We had a relaxing day. Me and Hubby decided to go to yard sales. This time of year a long stretch of a certain highway around here is designated for yard sales. When I say a long stretch, I mean hundreds of miles. I think we waited too late to go. There just wasn't that many yard sales today. Of course the whole yard sale thing started yesterday.(which I don't understand since people work on Fridays) One would think there would be sales on Saturday too.

We did find a few sales though. I bought two muffin tins and Hubby bought an air mattress for our tent. I hope it doesn't have a hole in it. I don't know how many nights we have slept on an air mattress to wake up laying on a flat piece of plastic. Those things never work. My favorite is when Hubby turns over in the middle of the night and I get catapulted off of my side of the mattress. Can't you just tell I love those mattresses?

The main thing that I was looking for today was canning jars. You can't find them like you use to. I don't know if it's where people don't think they are worth anything and just through them away, or people are just using them. Either way I probably will have to buy most of mine from the store. That can get expensive. A dozen of wide mouth jars cost 10.99. That's almost one dollar a piece! So much for eating cheap. I know, I know, they will be worth it in the long run. But, when you don't have the money to buy hundreds of jars,which I'm going to need, it can get discouraging. I keep asking around about them though. I'm hoping some one has their granny's collection of canning jars and don't know what to do with them. I can only hope.

After a day of going to yard sales, we came back just in time to watch the heavens open up. It rain so hard! And the HAIL, it was the size of peas. I took some pictures of it. I'll post them on at a later date.

Tomorrow is suppose to be nice and sunny. Maybe we will be able to get into the garden. The high winds done a number on our tomato plants. We really need to start tying them to the stakes. They are getting so tall. I feel like a proud parent.

Well my eyes are getting droopy.

Until later....

Small Farm Girl, bargain hunter

Alone

We have had company for the last week. The kind of company that is there when you get home from work, until late at night. Don't get me wrong, I like company. But, I LOVE my alone time. I'm not what people would call a hermit or anything like that. Me and Hubby like to have a little fun now and then, but we can't do it 24/7. We like to visit people, but, I like to go home after a while. I don't want to have to "entertain" all the time. I feel like I have to be "on" when I'm around people. There are times that I just run out of things to say. (don't believe that one, do you? It's true.) Then what? I don't want to sit and stare at someone. To me, that's uncomfortable. Maybe that's where I think I need to come up with something to say, hence, the "entertaining."

Another thing I don't like, is going to someone's house and they are watching tv instead of having a conversation with you. If I wanted to watch tv, I would watch it at my house. The art of visiting is lost. A visit is just that, a visit. If I haven't seen you for a while, please have the manners to talk to me. But, if you come to my house and after 4 days of talking I finally run out of something to say, it might just be time for you to go home.

I'm sorry this sounds like I'm complaining. I don't mean it to. I really like people. But after so long, I need a break to rejuvenate myself. Just a small one. Then I'll be fine. I use to think that everyone had to be an extrovert, always out going, always having to have people around you. As I got older I realize it's okay to not really want people around you all the time.Maybe that means I'm growing up. NNNAAAAAAAAAAA


Until later...

Small Farm Girl, loner

After watching the guys pull more lily pads yesterday, we decided to go for a ride on the four wheelers. This is the view as we were dropping over into the holler across from our house.


We are almost to the bottom. There really isn't much to say about these pictures, I just think they're pretty.


Then we came to this. Glamore Girl wanted to go swimming. Since we don't have a swimming pool, this is the next best thing.


"I wonder how deep it is?"


"Deep enough! And COLD!!!!" This picture is in focus. That is fog coming off of the water.


We call this Man Cave. It just goes back into the hill for about 20 feet. I love it.It has a spring that pours off the top. We tasted the water, and it tasted better than any bottled water out there. So we went and got a 2 gallon water jug and filled it up. YUM!!!!

It was getting dark, so we had to leave. But as we were coming out of the holler, this is what greeted us. See the rainbow under the cloud? Beautiful.


I love this part of the country. It has the most beautiful sights.

So for now....

