Starting My New Garden!

It has been quite a while since I posted anything on here.  Some of you may have thought that I gave up my blog. No, it's just been a very long winter.  Nothing much has happened to write about, and husband Harold and I came down with colds a few weeks ago.  We haven't had any colds for over 3 years, so this round of cold virus really made us feel down.   We are much better now, and Harold just has a lingering cough.
     I am a little behind in starting seeds for my 2020 garden, but today I got my "soil therapy"!  It was so nice to dig in dirt and plant seeds.  Surely spring can't be too far away, right?  About a month, I believe.  Anyway, some seeds need a long time to grow, and there are long germination times.   So today I started various kinds of flowers, herbs, several varieties of peppers, leeks and sweet onions.  In a few weeks I'll start tomatoes and other kinds of flowers.   Then a couple weeks later, I'll start cabbages and some rhubarb seeds I saved.   As soon as it warms up enough to get into my greenhouse I'll start cleaning up in there and planting spinach and various lettuces.   From now until early May, my living room will look like a plant nursery.  Tomorrow Harold is going to set up my sawhorses and boards and grow lights in the living room in front of the big bay window.   It's always fun to see how things have grown overnight.
     Sometime in April I begin hardening off plants by putting them outside in the sun for short times.  When they are well accustomed to being outdoors, I put all the plants and trays in the greenhouse, and then they really take off!  Everything grows so well in there.  In May I begin planting in the main gardens.
     Here is what I did today:

I begin by mixing Miracle Grow Potting Soil with moist peat soil, in a 50/50 mix.  The peat soil is quite coarse and has a lot of sticks and stones in it, but has a lot of nutrients, too.  Miracle Grow potting soil is cleaner and dryer but doesn't quite have all that plants need for the long growing time indoors.     This is always the fun part - getting my hands dirty with soil!

For small batches of seeds I use 6 hole inserts in the trays. Later on when the plants are growing, I usually transplant the young plants into larger pots.

For things like green peppers, hot peppers and leeks I use larger inserts.  Then I choose the best plants from the sections and transplant the plants into bigger pots.

For sweet onions I just put the seeds into a full tray with no inserts.  Onions don't need much drainage and they are happy growing close together in a tray.  When they are large enough to take the main garden, I separate all the plants right at the garden as I plant them.  I started one full tray of Walla Walla sweet onions, and one tray of Candy sweet onions.  These onions sell very well at our market booth.  For other types of onions I just buy sets at the farm supply center.  I usually end up growing several hundred onions.

This is what I pick out of the peat soil.  I don't want all these large pieces of bark, wood, rocks and slate in my potting plants.  Peat is OK for outside in a flower bed where the sun and rain can break down the large pieces of debris, but in trays of seedlings this is just too much debris for seedlings to grow. 

All this seed starting might seem like a lot of work to some folks, but to a gardening buff like me this is enjoyable and relaxing!  Gardening is indeed a lot of work, but the rewards are great.  There is nothing better than taking a basket or two out to the garden or greenhouse and picking fresh produce for the kitchen and cooking.  I know that what I grow is organic, chemical free, and I always buy non-GMO seeds.  There is nothing fresher than just picked lettuces, or veggies only a few minutes old for cooking up for a meal.   My husband always teases me about growing flowers, though.   He says "you can't eat flowers" or "you can't make a pie out of them".  But he changes his mind when he sees our honeybees on all the flowers, along with butterflies and hummingbirds.
   Now I can hardly wait to get into the greenhouse, or out into the garden!  We still have 2 feet of snow on the ground and below zero temps.  It seems like this has been an especially long winter, one of the hardest in a long time.  Perhaps it was because our fall was so cold and snowy and rainy.   It seems like winter has been going on forever.

Have You Ever Seen A Hooey Stick?

For the past year or so Harold has been playing around with building old timey toys out of wood.  One of the things he made was a "hooey stick".  This old fashioned toy is made out of two sticks, one of them has grooves on it, and a small propeller on the end.  By rubbing one stick against the other you make the propeller turn.   You can change direction of the propeller by how you hold the stick.  See the photo below:

This is a hooey stick.  Sometimes it is called a "gee-haw" stick or a "whammy doodle".   The secret to turning the propeller on the end is how you hold the smaller stick.   If you have your forefinger rub against the side of the stick, it turns clockwise.  If you have your thumb rub against the side of the stick, it turns counter-clockwise.   Most people don't realize that you are holding the stick a certain way, so it looks like the propeller just turns directions "by magic"!

