid for) by using these points.  I started looking at the computer to see what I can get for the amount of reward points we have. I’ll be a son of a gun, there’s the exact two way radio system Bulldog Man was looking for.  Sneaky me, I used ¾ of the reward points to get the radio system, and it arrived today.  We’re excited, one less thing we have wait to purchase on our wish list.

I made these awesome chocolate chip cookies today; the guys love them.  So do I, hehehehe….I can’t keep my fat fingers away from them. 

  

Best Big, Fat, Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie

2 cups all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

¾ cup unsalted butter, melted

1 cup packed brown sugar

½ cup white sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven 325, grease cookie sheet or line with parchment paper

Sift together the flour, baking soda and salt, set aside.

In a medium bowl, cream together the melted butter, brown sugar and white sugar until blended. Beat in the vanilla, egg, and egg yolk until light and creamy.  Mix in the sifted ingredients until just blended.  Stir in the chocolate chips by hand using a wooden spoon.  Drop cookie dough on to cookie sheet; bake 15 – 17 minutes until edges are lightly toasted.  Cool slightly on cookie sheet, after a few minutes remove and place on wire racks to cool completely.

*NOTE:  I would cut the chocolate chips down to 1 ½ cups (there were too many). I did not sift the dry ingredients and my cook time was 13 minutes.

Cookie recipe source: Allrecipes.com by ElizabethBH

Uh…oh, Beans (our silly dog) killed poor little hedge hog.  I don’t know if Mom is going to be able to surgically fix hedge hog this time.

Our plans for the weekend are to work around the house and property. What are your plans for the weekend?

Wood-Lunch-Apricots-Laundry-Beans

This morning was my time to finish up cutting the property with the recently fixed lawn mower (the new blade).  I made cutting the grass a two day event because it was just too darn hot out yesterday, 94 degrees. I made sure to cut it short, so I have more time in-between before having to cut again. At the end of the property we have a large stack of branches to be hauled off today.  From these branches we cut and harvested some wood for our portable wood cook stove and campfire and placed it next to our garage door (great for easy pickup and bug out if necessary).

Bulldog Man decided to come home from work this afternoon and join me for lunch.  So I whipped together an egg omelet, using a green pepper and onion from our garden.  Adding kale (yes, kale cut up real fine. I wanted to use it up before it turned), mushrooms and cheese.  I complimented the omelet with some toast.   Lunch was nice; it’s few and far between that my husband and I get to enjoy time together during the week at lunch.  I ended up using all of the eggs I had in the house at lunch, and I decided to make a run into town and pickup some locally harvested eggs from a farmer.  I will go out of my way to support a local farmer with his home grown/harvested vegetables, fruit, eggs, milk or meat.

Today, I came across an apricot tree.  How cool is that? I took several pictures and of course helped myself to a couple of apricots. 

I only took 4 apricots, what I really wanted to do is dig up the tree and plant it in our yard.

There is nothing better than stripping down the beds in the house and washing everything.  I love to hang things out on the clothes line in an effort to conserve energy (gas).  Plus everything smells so darn fresh.

When checking the garden and flower pots today to see how everything was growing, I realized, I have yet another pot of tomatoes that need to be split up and transferred to individual pots.  Also the potatoes in one location (sweet and white) appear to be growing like a banshee. 

Tomatoes needing transferring to individual pots

Potatoes Growing

Here’s Beans looking pathetic because he didn’t get to have his nap today, Mom has kept him up so he will sleep soundly tonight.

I also came across this beautiful flower, I think it’s an Alliums “Ivory Queen”.  I took a picture of it because I liked it.

Open Carry

On Tuesday, May 15^th Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed the open carry gun bill.  Governor Fallin stated this “sends a strong message that Oklahoma values the rights of its citizens to defend themselves, their family and their property.”  The new law will go into effect November 1, 2012.

Source: Chicago Tribune

Nice Surprise This Morning

I woke up to this beautiful moon at 5:00 AM this morning.

Happy Mother's Day - Garden - Update

Happy Mother’s Day!!!!!  My son surprised me with this beautiful watering can of flowers and a ginger bush (that he thought I could save since the place where he worked was going to throw it out).  He knows I love ginger.

The rain finally stopped and made for a beautiful day to work on the property.  After dropping Tank off at work in town, Bulldog Man and I started working on a big dead evergreen tree and several small oak trees that needed to be chopped down.  We were able to chop everything down to the stump when the chain saw decided it had enough and wanted a siesta.  Bulldog Man had to reset the chain back on the clutch.  We decided since the sun was beating down on us and it was getting hot, we would continue our work later in the day.  Besides, Bulldog Man wanted to take me out for a nice Mother’s Day lunch, so we needed to get showers and get to the restaurant in town before it got busy.  We had a fabulous lunch and then went to Academy to purchase a combination license for fishing and hunting (the season is starting and the freezer is calling).

Pile of dead and no dead trees chopped and ready to haul off

Stump to tackle

Update on the lawn mower I damaged/thought I destroyed. Bulldog Man raised the lawn mower and figured out I didn’t ruin the crank shaft, just the blade.  Thank God!!  Well not really thank God, we have to replace the blade again but it’s not as expensive as replacing a lawn mower.







Badly bent blade


 



The stump that destroyed the blade

I was able to pot several flowers in clay pots and place them on the back porch to make the porch a little more spring/summer like.

Looking through the bird netting, you can see my carrots, corn, and spinach, looking pretty good since the birds can’t get to them.

The kale is starting to pop up and looks good so far.

I harvested all of the onions from the garden box and prepped it to plant tomatoes.  I had 4 stacks of onions like this to clean, pack and share with some friends.

I removed some of the tomato plants from pots and placed them in a garden box. Hopefully, they’ll do a little better in the garden box.

All of my celery plants were targeted by birds and critters.  I decided to try planting another celery end in a bucket.  This time, I placed it under the bird netting on the back porch in hopes it won’t get eaten.

At the start of spring, my strawberries were looking really good in a planter, then one night we had a frost and I lost the planter of strawberries.  While in the process of clearing out the pot I found this seed with one big root.  It looks like an avocado.  I never placed an avocado in the planter; I think it came with the dirt when it was shoveled in the planter.  I placed the seed into a glass jar of water.  The seed produced additional roots and a long stem with leaves.  I decided to go ahead and plant the large seed in a bucket to see what turns up.