The Ultimate Sacrifice

Dear Heavenly Father,
As we remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom, we think of how they have followed in the footsteps of your son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Please hold our service men and women in your strong arms. Cover them with your sheltering grace and presence as they stand in the gap for our protection.

We also remember the families of our troops, and ask for your unique blessings to fill their homes and your peace, provision and strength to fill their lives.

May the members of our armed forces be filled with courage to face each day and may they trust in the Lord's mighty power to accomplish each task. Let our military brothers and sisters feel our love and support.

In the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Prayer, Prayer  For The Day.com

Spreading the Love

 Many of us know 1^st and 2^nd Man from the blog, Two Men and a Little Farm.   

They wanted to move from the busy city life, to a calm, more laid back, place like the country.  When a good friend (who was like family) offered to sell her country home and land to them, (because she wanted to move to Florida to be close to her son)  1^st and 2^nd Man bought the place, and started working to make their laid back, calm life, dream come true. 

If you follow their blog, you’ll notice weekly inspirational posts relating to gardens and flowers.  Ultimately, they have plans for gardens with beautiful flowers on the farm.  They’ve been working on clearing out old garden beds, old trees, built up bushes and vines, and leveling out areas to make beautiful flower beds, and green grass, instead of brown grass.

Recently they purchased bees, and have 2 beehives on the property.  Bee’s need pollen to survive, and to build their world; I would like to see their beehives succeed.  I’m sending some flowers seeds to help with their inspirations of planting plenty of flowers to feed their bees. 

If you stop by their blog and read their posts, you can feel the same excitement and happiness I feel when reading the words they’ve typed. 

Gail from At the Farm, and I wanted to reach out and help 1^st and 2^nd Man plant their garden.  Gail is working on a box of live plants to send, and I’m sending seeds I’ve saved from my garden last year.

How cool would it be to have Blogger friends volunteer to send a packet of seeds to help 1^st and 2^nd Man walk this path toward their dreams?  

If you would like to send our friends a packet of seeds or a box of real plants/flowers, stop by their blog, Two Men and a Little Farm and tell them Sandy over at Oklahoma Transient sent you, and ask for their mailing address.   

 

Has Anyone Seen Noah?

I just wanted to update everyone that we are okay here in central Oklahoma.

We had some excitement with tornadoes, rain, hail, winds, and flooding the past two weeks.  As I type this post, we’re under another flood warning, the rain is coming down like cats and dogs with all kinds of thunder and lightning. Expected wind gusts of 60 mph, with the potential of hail.  As the house shakes from the thunder, I’m happy we’re not under a tornado watch or warning as of right now. 

Hold for a minute………….

Crap, I spoke too early; our weather radios are screaming, we’re now under a tornado warning. There’s an area of rotation (hook) over the top of Purcell, and Lexington, and I am totally weather aware while typing this post.  In fact, my linen closet has my bug out bag, food, water, medical bag, security, ham radio, weather radio, and animal preps just in case I need to run for safety.

Okay, since the storm is south of us, I’m going to continue on with my post. 

Now, what was I saying……oh yes, several of you had asked if we were okay?  We all are okay; we did receive damage from winds, hail, rain, and flooding.  Our damage was mostly in the garden and on the property.  I’m okay with garden/property damage because no one in my family was injured from the storms.  Remember the quote, “Life is more precious than material things”.  Well that’s my thought!!!  I can replace things, but can’t replace family or friends.

I’ve started pulling destroyed vegetables and placing them in my compost pile.  My plans are to replant seeds, and seedlings, in the next couple of weeks, after these heavy rains subside.   

Pulling the messed up lettuce.

Bed cleared, I will replant in a couple of weeks.

I’ll need to replant lettuce, and some tomato seeds/seedlings.  My green beans received too much water; causing them to yellow and some leaves were also shredded. 

The onions continue to thrive, however; the tops (the stuff we use for green onions) were destroyed from the winds.  My strawberry plants have flooded; I’m still trying to baby them back to life. 

The cucumber leaves on the seedlings were beat up pretty bad, but the seedlings are continuing to grow.

I have water just sitting in the garden; it looks like a miniature lake.  Eventually it will absorb into the ground.

With all of this water, the bugs have come out, and they've started eating on my potatoes and purple cabbage leaves, celery, and green bean plants.  I continue to spray these vegetables with a homemade concoction to prevent the bugs from eating everything in sight.  Each time I spray the rain washes it away.  Requiring me to continuously spray these vegetables, my goal……not to let the bugs win!!!

