What a Day

You know, the other day was really hard to get through.
I had to mow the grass,

which took forever.

Make some bread

to go with the marmalade I made a while ago.
 

Then I had to tromp through the woods in the sun, and as if that wasn't bad enough, I came upon


a whole hat full of Morel mushrooms
 
which meant I had to make a home made pizza to put them on,
 
and since Buck wasn't there I had to eat the whole thing myself.

Then to top it off I had to watch this, while I finished my chores.


 
Sometimes, I just don't know if I can take things like this happening all the time.
What do you think Mr. B?

Yea, I guess you're right, it could be a lot worse.

Reliable Seeds

Just dreaming of fresh beans.

I know it seems odd to talk about saving seed in the spring, but really this is when I want to be planning for next years seed if I want to make the most of my opportunities this summer. Also if I have left some plants in my garden over the winter they will surely be bolting and go to seed as soon as it warms up.

This was my biggest lettuce head last summer. It was gorgeous. I let it bolt and go to seed last fall so I could have seed that came from my very best head of lettuce.

I'll decide which ones I want to save

One Bite at a Time

How do you eat a whale? One bite at a time.

I took another bite out of our blackberries last week.  I had been building a burn pile of scotch broom, and downed and trimmed limbs.  I have a temporary fire site right next to a bunch of blackberries I need to remove.  That way I don't have to carry them too far to get rid of them.

Hatching Eggs In a Low-tech Off-the-grid Automatic Incubator

Well, I was all excited to hatch some eggs this spring. I mean, to get some eggs to hatch. I mean, put some eggs in the old incubator I found and hatch them.
I had a dilemma though.

First, I didn't know if the incubator worked right.

Why is Phoebe Tweeting?

You may notice that we have added a "Twitter" button in the right hand side of our blog page. Well, I have decided to try something new. I don't know if it will be of any value, but it occurred to me the other day, that it would be nice to have a way to just send out a little note now and then.

There are just so many things going on all the time here

Asper Grass

"Asper Grass" is what my mom used to call asparagus. I didn't know until I was researching asparagus that she wasn't just being funny, she was using the name that her people used. After I thought about it for a while, I remembered hearing my grandfather using the same term. I am supposing that it came from the old name for asparagus, Sparrow Grass.

When I planted my first asparagus 16 years ago

We're Grafting Fruit Trees

Buck wrote about the Home Orchard Society's scion exchange in an earlier post. I had been tracking the exchange in my iCal for months because this will be the first year we have plenty of room to plant any fruit tree my heart desires, and I knew my heart desired a LOT of different trees.

We have gone to 3 or 4 exchanges,

Bowing to Reality

I have had to bow to some realities recently.  Both acknowledge my fallibility and mortality.

First are my chainsaw chaps. I spend a bit of time by myself in the woods, clearing brush and cutting firewood.  If something were to happen, it could be bad.  So, I wised up and got some more protection.