SFG,explorer

The Real Thing

This is the real thing. This is not a teaser blog. I have a small break this morning, so I decided to blog.

I don't even know where to start. Somewhere between Hubby's oldest graduating, and the holiday, we finally got the garden planted. (Do I hear a YEEHAW!?)We planted the corn, the beans, the tomatoes, along with other things. We are done. I hope. I also planted an herb garden. A friend of mine is going to give me some mints and balms. Spearmint,peppermint,chocolate mint, bee balm, lemon balm and so on. I'm going to make teas. I've never made teas before, so if anyone has any advice, please feel free to comment.

Another thing that we have been doing is having a benefit concert for the church that my uncle goes to.

This is my two uncles and my dad. (my dad is the handsome one on the right.) They have played music all of their lives. They play anything from gospel, to old rock,to bluegrass.When you grow up poor, you have to make your own entertainment. The whole family is musical. I grew up riding a tour bus on the weekends. That is some of my fondest memories.This weekend brought back a lot of those. It was great! (If I could dance as much everyday as I did that night, I would be a size 2.)


Another thing that we did this weekend was pull Lily pads out of our pond. I don't think I have laughed that hard and for that long in a while.

This is Hubby(in the middle) with his niece and her fiance. You should have seen them get in the boat.


They picked Lily pads out of our pond until they couldn't see if they were pulling out a Lily pad or a snake. (It was never a snake. But they didn't know that.)It was almost completely dark when they pulled the boat out of the water. They didn't get all of the Lily pads out that day, but there still is tomorrow. We figure if we keep pulling them out, sooner or later they have to die out. (We hope)

Well my break is about over so I'm going to have to stop for now. I'll blog sooner this time. I promise.

Until later....

Small Farm Girl,busy girl

Im Still Here!

I'm still here! Don't think I forgot you. I'm just very busy! I promise to blog really,really soon....

love you all,

SFG (see I told you I was busy, don't even have time to type my full name.)

I was setting on my front porch this evening writing a letter,(wink Kelle)when something caught my eye. Two deer! They weren't more than 25 yards from me! Skeeter went down to investigate them. She spooked them a little. They ran for about 2 steps and it was like they said,"Hey, we're bigger than she is." So they turned around and started to chasing HER! I laughed until I cried. Then it hit me. There are two deer in my yard! My yard, the yard that has my garden in it! I've lived here 11 yrs, and we have never had deer problems. Never. Rabbits,yes,chickens,yes, but, never deer. I think Luke, our St. Bernard, invites them in.

So if anyone out there has suggestions on how to keep deer out of our garden, feel free to comment. Please.

So for now....

Small Farm Girl,deer host.

Our New House

I have had a lot of people ask about my new house. Well, here it is. Please excuse the mess. We are under construction. Hubby built this with his own two hands. He used our own trees for the lumber. He and his dad cut down trees on our land, had them sawed into lumber,and dried them. Once the lumber was dry he built our house.




We don't owe a dime on it. Now that's the only way to go! In my pre-homesteading days, I wanted to buy a pre-made house. Hubby, being the smart man that he is, didn't want to. He won. I'm glad. (DO NOT TELL HIM I SAID THAT!!!) Our house is made mostly of oak, not the pine lumber that you would get at most lumber yards today. I don't know if a hurricane could blow it down. Although we don't get hurricanes around here. The point is, it's strong.




This is a picture of the front. The back over looks our pond. Nice huh? Now we can go to sleep to the sound of the frogs singing.(Do frogs sing?)I can hardly wait until it's done. We are going to move into the basement first. We don't have the money for insulation yet. We're going to use the blow in insulation. It's made of recycled paper, not fiberglass. It will cost a little bit more, but it will save money in the long run. I'm really proud of Hubby for building our house.(Don't tell him I said that either. I have a reputation to up hold.)


Blog ya later...


Small Farm Girl,house owner.

Winter Snacks

One of my favorite things about summer is the taste of a fresh ripe tomato. The ones you get in the stores in the middle of winter don't even compare. I believe I could take a salt shaker to the garden and sit in the middle of the tomato patch and eat my way out. Gives me goose bumps just thinking about it.



