Life

Since this is officially tornado season, we are vigilant about staying weather aware.  Our next severe weather is predicted for Monday afternoon.  Until then, it’s time to be outdoors on the tractor, cutting the grass, not running for your life in the truck away from an EF3, EF4, or even EF5 tornados.

With all of the rain, we’ve had to cut the grass twice, in order to stay on top of the growth.  Grass in this part of the country grows like a banshee, if left alone too long with all this rain.  I guess that explains why we have several SOD Farms not too far from our place.

Bulldog Man picked up a few of the “Pioneer Woman” quart glasses for me at Wal-Mart.  He noticed me checking them out; they’re nice size glasses for ice tea, on those hot days while working out on the property.   I prefer drinking my iced tea in a GLASS, not a plastic cup.

My husband also caught me admiring the Clematis flowers on Glenda’s blog, CountryLivingintheOzarks.  He bought me two Clematis plants, a Bee’s Jubliee, and the Caroline.  They’re gorgeous; we transplanted them into large pots for the back patio.  Over the weekend, we’ll be creating a trellis for both to climb on over the summer.

Updates on some of my garden beds:

This season, I purchased some new strawberry plants and planted them in between my existing ones.  They’re growing, and are producing nicely.  I’ve noticed the Tristan Strawberries (pink flowers) are sweeter than the Loran Strawberries (white flowers).  We’re looking forward to several nice size harvests this year; that is if I can keep my bloody hands out of them.  Every time I go out to work in the garden, or water, I’m grabbing a handful of berries for a snack.

My celery, which was planted last season from a cut off base, has started to bolt. 

 

It looks like I’ll have seeds to harvest soon.  And the volunteer cabbage has produced several more heads of cabbage.

 

Total of 3 heads producing!

The lettuce and spinach has started to really take off.

Excuse the big finger in the picture.  Here are two different kinds of cucumbers growing; granted, the seedlings will need to be thinned out.  In about 2 weeks, they should be climbing the feedlot panel trellis.

Our Yukon potatoes have really started to show above the straw in two tires.  I’ll need to once again cover these 2 tires with straw to help protect the plants.  The remaining tires have small seedlings under the straw, covering the entire tire for protection from the hot sun.  

My beans, green and purple, have grown about 3 inches and are starting to climb the feed lot trellis. 

 

Several of my pepper plants aren’t doing too well.  Either they’re getting too much water, or not enough.  This weekend, I placed Epsom salt at the base of every plant and gave them a good watering. I’m now starting to see a difference in one of the pepper plants.  Hopefully, the change is in a positive way.  

 As part of the downsizing of our garden, this season we’ve only planted 4 tomato plants.  Since the tomato plants are doing well, I’ll be adding 4 watering bottles (part of the OKIE watering system), one next to each plant. 

Yesterday, Bulldog Man and I went up into the big city, Oklahoma City, to look at travel trailers.  You heard right, we are trailer shopping.  We’ve been doing this for months and found a few we really liked yesterday.  Initially, we were looking for a 5^th Wheel and just recently changed our minds and decided to go with a conventional travel trailer.  

Picture source Camping World, OKC

We’re not getting any younger, therefore we’ve decided to fold up the tent (put it back on shelf in the garage) and enjoy the luxury of a real bed, instead of a blowup mattress on the cold ground the next time we go camping.  

Granted, the next time we go camping won’t be for a while, because we still have to determine which trailer fits our needs (they’re about 5 to choose from) and they’re a few surgeries still to be had.  

Such is life, no complaints, and we will take each day….one day at a time.

P.S……

Here’s an update to our son, Tank’s friend’s ranch.  All the animals have been located and accounted for, and 4 horses lost their lives in the storm.  Fence was rerun and set in place. The barn was destroyed, the house remained standing (all human life okay), and several tractor trailers used to move the cattle/bulls were rolled several times.  Our friends were able to flip the tractor trailers upright with the help of a tow truck. Granted, work will still be required on the tractor trailers, and some heavy equipment used on the ranch.