You can look up hooey sticks on the internet to see a demonstration.   It's really kind of neat!   And there's a scientific explanation too!  Check out this scientific description of how a hooey stick works:

Rubbing the ribbed stick with another stick along the grooves creates a vertical alternating driving force ${\displaystyle F_{y}}$ acting on the center of mass of the propeller:

${\displaystyle F_{y}(t)=Ycos(\omega t)}$

where ${\displaystyle \omega =2\pi /T}$ and T is the time taken for the stick to move from one groove to the next; ${\displaystyle Y}$ is some unknown scaling factor that characterizes the force with which the two sticks are pressed against one another. By rubbing a finger against these grooves on the side, one can also introduce a horizontal alternating driving force ${\displaystyle F_{x}}$

${\displaystyle F_{x}(t)=Xcos(\omega t+\phi )}$

where ${\displaystyle \phi }$ is a phase shift (describing the lag time between when the grooves contacts the moving rod, and finger respectively) and, again, X is some unknown scaling factor. Importantly, ${\displaystyle \omega }$ is the same frequency, and the two driving forces are said to be phase locked. The confluence of two phase matched driving forces in orthogonal directions gives rise to a rotational force on the center of mass at the propeller end, and thus, rotation.
When the operator of the whammy-doodle surreptitiously changes the side at which his/her finger contacts the stick (e.g. by contacting with his thumb instead of his fore-finger, or by changing the side at which a finger contacts the grooves of the base) he or she changes the sign of the phase ${\displaystyle \phi }$, and thus reverses the rotation.

Uh...........um.......huh??????  I must have been absent from class when this was explained in physics class!!

Besides the hooey stick, Harold made some other neat old timey toys.  These are all prototypes.  He is hoping to better his technique and make some to sell at our booth.  These old wooden toys were popular a century ago when kids didn't have video games!

Here's my favorite:  the walking duck!  This is a push toy for toddlers just learning to walk.  The duck has leather strips for feet, and when it is rolled along the bare floor, the leather feet make a 'flap-flap-flap'  sound.    When I need to de-stress, I walk around our house with little duckie! He sort of waddles from side to side besides making the flapping noise.   So cute!!

A close up of the waddling duck.

These woodpeckers are another neat toy for young kids.  When you lightly tap on the tail, the woodpecker pecks his way down the stick making a tapping noise like a woodpecker on a tree.   He is on a spring and the motion of tapping against the dowel is the energy that drives him down the pole.  Harold brought one of these to our church's nursery room and the kids got a real kick out of it.

Here's another pull toy for youngsters:  a dog that sniffs.  His legs and head move and it looks like he is sniffing things on the floor.  Harold says he needs to modify the original pattern to make a shorter nose.

Here's a monkey on a string trying to get to the banana tree.  My grandkids enjoyed this one a couple years ago.  You pull on the strings and the monkey rides up the rope to the banana.   Harold made a very long rope, so that a child has to keep on pulling to get the monkey up there!  You pull on the ropes one at a time and the monkey inches his way up. 

This guy is called a "limberjack".   You make him 'dance' by moving the stick and he taps his feet on a board and his arms swing around like he is tap dancing.   You can see demonstrations of this on the internet.  Some people are pretty good at this.  It does take practice to get the limberjack dancing right!

This is sort of like what I mean by having the guy dance on a board.  A person moves the handle stick in short up and down movements to get the dancing going.  It's even more fun when you try to keep up with some old time bluegrass mountain music!!

And finally, this is a "walking kangaroo".  By putting the kangaroo on an incline he "hops" down the board!

Harold has a jig saw, a scroll saw. a band saw, and a drill press in the basement to help him make these toys.   Also a belt and disc sander and router.   Makes for a good winter time hobby when it is 30 below outside!  And I have fun playing with the toys!

Happy New Year!!

Every year on New Year's Day I like to redo my blog look.  Something different to look at all year.  Can you believe it is 2020 already?  As I get older, every year seems to go by quicker.  And every year gets more precious.   I am into my 70's now, so I wonder how many more years I will see.   I can remember 20 years ago like it was yesterday.  Do I have another 20 years?  Well, that is up to the Lord.   A new year is always like a blank canvas.   A whole new page to write on.  I wonder what surprises and happenings will be a part of this year?  All we can really do is just live life one day at a time.

