Going on Vacation

It will be a few more weeks before I post on here.  I'm taking some time off to visit family out of state and taking a train trip.  Harold is staying home to take care of things, especially the gardens (which are already producing!).  I'll have some new articles when I get back!

Planting Corn the Old Way

Several posts ago I told how Harold was getting the old 2 row corn planter ready to use.  It had not been used to plant corn with since 1986, and needed some work.  Well, he got it all working nicely and today took it out to the field for a trial run!  He planted 8 rows of corn today, but will plant more later on.   This was just a test run.
     Imagine it is 1940, and you have a small farm.  You might have used something like this to plant corn with.

The old 1940 corn planter all set to use.  But Harold is using a 1975 tractor to pull it with. He has an old 1946 Allis Chalmers tractor he could use, but it spits oil and needs some engine work. 

Driving down the road to the field.

A close-up of some of the mechanics of this thing.  The lever Harold is holding raises the planter up or down.

And now for the trial planting!:

It works!  Still a few things to tweak, but it is planting.

Harold has a rope tied to the the bar that raises and lowers, called the trip.

And here is 8 rows planted already.

The old horse pasture makes for a pretty big garden, eh??  We can really go nuts planting here!

The pasture garden is on the edge of the other lake in our farm, which we call "Lake Harold" (it has no name).  We intend to use a gas powered pump and a hose to pump water out of the lake to water the corn and other crops with.   Harold is looking for a good place to put the pump, in this photo.   He used to have an area specially made for the pump.

We just love getting the old machinery to work.  Makes for an interesting afternoon.  And puts a lot of fun into farming and gardening!  Harold says he has an old cultivator to get going also.   We shall see..........maybe a future article??

Just Chatting

Harold and I have been putting in full days doing outside work now that the weather has finally settled down.   Last week we did have a bad episode - it got down to 23 one night.  Remember our lovely apple tree from one  of my previous posts?  It was in full bloom and we were expecting to get a bumper crop of apples.  With such cold temps predicted we wondered what we should do about our apple tree.   Supposedly apple growers try to save trees by spraying the trees with a good stream of moving water all night or during the cold hours. So we bought a brand new oscillating sprinkler and set it on the tree.  Everything was fine, and Harold even checked it at 4 a.m. and everything was working well.   So he finally went to bed.  But between 4 a.m. and 8 a.m., the oscillating mechanism on the sprinkler actually froze into the wrong position, and instead of putting moving water on the tree, the water went over the tree and just a fine mist of spray hit the tree.  Not good.   Four hours of misting made the tree look like this:

Oh no!!  Our lovely apple tree encased in ice!

Every blossom was covered in thick ice.

While it looked pretty, it was a disaster for the tree, and we were just sick about it.   Harold was kicking himself that he didn't get up at 5 .m. to check on things.  We lost 4 branches and one of them was a major top branch.   I think the tree will be OK, but whether we get apples or not remains to be seen.    I guess this is what happens when we try to 'play God'.  We should have just let the blossoms freeze and KNOW that we wouldn't get any apples, instead of losing 4 branches to cracking because of ice.
     Here's what the tree looks like today:

It still look good, but we may or may not get any apples.   Some of the blossoms were pink and at that stage they can survive cold.   White blooms cannot withstand freezing.  If we had been able to keep moving water on the tree, it probably would have been fine, even the apple blossoms. 

Yesterday we planted up our "small garden", which is about 25 x 125.  Here I am planting peas:

I usually wear a large straw hat and something long sleeved and light colored to protect me from the sun.  I spend an average of 5 to 6 hours outside almost every day. 
      Today I spent 4 1/2 hours planting tomatoes in my other large garden, which is about 60 x  150 give or take.    I've been working with plants and seeds since mid February, so it seems like I have been moving plants around for ages!  Now I finally have the joy of putting my hard work of growing plants into the garden where they really belong!  I already got the living room cleaned up from plant growing stuff, and this afternoon I will clean and prepare the screened in porch for summer, now that there are no more plants to move around on the porch.

I planted 34 tomato plants today.