The rain has even fed trees growing from under the metal fence.  Bulldog Man and I will have to cut these down when the rain stops and place salt along the fence line to kill off the plant and maybe the roots.

Updates on items in the garden which continue to grow:

A couple of tomato plants didn't get broken up, they’re now showing blossoms, I may just get some tomatoes after all.

Even though the green bean leaves are turning yellow, and are full of bites from bugs, they’re producing little flowering blossoms.

The cabbage plants have little bites on the outside leaves; however, they’re producing new leaves which tell me they've taken off pretty good.

I had picked up an Apple Mint plant, from Atwoods Ranch store, over a month ago, and this thing has taken off.  It seems to really like the little plastic pot it’s potted in.  This particular plant will take over your garden unless you confine it in a pot.  The Apple Mint or mint plants in general have several medicinal uses.    They help ease headaches/migraines, fevers, and sore throats.

My jalapeno and California peppers are all doing pretty well, because they’re in 5 gallon buckets under the canopy on the porch.

*****

I recently started learning how to crochet through You Tube, and made several dish cloths, a toilet paper roll cover, and now a camouflaged afghan for Bulldog Man.    I might as well learn now with all this rain, I can’t work outside on the property or in my garden. 

*****

Monday was the only day we had no rain, the sun came out, and Bulldog Man and I took in a baseball game in the big city.  Iowa vs. Oklahoma, Iowa won.  It was nice to just get out of the house and away from the water for one night.

Anyone need some rain?? 

Happy Mother's Day & Weather Update

Let me start my post out by wishing a Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who is a Mother. 

My guys surprised me with some flowers; they know I love daisies.  Bulldog Man bought me some hanging potted daisies, and Tank picked up a colored daisy arrangement. 

Weather Update:

The weather people advised this part of Oklahoma was in a tornado watch and to expect storms today.  What’s new?... I’m thinking to myself……  We’ve had storms the entire week; granted today, the skies were full of clouds ranging in color from white, to grey, and to black, with the sun peaking out. 

5:40 PM here……Crap.OLA, I spoke too soon!  It’s getting real dark outside, the sun disappeared, and the clouds are moving in a circular motion just above our home! 

Tuesday we had rain, winds, hail, thunder, lightning, severe winds, flooding and actual tornadoes in the area.  My garden rain gauge indicated we had a total 4 ½ inches of rain on Tuesday.

On Wednesday the same weather prevailed, my garden rain gauge filled to 4 inches of rain. Thursday we had rain, winds, hail, thunder, lightning; severe winds, some flooding, and my rain gauge registered 3 inches of rain.  Come Friday we had rain, winds, hail, thunder, lightning, severe winds, flooding, and my rain gauge registered 5+inches of rain.  I type 5+ inches because my gauge only goes to 5 inches.  I didn't have an opportunity to run out and dump the gauge in order to get a true picture of the total amount of rain received on Friday.   On Saturday it rained, the skies were full of lightning and some wind.  My rain gauge only filled to 1 ½ inches.  In my little area of town we received over 18 inches of rain. 

With all this water, my garden was flooded.  My lettuce was shredded from the winds; I’ll have to pull the lettuce and spinach out and replant seeds. 

Several tomato plants were broken, Bulldog Man clipped branches in hopes the plants will survive. 

My potatoes were just drenched from all the water. I pulled off almost all of the straw from the top of my soil mounds; to help dry out the soil to prevent root damage.  With removing most of the straw, this will also help prevent an over abundance of rolly polly bugs, they love all this moisture. 

The 4 purple cabbage plants I planted several weeks ago were doing really good until we received all of this rain.  The moisture seems to have attracted bugs; I’m not sure what type. They’re eating on the leaves of both the cabbage plants and my beans.  Until I can figure out what’s eating at the cabbage and beans, I had Bulldog Man go ahead and spray my water, soap, and alcohol concoction to kill of whatever bug has been chewing on my plants.

I have a lot to be thankful for these last several stormy days.  We have a home which is standing, and not severely damaged, and my family members are fine, and safe.

Sending prayers to all those affected by the severe weather across our country.

Mock-Orange Snowflake (Dwarf) - - Storms Still Going On (More on Those Later)

Bulldog Man purchased a flowering deciduous shrub called a Mock-Orange Snowflake Dwarf, for me on Saturday, from my favorite nursery.  My plans are to plant it in a pot on our back patio; this way we can enjoy its scent, while sitting out back, enjoying our coffee in the morning, or while we barbecue during the evening. 

The white, snowflake, delicate flowers are beautiful, and have a scent of a sweet orange with a hint of jasmine. 