Yesterday I took down all the Christmas decorations.  That chore seems to be more of a job with each passing year.   My arthritic knees don't go up and down steps like they used to.   Carrying boxes and bags of 'stuff' gets harder and harder!  I simplified quite a bit this year, and I am thinking next Christmas will be even simpler!  I used to laugh at my grandfather who had a small 3 ft tree decorated with plastic ornaments and lights and garland.  Every year he would leave all the decorations and lights on and just put a big plastic bag over the whole thing and stick it in a closet.  Next Christmas he would take it out of the closet, whip off the bag and declare that "Christmas is here".    Now, you know.........his idea seems to make more sense!  I remember that holiday decorations were much more simpler in the old days.  Perhaps a tree and a wreath on the door or something in the window was about all that folks did back then.  Today we tend to decorate the whole house, inside and out!  I might just go back to those simpler times as I get older.

Harold spent the day yesterday clearing snow after our big blizzard that dropped another 12 inches of snow on top of the 6 or 8 we already had.  The winds drifted the snow into big piles, making for a tough job even with his tractor.  The snowplow guy came twice to clear snow on our road.   The drifts were so deep he couldn't get it all on the first pass.
Here are some photos of Harold working on our yard and driveway.   This job was too big for a little snowblower!

Harold's tractor/loader does a fine job of moving snow.  Of course our ever-curious cats were happy to have something to chase and watch!

He got the vehicles dug out and cleared a space for turning around.  Note that a couple more cats were inspecting Harold's work!

Harold also cleared a pathway from the parking area to the door.   The canvas over the tractor engine makes it run better in cold weather, and also keeps Harold's legs a little warmer.

I hope that everyone has a great 2020.  Please feel free to comment on articles.  I sometimes hear that people have a difficult time commenting.  Not sure what the problem is, I have things set to make it easy to comment.   If you see "No comments" under an article, please know that this doesn't mean you can't comment!!  It just means that nobody has commented so far!!
   I am beginning my 8th year of blogging about life here on Honey B Farm.   So far I haven't run out of ideas, although some articles are similar.  There is a real cycle of life here on our farm, so often I write about the same thing, but hopefully in a new way with new photos! I have many readers from all over the world - and I say to everyone:  A very happy new year and may God bless you all greatly!

Old Fashioned Blizzard

Today we are having a true Minnesota blizzard!  This is the weather our state is famous for.  Everything is cancelled today - churches, businesses and events.   The highway patrol is advising no travel.  Roads are closed.   But everyone I know is well prepared for such an event as this.   On Friday stores and gas stations were bustling with customers buying grocery essentials and gasoline for snowblowers, tractors, chain saws and generators.   This is a heavy wet snow, the kind that can bring a tree down.   We are very prepared with plenty of wood for the wood stove, plenty of food - and plenty of cat food, too!  So it's a good day to just catch up on reading, take a nap or do a sewing project.   I have been looking at all the latest seed catalogs we got in the mail, and planning my summer garden.  The wind is howling, the snow is blowing and we are snowed in.   But who cares?  Life is good!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday.  Ours was a little quiet without family here, but we did have several friends over for Christmas Day dinner and an afternoon of games and laughter.   I look forward to the new year, as I always do.  It is very hard to believe that 2020 is almost here!  Hopefully a little more sanity will be the norm.  Everyone I know is quite stressed out about happenings in this country.  Maybe disgusted is a better choice of words than stressed out. 

I took a few photos from inside the house.   This is what I am looking at today!

Almost every window in the  house looks like this.  Not much of a view.

One protected window has a bit of a view of our yard, car, and cat's home.

At least my bay window in the living room allows me to see how much snow is blowing!

Need A Quick Gift Idea? Here Is A Suggestion

I posted about this before, back in 2015, but for some of my new readers who haven't seen the post before I repeat it here.   If you need a small gift idea for someone who is hard to buy for - for example an elderly relative or someone in a nursing home or a neighbor or teacher, etc. - here is a suggestion for something that will be very appreciated.   It's also a low cost gift, too!  How about filling up a pretty cup or mug with some tasty cookies called Elf Bites!  Food gifts are always a hit.  You can find really nice Christmas themed mugs or cups at thrift stores, garage sales or a dollar store for almost nothing.  Or perhaps you already have a nice mug or cup you can part with.  Wrapped up in pretty Christmas colored plastic wrap with a nice bow, this gift will look so nice!  Elf Bites are tiny little shortbread cookies that aren't too sweet, are somewhat crisp, and have a nice buttery flavor.   Just the name of this cookie is fun.  I bake lots and lots of these every year to give away, or take to gatherings and they are always a hit.  (Especially with children)  My husband and I like to snack on these, too, with a mug of hot cocoa.   They are easy to make and don't take a lot of ingredients.
     Here is the recipe:

 

 

 ELF BITES

A shortbread cookie that is not too sweet

1/2 c. (1 stick) of butter - use ONLY butter

1/4 c. sugar

1/4 tsp. almond extract

1- 1/4 c. flour 

1/4 tsp salt

4 tsp. multi-colored nonpareils

Cream the butter, sugar, salt and almond extract.   Add the flour.  (You might just use your hands at this point).   Work in the nonpareils into the dough with your hands.  Line an 8 inch square pan with wax paper, and pat the dough into the pan and refrigerate until firm.  (usually a couple hours)  Lift out the dough using the wax paper and with a sharp knife on a board, cut into 1/2 slices and then into 1/2 inch squares.  (More or less a half inch, no need to be exact here!)   Place on an un-greased cookie sheet and bake for 15 -17 min in a 325 oven, until the cookies are set and are beginning to slightly brown around the edges.   They won't really get browned, so don't over bake these.   Let them sit on the cookie sheet until they are cool enough to put into whatever container you wish.  

Pat the dough into the pan as evenly as you can.  The only reason to use an 8 x 8 pan is to help shape the dough.

Take the paper and dough out of the pan and pat the edges a little better, making a nice square. 

 

Wrap the dough up in the paper and set in the refrigerator for a couple hours to harden.

 

Then cut the square of dough into about 1/2 inch strips, and cut the strips into little squares.  You will have enough dough to fill up one large cookie sheet.

Here is a pretty Christmas cup filled with the Elf Bites.  My sister gave me this lovely cup for Christmas several years ago, and I just love to drink tea and cocoa out of it during the holidays.  The snowman container my husband Harold gave to me many years ago.  I sometimes fill the snowman up with cookies for us!

 

This recipe makes enough little cookies to fill up a Christmas tin also.   A little tin of these cookies would make a nice gift for a friend, or a hostess gift.

 Please do give these a try!  Happy baking!

 

Car And Roof Update

In my last post I wrote about how Harold hit a deer with my car.  We bought another car to drive in the meanwhile, but we were looking for another Echo, if possible, for parts.   We found a "parts car" with the help of Harold's sister who saw an ad on Facebook.   This car was down by the Twin Cities.  So we went to look at it, since it was only $200.  Well, the so-called "parts car" ended up being a very nice car indeed!  It had no rust, had 100,000 miles LESS than my Echo, and even the engine area was rust free.   The car came from Louisiana where they have no salt on the roads or snow, etc.   This car runs, but it has a very noisy engine.  It didn't quietly "purr" like my old Echo.   Come to find out the problem is that the engine needed a throttle body and a harmonic balancer.  (Never knew cars had those!  But what do I know?)  Harold thinks he can fix this Echo, as the parts for these two problems run about 50 to 75 bucks total.    If we sink another hundred dollars or so into the car we should have something economical to drive for another 150,000 miles.  The Chevy Uplander we bought as an interim car is OK but it's a bit of a gas guzzler.  I know for a fact that a Toyota Echo is a little gas sipper.   Everyplace we need to go around here is about 40 miles away.   We tend to put miles on a car very quickly. 

The Toyota Echo "parts car" we bought for $200 is in very good condition!

So we will use the new Echo as our economy car and the old Echo that was deer damaged as the parts car.

Also all summer long Harold has been working on putting the new metal roof on our house.  It was a slow process.  It seemed like the weather just didn't cooperate - it was either raining or too windy or snowing!  During garden season, Harold had to work on this in his "spare time", and then there was the sugar beet harvest to work with.   But he finally got it done!  He only has to do some minor adjustments to the roof caps and the valley tin on the porch section, but the roof is on!  We had to put a new roof on because a bad storm took the shingles off on the back side of the house several years ago.  We decided then to replace the shingled roof with a metal one and bought what we could afford at the time.   But this year we bought the rest of the roof and put it on.   It was great that Harold could do this job, as it sure saved us a lot of money!