So to preserve the wonderful taste of fresh tomatoes, I grow cherry tomatoes. Lots and lots of cherry tomatoes. Buckets and buckets of cherry tomatoes. Truck loads and truck loads of cherry tomatoes. (okay, I exaggerated on that last one.)



Then I freeze them. I put them on cookie sheets, put them in the freezer until they are solid, then put them in freezer bags. Then in the middle of winter, instead of mourning that there are no ripe juicy tomatoes, I go to the freezer, grab a bag, sprinkle some salt in the bag, and eat until my hearts content. I eat them frozen. When you put the frozen tomatoes in your mouth, the skins will make this wonderful pop and split open. Its kind of like eating jaw breakers but, they aren't as hard.
They are heavenly. You can also use them in stews or with pastas. (I think I'm getting hungry)

So if you ever find yourself wanting something fresh in the middle of winter, you have got to try freezing the cherry tomatoes.

Lots of work to do today, so I'll leave you for now...

Small Farm Girl, tomato lover

Love Is In The Air

This is Crazy Cuz. She is as close to a sister that you can get without being a sister, of course. Her dad and my dad are brothers. They both married sisters. Uh, that would be our mothers. We went to her and her soon to be hubby's shower this weekend.




When I say crazy, I mean CRAZY!



This is her fiance, Crazy Bill. This is him striking his sexy pose.



They do look normal every once in a while. But, why would you want to? Arn't they cute?



When I had my wedding shower, my grandma gave me a present that she said was one of the most important thing that a woman could have. I passed it on to my sister at her wedding shower, and she passed it on to Crazy Cuz at hers.



A "junk drawer." Grandma emptied her "junk drawer" into a box,and gave it to me at my shower. It is just being passed down.



Then me and Hubby had to leave the shower early because HIS brother was getting married. ( If you look real close, you will notice the bride does not look happy in this picture. I think it's because she just realized how much money she spent on her wedding.)



This is my step daughter Glamor Girl. If you will notice, there is no one else on the dance floor. We gave her $7 to go up there and dance as the song "You are a Dancing Queen" played. Kids now a days. Although now, she is $7 richer.

Oh and uh.....Little Sis?



Don't think I forgot you.




Love you Lil' Sis.

So for now...

Small Farm Girl, love guru.

P.S. If you don't hear from me in a while. Lil' Sis has seen her photo on here and has come for her revenge.

When I came home from a hard day at work,(End of joke, laugh here.) Hubby had almost all of our tomato plants in the ground. All 78 of them. Yep, I plan on not running out of tomato juice this year. Bye the way, do not look at our neighbors house and all of his junk. I said don't look!


That's a little better. Now, Skeeter's in the picture. Skeeter is our house dog. Although, she thinks she is the "All Mighty Rabbit Hunter."


"What? Did someone say rabbit?!"


"Where?! Where's the rabbit? Tell me, tell me, tell me! I want the rabbit NOW!"


We almost had all of the plants in, when, of course, it started to rain AGAIN.


That's okay though. The rain brings more of these.


So for now...

Small Farm Girl, Hard Worker ( okay I have to quit saying that. My sides are hurting from laughing so hard.)

Nature

Our new baby calf died last night. We don't know what happened to it. We found it dead down in one of the valleys on the farm. I know, I know, it's natural. But sometimes, Nature Sucks!

We planted some of our garden today. We planted bush beans and corn. Notice the nice contraption Hubby came up with? It's the best thing since sliced bread. No more bending down to plant. Just take funnel and some kind of pipe or stiff hose. Put them together and there you go. One of the best inventions in the world! Anyway, as we were planting, this happened.



The chickens had escaped their pens. We kept putting it off, but it's time to clip some wings.


We got the fishing net and went chicken fishin'.


We chased and chased, and we finally caught some.


Hubby caught them and brought them to me. I got them out of the net,held the wings out, and Hubby clipped their wings. It was so funny watching them try to fly over the fence once their wings were clipped. I tried and tried to reason with them, but they just wouldn't listen. I guess I had to ground them. (get it, ground them? I slay myself sometime.)