We need to get everything planted by the end of this week because next week the weather guys predict rain almost every day.   And after that, I will be taking a trip to visit family in Indiana and Massachusetts.   Harold will stay home to watch things and water plants.  It was such a beautiful day today - the birds were singing, it wasn't too windy, and the temp was about 70.   And I really enjoy having such peaceful and serene views from my garden:

Here's the view from one side of the garden.  You can see the newly tilled up pasture that we will use as another garden, to plant corn and melons in.   All the land in this photo is part of the farm.

Here is the view from the other side of the garden. Most of this land is part of the farm also.

 We are often asked why we plant so many vegetables, and in such large amounts.  Well, we are vendors at the local farmer's market and we need things to sell!   Besides, I also like to give things away to folks who can't garden, and I like to share the extras with friends and neighbors and family.   I use a large amount of vegetables in my summer canning, too, making my own spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, canning tomatoes plain and seasoned, and also filling up the freezer with veggies, too.  "If I can grow it, I will"!  This year we are trying to grow watermelons, cantaloupes, and honeydew melons.   We shall see if I am successful or not with this!  My old bones can't take more than 4 hours on my knees doing garden chores, so every year we try to make things easier.  I'm no spring chicken anymore, you know! But I sure do enjoy growing my own food!

As Of Today - An Update on Things

We are still very busy with spring chores and getting ready for planting.  I planted up many hanging baskets and tubs of flowers, only to have the wind come up suddenly and blow everything to pieces the next day!   I rescued most of my planters and boxes and put them in the greenhouse for safekeeping and recovery, and I will probably only lose about 10 individual plants.   Not bad.  And I do have replacement plants to put in the containers.
     The greenhouse is growing nicely.  Here's a view of things in there now:

And a view from another angle:

Our apple tree is in full bloom now, and prettier than it ever was!   The blossoms are thicker than last year, so I hope that means more apples than we have ever had!

Every branch is covered with blossoms on our Prairie Magic apple tree!

Today I found one of our bees on the apple blossoms!  It's a cold and windy day today, so this is a really hardy bee!

You can see one of our bees in the middle of this photo.   There were quite a few hardy bees today working the apple blossoms.   That's good, because this September we are hoping for LOTS of apples!

Apple blossoms are very pretty.  I think they almost look like little orchids:

Harold has been busy getting the antique corn planter ready to plant corn.  Today he is putting the tires on it.  He needed an 'extra hand' to lift the planter, so the tractor loader came in handy as a lifter!

There are lots of moving parts to the vintage planter, so he was busy lubricating everything and getting things to run smoothly.

And finally, I checked on our new kittens.  They are a couple weeks old, and their eyes are opened now.   I must say these are the healthiest looking kittens we have had here on the farm in a long time!  So far, Mama kitty has done a fabulous job with her first litter.  They will be out of the box and running around,  learning about the farm in no time!

The new kittens were not very cooperative for photo taking, but they sure are cute!  They don't look anything like mama kitty, though, as she is a pale brown long hair. 

We just heard that the weather guys are predicting temps of about 26 for the next few days.  Oh no!  Harold is rigging up a propane heater for the greenhouse to keep things from freezing in there, and I will have to cover one tub of flowers that is too heavy to move.   But I think this will be winter's "last hurrah" for freezing temperatures. 

Inner Tubes and Gooseberries

The past couple weeks Harold and I have been a little under the weather, fighting off a respiratory virus or sinus infection.  We are better now, though, and trying to get back into all the work needed around the farm, now that spring is finally here.
     One of our first projects was to get the greenhouse planted up.  Even when I wasn't feeling well, I still had a little energy to get things planted.  You can see that things are progressing well:

Lettuce and spinach are up, tomatoes and peppers growing nicely, and look at the size of the garlic plants!

Another project we tackled today was transplanting 4 gooseberry bushes.   About 9 or 10 years ago, a neighbor gave me 4 small plants of gooseberries from her patch.   I planted them, but actually forgot about them for a whole year!  They managed to grow and stay alive despite my lack of maintenance (and much to my surprise!), and for the next 8 or 9 years I always meant to dig them up and put them somewhere else but just never got around to it.   I originally planted them about 1/4 mile down the road by the old trailer house we used to live in.  I rarely watered them and if they didn't get rained on, they just sat there.   Well, this spring I saw that they were STILL alive and growing nicely!  I figured they deserved to get better care!  So we dug them up and planted them by the greenhouse.   I suppose now I will "kill them with kindness" after 10 years of neglect!