This sweet fragrant bush not only attracts humans (like me, lol…..), it also attracts bees and butterflies. 

Were Okay......Time For Round Two!!!

A Tornado came through our area.  Damage in town, so far no reports of injuries or deaths.  Emergency crews are still checking areas.  Folks, we are okay.  We haven’t gone outside to check on possible damage to our home or property..... but from looking out windows things look okay.  

Now were waiting for our 2^nd round…………yes, another tornado heading this way and may possibly hit us again around 7:30PM. 

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!  

Tornado On The Ground!!!

Tornado warnings, sirens getting ready to go off.  Storm building,and becoming strong with multiple tornadoes creating a large tornado.... any Blogger friends in the area please go to your storm shelters.   I’m going to my shelter folks (closet) please say your prayers for Oklahoma.

Do You Really Have Money?

Part of being self reliant is learning how to stand on your own two feet in an emergency. This post is not going to talk about emergency preparedness when it relates to food, first aid, gold, silver, weapons, or ammunition.

 

Let’s just say a storm, or catastrophic event occurred in your area causing total loss of power for longer than a week.  Would you have access to your cash?  Think about it folks………….if you depend on using your ATM/debit or credit card, and don’t carry cash, you’re in for a rude awakening. 

Prime example: when a category F5 tornado ran through Moore, Oklahoma, electricity was lost; homes and businesses were destroyed (flattened/totally leveled), and those not touched, were closed because they were near the devastation.  Could I access my money at the bank?

No………because there was no electric, and because the credit union was destroyed.  Was my family prepared before this major tornado rolled through?  Yes, of course we were.

My husband and I take being prepared seriously because your life and your family’s life depend on it.   I’m not talking about raiding your checking / savings account to later become a victim of a robbery.  You should have cash in hand (an emergency fund) not tied up in a bank/credit union to fall back on when the going gets tough.   

In May 2013, on two occasions, my family left our home to get out of the path of major tornadoes.  With our emergency fund in hand, and supplies to include; food, water, first aid, communications, animals, and security items, we escaped devastation. You can read our story here.   

Have I given you something to think about?

Tell me: would you and your family be okay if you couldn't access your money?

Money Source: You Tube

Garden, & Jack It Up Baby!!!!

I enjoy growing my own celery, but never had luck with doing it directly from seeds.  Every fall, I cut the ends off of the organic celery bought from the health food store, and place the ends in a small dish of water on my kitchen window sill to grow roots. 

When spring comes along, I take that rooted celery end and plant it in my garden.    I usually will end up with somewhere between 2 – 5 growing plants.  As my celery grows, I go out to the garden and cut what I need.  This way it continues to grow new stalks.

Speaking of stalks, look at this onion stalk; it’s grown substantially, compared to when I first planted the onion.  This will be the first year I planted a large quantity of onions; with hopes of using them throughout 2015 and into 2016 once harvested.

When I first received the onion starts.

A stalk on just one of my onions planted.

Here’s an update on my potatoes, which were planted on February 7, 2015. 

This is what my Yukon Gold potatoes look like as of today’s date.

I've planted cucumbers seeds in two large pots and placed them next to a feedlot panel to use as a trellis.

Since planting my cucumbers seeds in pots last year worked well, I did the same thing this year.  It really helps contain them so they’re not growing all over the garden bed. 

This is the first year I decided to plant red cabbage.  I picked up 4 seedlings at the local Atwood Ranch store.  I tilled an area by hand, since our tiller is still on the blink, and lined the small bed with bricks. 

On the back side of the cabbage garden bed, I planted two types of sunflower seeds to line the fence.  Hopefully, we will see Sunspot and Mammoth sunflowers soon.

My strawberry patch has started producing strawberries, I look forward to harvest strawberries this year to make jam……YUM!!!!

Since spring has sprung,  I've cut our grass at least 7 times.  Each and every time we brush off the tractor, and hook the water hose to the deck to clean off grass. 

When the grass is wet while cutting it, it has a tendency to bulk up under the deck and around the blades requiring a detailed cleaning.  If you don’t clean out the deck, the grass just sits on the underside of the tractor and starts to rot, causing a terrible smell.

We purchased a special jack for lawn tractors to aid in cleaning the tractor, and Bulldog Man scraped and pressure cleaned the entire tractor. 

What a great tool to have to make lawn tractor cleaning so much easier!!!!

Last night we placed, out on the back patio, two hummingbird feeders with sugar water in preparation for those beautiful hummingbirds passing through. 

Tell me; have you see a hummingbird yet in your area?