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There hasn't been a lot going on here the past week that's really blog worthy. The garden is looking great, but still not a lot to pick quite yet. The potato's are starting to wither, so it won't be long till they are ready. The corn is barely 5 feet tall and tassling already. The tomato plants are HUGE, and covered in small 'maters. I've managed to pick a few hot hugarian peppers, but the greens and jalepenos are still tiny. Both rows of beans are exactly the same size and covered in tiny beans, you can't tell at all that we planted the rows 2 weeks apart. I imagine things will all come on at once, and we'll be canning like mad for 2 weeks straight.

I did trade the neighbor the one 4 month old rooster of ours for his that was 6 months old. He went straight to the newly built chicken killin' station and into the freezer. We actually had him today in the dutch oven with some dumplings, and corn and cucumbers. Afterward we had a piece of vanilla cake, and sat around the fire till we decided to come inside and read. Yesterday the same guy called me from this dog/animal auction/swap he was at and wanted to know if I wanted some more free roosters. He said they were really young, and of course I said yes, just so there would be more to put in the freezer. He shows up an hour later with a box.....a box of month old chicks lol. Ah well....might as well raise em anyway. Free food is free food.

Today someone was supposed to come look at the boat I am trying to sell. His wife saw it last weekend at the yard sale and told him about it. He's called twice, and was supposed to be here today around 12-1:00. At 2:30 I gave up and put it back to the street, then of course they show up at 4. He looks the thing over, asks if I'll take $300 (I had it marked at 350) and I say yes. he decides that they will go to the laundromat, talk about it, and either come back or call. Well......it's 9:41 and not a word. Guess I'll put it back to the road tomorrow and also back on Craigslist.


Earlier today I dug out some scrap pieces of plastic landscape edging, and rounded off the corners of Lisa's smaller herb bed. I made it from concrete parking lot bumpers, and it was just a PITA to mow around, so I marked out a nice gradual turn with the mower, then used that as a guide to dig out the sod and set down the edging. Both sides should give her another rough 80 square feet to plant her herbs. More production, less to mow. Right along with my motto, lol. We wanted to make a place for her to plant more lemon balm and decided on the whole north side of the garage, from the side door to the back corner. I'll dig that up when I get to it, but no rush since we only have one plant to start with for now. I think when that's done, I'll go ahead and extend the garden to around 2 feet from that, leaving just about a 2 foot wide path. Again....more food production-less to mow.

With those last 2 changes, the planned 4 foot extension of the garden to the north, the planned tripling of the strawberry bed, and my planned doubling the width of the blackberry patch, we're just about out of back yard. As of now, the front yard holds the 2 dwarf apple trees, the one new blueberry bush, the 48 feet of grapes, and the blackberries and raspberries I planted around the area we use for parking. That leaves an area roughly 150x 80 feet open that gets good sun. The rest of the front is trees, 1 mullberry, 5 pines, 3 oaks and 1 maple. We have been talking about what to do with the front yard, and are still undecided. More blackberries? More grapes? More raspberries? We still don't know what to do. We don't want to plant too much of something we use, and have waste and wasted space, but there is always the thought of selling produce. We've talked about it in the past, but it's never been something serious. Maybe we should consider it more? Maybe we can have more for this local market next year? We're going to have to have a good sit-down on this one and think it out together. I hate wasted space, and I hate the thought that we just have grass somewhere that could produce food. Any suggestions????????

Tomorrow I'm going to work with Lisa. I cut out the butt-ugly dead shrubs on the one side of the building Saturday morning, now I need to go back and dig/pull out the stumps and roots. They want to plant something different in there, but I'll have to get some topsoil hauled in since I discovered that it's mainly stones and sand. After that I'll be painting the faded trim on the front of the building, and a little on the side. After that, this building will be done, and hopefully they will have things at the other 3 offices to do. We need the money, and I need things to do since I am running out of things to do outside here. I'm bored, nervous about money issues, and have lately had an awful lack of self worth. It's almost 6 months now that I have been layed off. I stay home, feed the chickens, do yard work and laundry, while Lisa goes to work. Maybe I'm just old fashioned, but thats not the way it's supposed to be. *I'm* supposed to be the one out there bustin' my ass while *she* gets to stay home. I hate this, I really do.