Somewhere in this mess is four gooseberry bushes.

After digging them up, we hauled them back up the road in my little "zippy wagon".  This little wagon that Harold built out of scrap pieces has proved to be SO handy for yard chores, and connects easily to my riding lawn mower.  And it's something that even I can handle!

Before setting the gooseberry bushes in place, Harold used the Lo-Boy tiller to dig up the ground and make it smooth.

The first bush is set into place.  Sure hope the bushes like the new place as much as they liked the old place!

All 4 bushes replanted now and watered.   After 10 years of neglect, they will finally get some care!

Gooseberries are a wonderful fruit.  They make the BEST jelly, and you can also use them for sauces and pies.   I once made a gooseberry pie.  It was tart on the first bite, but after a while it tasted better.    But if gooseberries are nice and ripe, they can be eaten as is, and they are really good.
     Now - here's a "remember when" for those of you old enough to remember stuff like this.   If you recall, in my last post I had a photo of the old tires on the 2 row corn planter Harold resurrected from the farm graveyard.  He found some tires to use for replacements, on an old horse cart he had.  (Harold was quick to point out that not everything around here should be considered "junk", but is actually "vintage replacement parts" ! ) Anyway, the old tires on the planter were the old 'inner tube' style.  Do some of you remember when tires actually had inner tubes??  After Harold took off the old wheels on the planter, he discovered the tires said "Fisk Rubber Company" on them.   A quick search on Google gave us the info that this tire company went out of business in 1940.  So we know that the corn planter he has is at least 76 years old!!!

Taking the old tire off the rims.  I remember my Dad doing this.

Here is what is inside the tire!  An inner tube.  As a kid, I remember using these to play in the lake with, as flotation toys.  The inner tubes usually had a lot of patches.  Men would go to the hardware store and buy 'patch kits' to fix up inner tubes.

This is what is written on the side of the inner tube.

Both of the inner tubes off the vintage tires on the corn planter.

Corn planters of the 2 row and 4 row variety are actually getting very popular around here.   Hunters like to plant up 'deer plots' of corn or soybeans for deer and other wildlife.   They don't need modern machinery to plant up a little plot, so the old style planters are in demand again.
     After planting the gooseberry bushes, Harold tilled up nice and smooth another row for me.   I will plant some gladiolus bulbs I bought.   I bought 60 bulbs on sale in various colors (12 different colors).  If the glads do well, I hope to sell some of the flowers at my market booth this summer.

Nice to have riding machinery to do the work!  Us old folks have to take that into consideration!

In a couple weeks I will be planting up the rest of the gardens.   Right now I have a lot of plants on the back porch where it is cool and breezy.   They are getting used to the outdoors after being in a warm living room under grow lights.   Look at the size of some of the tomatoes!  They really need to get into the ground quickly!

These tomatoes are 2 feet tall already!  They need to get planted real soon!

In other news, we have 3 new kittens born about 5 days ago.  I don't have any photos yet, as I don't want to disturb mama kitty any more than I have to for a while.    They are all black and grey striped.   We usually have a core population of 12 or so cats on the farm at all times.   The cats come and go.   We get cats coming from elsewhere, and ours go to other farms.   I guess that is nature's way of preventing a lot of inbreeding.   Most farms around here have at least that many cats also.   It takes a lot of cats to keep the mouse population down!
    While we are slaving away at chores, our ever-present tomcat Tommywhite watches everything we do!  But he keeps his distance, unless it's feeding time or he wants some attention!

Tommywhite, our favorite tomcat, is always with us.   He has to see everything we do!

As you can tell, nothing earth shattering is taking place here on Honey B Farm - just the usual spring work and daily stuff.   That's kind of what life is all about here in the country, doing what you like to do, and enjoying the peace and quiet.   The craziness of the world and all its problems seem very far away............