Oh, and guess what happened after we clipped the chickens wings? It started to rain. Imagine that.

Until next time....

Small Farm Girl, Chicken wrangler

Note: No chickens were harmed in the making of this blog.Thank You.

This is our dog Luke.With him being a cool weather dog, he has a really, really, thick coat. So yesterday, I decided to brush him out.


This is what I got after 30 minutes of brushing. I will have to do this at least 4 more times this spring. Can you do anything with dog hair? I know the birds like it.


Then Luke did this.


"Oh that feels good!"


"What? You still love me."


Dogs, what can you say?

I Hit The Jackpot!

Today me and Hubby went to put flowers on his mom's and grandma's graves. Since we were up north, we didn't get to do it on Mother's Day. We planted some really pretty red ones. They are called "Red Hot Cinnamon Candy." They smell just like the cinnamon red hots.

After we planted the flowers, we went down to check out his granny's farm just to see how things were doing. Hubby's uncle Tom told him that if there was anything in the barn that we wanted, we should get it. He was getting ready to have it torn down. It was going to fall down on its own anyway. We went in and it was like I heard angels singing in the background. There were soooooooo many old tools and goodies all scattered around. We ended up getting at least 200 tobacco sticks that we are going to use as tomato stakes. We found old picks, and old pitch forks, and old shovels. We also found an iron bed. It's really rusty, but I'm going to knock the rust off of it and paint it white. Then I'm going to set it outside, and I'm going to put herbs inside of it. It's going to be an herb bed. (Get it?)

Well anyway, we also found an old dusty corn grinder! How awesome! It still works too! (Put field corn on the list for later times.)

Tomorrow, we are going to try to finally plant the garden. Our soil just loves to hold on to it's water. Lots of clay. We'll get there though.

So for now, I'm getting ready for bed...good night.

Small Farm Girl(treasure hunter)

p.s. I'll try and put some pictures of all the stuff we found, especially the
herb bed.( Get it? herb bed?)

Glad To Be Home

After being three hours north of here, IT'S GOOD TO BE HOME!!!!!! The funeral was a sad occasion, but it was nice to see family that I haven't seen for a while. But as Dorthy said'"There's no place like home. There's no place like home." I use to wonder if I made a mistake moving down here. I will never wonder that again. As soon as we turned on to our small dirt road, I could feel the peace settle back in.(Big,deep, cleansing breath inserted here.) Then I looked at my garden. As you can see in the picture, we had rain. Lots and lots of rain. My poor little onions. I think they could use a little sun, don't you?

With us being gone for a few days, it was like getting a kick in the seat of our pants. We started to make a list of things we wanted to get done in the next few days. I hope we didn't go crazy on the size of the list. Oh well, have to think
big. What we have learned though, was not to take too much on too fast. We don't want to be over whelmed before we even get a good start.

Well, I'm going to quit blogging for the night. I'm going to bed.(my own bed!) I've got a lot of thing to get done tomorrow.

So for now,

Small Farm Girl, homebody.

p.s. Thanks for all the wonderful comments that were left. It's good to know I have a cyber-family out there too.

The Circle Of Life

Sorry that I haven't blogged for a few days. We have had a death in the family. Our loved uncle, Hodge, has died. You really don't know what to say on an occasion like this. We all loved him very much. Then, on the same day that he died, a baby calf was born. We weren't expecting this calf at this time. It was a surprise. We thought our bull wasn't old enough to breed yet. I guess we were wrong. ( Youngster these days)

Anyway, it made me think, there is a circle of life. As much as we DON'T want to think about it, we are All going to die. I know this is a morbid subject, but it's natural. If we are trying to live an all natural life, it's one of the things that you have to think about. It's all natural. It's as natural as the little calf being born. Sure we will mourn the passing of loved ones, and we don't want to think about them leaving us, but we all have to do it sooner or later. We should take opportunities like these to reflect on the life of the deceased. Think of the fun times of life, not the sad moment of death. It's natural.

