Windy Acres

Garden update and Birthdays

My last post was about the first tomato of the summer.......while still fun to spot a red one, now there are quite a few.  Over the weekend we picked about 20, so we officially have tomatoes now!

Friday I picked enough green beans to have 19 bags to sell at market.  I didn't pick again until today and got enough for at least one canner full.  They are snapped and ready to can in the morning.  I know they should be done straight from the garden, but it doesn't always work out that way........  The first planting is not producing much, I think I will wait to see if they come back after the rains we had a few days ago before pulling them up.  We waited a long time between the second and third plantings, but the third planting is coming along nicely.  Four more rows were planted last week and they are starting to peek up today.  We were needing a rain and got .70 on Thursday night and .80 on Friday night.  It is hard to believe how the plants grow with some good old rain water!

Speaking of rain.............the neighbor started mowing our hay this afternoon.  Seems he broke down as he only worked a short time and then left?  He is on vacation this week, which means the hay needs to be done this week! Today was a beautiful day and tomorrow is supposed to be nice, BUT then they are talking about rain again and I really hope God doesn't allow our hay to get wet!!!  (He did last year).  I was nearly in tears several cold winter evenings when I had to pull apart many bales of hay flake by flake, trying to salvage some that wasn't molded to feed the hungry little goats!  When I would get a nice bale I think I was just as excited as the goats were.

Since I last talked with you here things have been pretty normal what ever that is.  Friday I spent the day baking ~ a peach pie, a strawberry-ruhbarb pie, 3 mini apple pies, 10 small loaves of friendship bread, 1 dozen large muffins, and 4 dozen cinnamon rolls.  As you remember hubby had already baked 10 small loaves of lemon-poppy seed bread for me!  We also had potatoes, cucumbers, green beans, eggs, meat and jam to sell.  Market was slow it seemed, sprinkled in the middle, but at the end of the morning it was the best sales of the year so far.  Hubby was having problems with low blood pressure, so he did not feel like driving to Emporia market that morning.  He went with me and I sure enjoy having him along, help loading and unloading it great!  He will also go here this weekend since it is a holiday.

Today was a nice day and it seemed like I got some things done!  Yeah me!  Some days just go by and I don't feel like I accomplish much or at least enough.  Almost everything is marked off of my to-do list tonight, so that feels really good!    Hubby's sister and family planned to stop by here this afternoon on their way home from vacation for a short visit.  Today is her birthday and I was to bake her an apple pie, but as it turned out they needed to get on home and could not stop by.  Today is also our wonderful little grandson, Nick's birthday.......9 years ago tonight was a pretty special occasion! 

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

BT Sandwich

That is what I had for lunch today!!  Most people have BLT but I really like just a Bacon Tomato sandwich.  Last Friday I saw nothing but green tomatoes...........when we got home Sunday evening, this is what I saw.

Yummy!  There are quite a few turning now, so before long I will be saying, I have to go out and pick tomatoes.  Right now, it sounds like fun.

Yesterday our ladies Bible study met here.  We had a good turn out and a nice evening.  Hubby went to Farmer's Market, so the morning was spent getting things ready for him to take there, and the afternoon getting the house somewhat ready for company. 

This afternoon I went into town and gave Mom a perm. While I was doing that hubby fixed supper and baked two batches of Lemon bread for Farmer's Market!  What a wonderful surprise that was.  I really should have baked more this evening, but just didn't.  While ago I made my list of to-dos for tomorrow and it is long..........but it will get done!

It was really hot here yesterday and today, there are storms around now, doesn't look like we will get the worst of it anyway, but we could use a rain.  We put a soaker hose on the green beans today.  When I picked yesterday there were not nearly as many as I expected, so I thought giving them a drink might help.  Hope there will be a good picking tomorrow for Market on Saturday. 

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

The wedding

I must share a little of the wedding we attended over the weekend.........It was our Grandaughter, Whitney and her groom Ben's special day, and it was absolutely wonderful!

I wanted you to see the back of her dress, of course in this picture of their first dance, the train is buttoned up, but you can see the red trim, it was so pretty!

I took 89 pictures, no I will not bore you with them all, although I could............I will share just a few!

The cake was very simple, the top was decorated with their initials.

This is Shelby, Maid of Honor, also our Grandaughter.

My step-daughter Jody and her hubby Jimmy, the proud parents of these beautiful girls!  What a special family they are.

The church was so beautifully decorated.  Good job girls!

Congratulations to the happy couple!

Ok, I will share some fun photos later.  We had such a great time. Our two sons that live close and their families met us Saturday morning and we all traveled together.  When we got to Springfield, we checked into our motel, then went next door to eat lunch.  We had very little time to get ready for the wedding, really had to rush.  But all was well as we found the church in plenty of time.  The reception included a light dinner, highlights were a punch fountain and a chocolate fountain.  The dance followed with a great DJ.  He kept everyone involved and lots of fun dances for all ages.  It was amazing how much fun everyone could have without drinking!

