Homestead Happenings

Scary creature!!!

OK I just had my first scary creature encounter. Try not to laugh to hard at this city girl who is trying to put down country roots, OK?

I was wetting down my compost pile when I noticed a hole.  There was a pile of freshly dug dirt so I turned my hose that way and started to wash the dirt down the hole.  The muddy water ran in for several minutes as I vainly tried to fill it when out came this wet, angry, creature.  Gopher?  Mole?  I don't know but it was wet and mad and it started walking toward me.  The only weapon I had was the water hose so I kept the stream of water in it's face.  It just kept coming then started going faster (did I mention towards me?).  Then when it got 3 feet from me I heard a shriek and it veered away from me, ran up the compost pile, turned back to look at me (really) and then it jumped over the pile and out of sight.  Would it be wrong to leave out the detail that the shriek came from me?    How sissy is that??? 

How can I kill these things without poison?  They must die!! 

Good day

Today was a good productive day.  I made a double batch of bread which yielded 5 loaves of bread and 3 dozen dinner rolls.  

After that those fruit trees finally were planted.  Yipee!  We planted a Myer Lemon in November and today I planted 1 each of plum, peach, and an apple tree that grows 5 different kinds of apples.  I picked a combo tree since buying (or planting) 5 different apple trees is not something I want to do right now.  We might later.  I thought a grafted tree sounded neat and wanted to try it.

I also learned that my children really like my bread.  How can you tell if your children really like your bread?  When you find this......

My 2 year old, Munchkin, decided to help herself to some "yummy bread".

Now... where will we put the grapes and berries??? 

Stay tuned.

Fruit Trees

The Lord said it himself: "The mind is willing but the flesh is weak."  How true this is.  There are so many thing I want to do but my body can only do some much.  Time and energy are not unlimited.

We were at Costco last week and they had bare root fruit trees.  We picked up one peach and one plum.  Guess where they are?  On the porch still in the packaging of course!

Now the question is........ where do I plant them?  I am not sure if they need to be kept away from other fruit trees.  I need to do some research.  Time to (yet again) get out my copy of The Encyclopedia of Country Living.   

Guess my "city" is showing.  By saying this I am not bad mouthing those who l ive in the city.  After all, we did until just a few month ago.  What I mean is that I don't know how to do this and that most who live "out here" do.

Live and learn