Take times like these to reflect on your own life as well. Is it going in the direction that you want it to? Are you happy? Are there things that you want to do and keep putting them off, saying'"I'll do it later?" You may not have a later. There is a country song that says "Live like you were dieing." How true!!! Now, I'm not saying go and quit your job, or go get a divorce. What I am saying is, enjoy what or who you have now. You never know, you might not have it tomorrow.

Buy the way, I'm going to name the baby calf, Hodge.

I will type some later on....

Small Farm Girl

The Weekend

This is what I woke up to this morning on our porch. Those little fellers have worked like maniacs to get this nest up. I don't want them on my porch, but I don't have the heart to tear it down. They worked so hard on it. If you look close, you can see the new part of the nest that is still wet. The mud is darker there on top. The birds that are building this nest are barn swallows.( See, they can't even tell the difference in a barn and our house. hehehe)

This weekend was not that eventful around here. We did get the grass mowed between the rain drops. The Shack is getting cleaner on the inside. Yay!!!! We went fishing in our pond for a couple of hours. (yes it was sprinkling) We caught some pretty good fish. I caught 4 huge bass and way to many bluegill to count. Hubby caught 1 bass and a few bluegill. I love catching more than him. ( I'm not a bit competitive) We let them go back into the water. We didn't need fish at the time, and what better way of preserving them than by letting them live?

I finally put my hummingbird feeder up. I hope those little fellers are happy. One year I counted 16 different humming birds at one time at the feeder. Wow. They were fighting so much that I had to put up another one. (Little feisty things.) The same year I stood real still with my finger up by the feeder. I waited for about 5 min and one came and landed on my finger! It was amazing! He landed on my finger so he could eat from the feeder. He must have been really hungry.

We have had soooooo much rain here this past few days. I like the rain, but I wish I could get into my garden to plant my new plants. Way to muddy. I know, I know, patience. I will probably be complaining about having to water the garden soon enough. lol

The new house is coming right along. Hubby has almost all of the studding up! I'm so excited! Next we will be running the electric wire through the walls. Getting closer. I hope we can get in there before it gets too hot. We will be living in the basement at first until we get the upstairs done and insulated. The basement is much cooler than the Shack. I don't want to have to get the air conditioner back into the window. I'm not really one for air conditioner, but with the Shack having no insulation and a tin roof, it gets REALLY hot in here. I can't keep a stick of butter on the counter. It will melt. I've had candles wilt too. Don't even get me started on the clothes dryer. Feels like an oven.

Well it's getting kind of late here, and I want to get up a little early so I can get more things done on the "to do list."

So until next time, good night.

Small Farm Girl ( bird whisperer)

I haven't wrote on here for a few days. Mainly because I don't really have anything exciting to write about. We went and got some plants from our friends who own a greenhouse. We got three flats of tomatoes, some peppers, watermelons,cantaloupe, and some cucumber plants. My main goal this year is to can lots and lots of tomato juice. I could throw myself into a vat of tomato juice and drink myself out. I love it! Last year I canned about 18 quarts. Not even close to what we should have had. With me making chili and veggie soup, oh and don't forget me drinking it, it didn't last us two months. This year will be different. I plan on having so much tomato juice that we will get tired of it. (I don't see me getting tired of it, but Hubby might)

I also got some cherry tomato plants. I freeze them and eat them frozen in the winter. I would rather eat them instead of chips. Just pop them in your mouth. The frozen skins burst when they hit your warm tongue. WONDERFUL!!!!! I'm going to freeze bags and bags of them.

I also freeze the cantaloupe. Cut it into cubes and freeze them on a cookie sheet. Them pop them into a freezer bag. Instant fresh fruit in the winter. Yum!

We have also gotten out corn and bean seeds. Can't wait to eat them either. (The ripe corn and the ripe beans, not the seeds)

We have been stocking up on flour and sugar too. You never know when you won't be able to just go out and get some. We have been stocking up on tp and toothpaste too. Although, I'm going to learn how to make natural toothpaste. I know, I know, people already think I'm weird for canning my own food. Can't imagine what they will think about me making my own toothpaste. Maybe I won't tell them. Anyway ,like I said, not much going on here. Just getting ready for planting season.

Love always,

Small Farm Girl