Just before winter now, Harold only had about a 12 foot section to go.  The weather was fairly warm - about 37 degrees - and the wind was calm.  Snow was predicted this evening, so the job had to be done NOW! Harold always used his trusty tractor/loader as a safety catcher, so if he fell at least he wouldn't fall too far! 

Harold sweeps excess dirt and roof dust and pieces of old shingles off the roof before putting on the metal sections.

Finally finished!  He can climb down the ladder for the last time this winter.   In the spring (or if we should have a few warm days) he needs to make minor adjustments to the roof cap and the valley tin.  This metal roof is supposed to last 50 years, definitely in our lifetime.

And so these are the projects we have been working on lately.  Harold will continue with car repairs, and some other repairs to his tractor.  I am working on a quilt, learning some new music on the organ and accordion, and getting ready to decorate for Christmas and do plenty of holiday cooking!  (Things like pierogies, lefsa, flatbread, cookies and jelly for gifts.)

Oh Deer, Oh Deer, Oh Deer

Yesterday in the early am hours my husband hit a deer while driving my little Toyota Echo.   He was going to work beet hauling and a large doe jumped out of a deep slough point blank in front of him.   He called me at 2 am to come and get him.  I drove his pickup truck to rescue him.  Harold said the doe was alive but bleeding badly as he moved it off the highway.  Sadly the poor doe raised her head a couple times and then died.  He felt bad for her.    Thankfully my husband was not hurt!!   Here is what my car looked like after the deer hit:

My Toyota Echo after being hit by a deer.  

Another view

This is the third time the Echo has been hit by a deer, but this third time did the poor girl in I'm afraid.   The first time the car was hit was in 2006 when a deer ran into the driver's side door as we were driving to Indiana.   The second time was here in the neighborhood when a deer only caused minor damage to the hood and broke a headlight.   This third and last time was at almost 60 mph and quite damaging.   I will miss the little car, as I have driven it since 2002 (I bought it new then) and put over 284,000 miles on it.   After almost 18 years a car becomes sort of like a friend, ya know?
     We needed to get something quick, because we must have two vehicles out here in the country.   Many times Harold and I  have to be in separate places at the same time.   We can't always drive each other to places because sometimes the distance is 75 miles apart.  Out here in the country it seems like every place we need to go is about 40 miles away.     Our budget is pretty tight right now, so we were at a loss as to what to do!  A friend from church suggested that her son had a vehicle he was selling and the price was reasonable.   We took a look at it, and decided it would be a good car for right now, especially with winter approaching.   He is an auto mechanic and kept the car running smoothly over the years.   Here is what we bought today:

My new wheels.  It's a 2005 Chevy Uplander.  

This new car has some rust on it, and a few things that need to be repaired (but minor).  But considering that we only had to pay 700 bucks for it, it's a good deal.   This vehicle will be good for hauling veggies to the Farmer's Market, too.   Until we can get something a little newer and better, this is a good substitute car.
     Sometimes things just happen, I guess.  Harold has a new nickname now:  the "deerslayer" !

A Snowy Day is Good for Popcorn!

Today it is snowing!  Yes, I said snow.  We don't need any more rain or snow during this harvest time!

It is snowing today at Two Squaw Lake

So I thought I would process the popcorn that we have been drying in the basement.   Harold built a large screened box and we put a fan underneath to dry the popcorn.   We've had the fan running 24/7 for about 2 weeks and the popcorn is ready to put through the sheller.  The basement is nice and warm, too, because we've had the heat on for about a month now. (We have radiant floor heat).

I'm putting the popcorn ears through the hand-cranked corn sheller.  I put a sheet on the floor to catch stray kernels.  The kernels that fall outside of the sheet into the corners of the kitchen become bird and squirrel food.  Sometimes the kernels have a mind of their own and fly everywhere!

The shelled ears become compost.

I've only done 2 buckets of popcorn ears, and have already filled up about 1/3 of the tub.  I have about 4 or 5 buckets to go yet.   We won't have as much popcorn as last year, but it will still be a goodly amount.  It was a bad summer for growing things - too much rain, early frost, and the hailstorm last month.

The next step in the popcorn process is to dry the kernels further in trays until they are ready to pop.   We "test pop" small batches until most of the kernels pop well.  Then we know it is about the right moisture.   I then put the kernels in wide mouth glass canning jars to store.   In the early spring when our market booth begins again, we will have popcorn to sell. 
     Now...........back to cranking out those ears!.................