After returning to the motel, yes we did finally reserve a room, we watched the grandkids swim for a while, they were having such a great time.  It was well worth the money to stay, in my last post I said we were unsure what to do!

The next morning after checking out, we went to Bass Pro Shop for a while, then started home.  The kids traveling with us wanted to eat at Lamberts so they headed over there.  If you are not familiar with that it is known for throwing the rolls!  They also went to Bass Pro before heading home.  Mom, hubby and I went on to Carthage to the Precious Moments Chapel.  Mom had not been there before and really enjoyed seeing it.  We also stopped at the Louisburg Apple Cider Mill just across the Kansas line.  So we made a day of the trip home.  On the way home Mom said, You know 2-3 times this month I thought I would just stay home, but I sure would have missed a lot!  She had a really good time and didn't seem to get tired.  Hubby was pretty tired on the way home, but did feel good and enjoyed the weekend. (He even did the Twist with the girls at the dance)    

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When we got close to home, I began to worry about our critters and wonder if everyone would be ok when we got home.  Thankfully we found all was well, they didn't seem to miss us! 

Today was more bean picking and usual stuff around here, back to routine.  However, this afternoon a guy we visited with on Friday came and bought all of our little goat babies!  I have some mixed feelings...... sorry to see them go, but glad for a check in hand and not nearly so many little hungry mouths to feed!  We were just weaning them today which meant them eating more grain, so the timing was perfect.  Of course, God's timing always is!!

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

First canning of the summer

 Here is a picture of what is cooling on our kitchen counter..........

I had a small picking earlier in the week, but hubby took them to the mid-week Farmers Market yesterday.  This afternoon I picked 2 small buckets full and here they are, ready for winter.  We plan to make sure we get what we need to eat through the winter this year instead of selling too much at Market and then not having our own to eat.  Hubby had the great idea to can some in 1/2 pint jars for Mom! Since it is just the two of us we only do pints.

Last evening while I was working in the garden a plane kept turning around right over our place, he was spraying just south of us.  That makes us very nervous, that spray can really drift and cause a lot of damage to a garden.  A few years ago after they sprayed the pasture right across the road we lost quite a bit of produce, very dissapointing!

Well, plans are set for the weekend trip to Grand daughter, Whitney's wedding.  We did get a motel room for Saturday night.  We went back and forth, trying to decide what to do??  We didn't want to spend the money, but a 4 hour drive there, wedding, reception, 4 hour drive home all in one day........a very long day!  Mom is going along and that would really be tiring for her.  We ended up getting a room the same place as our kids are staying, so that will be fun.  The wedding is in the Springfield, Mo. area, wish we could zip on down to Branson, but I doubt that we will.  We love to go to the Amish store there and I need some things, but not sure it is worth the extra gas and time it would take.

So, tomorrow will be a full day getting ready to be gone overnight!  A friend is coming over to water or at least check everyone's water.  I told her we will feed and hay early Sat. morning, so she will only have to come for a few minutes to check on the critters.  We should be home mid afternoon on Sunday to do chores that day.  Some of it I can do tomorrow, putting out extra water tubs and extra hay to last.

One of our county fairs is going on right now.  We had intended to take part, but with all that is going on right now it just didn't work out.  The goat show will be tomorrow morning, so we plan to go and watch it, and see the other exhibits.

I am getting laundry finished up this evening and still need to go back out and shut the chickens up.  I mowed some this morning and intended to do more later, but a rain came up again, we only got .15 so that isn't bad, but too wet to mow.  Just as well, I picked the beans right after lunch and I would not have been able to do that after the rain either and that was more important...........the grass will wait to be mowed!  While it was rainy I got a pie baked, one of our customers brought some cherries from her tree and wanted me to make a pie for her.  Hubby was nice enough to pit them for me!

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

God is so good!

What a wonderful praise we have this morning!  Yesterday about noon we had no hot water, hubby started down into the basement to check the water heater and..........found lots of water in the basement, up around the water heater, not good news.  So he got a pump and pumped out the water, by then it was getting late, so we just decided to deal with the problem this morning.  Well, going back down thinking we were in for a new water heater, which we really don't have the money for right now, he pushed the reset button and turned it back on and came up to "wait to see"  what happened.  After a few minutes, turned on the faucet and WE HAD HOT WATER AGAIN!   This  heater is only a few years old, so it should last us a long time yet.

Now hubby is off to get a snake to clean out the drain so this doesn't happen again!  I also did some work on the eaves that drain near the basement window to make sure the rain water runs away from the house better.

The basement is actually a root cellar that is only under our kitchen.  The kitchen was added onto the orginal house and this was put in then I guess, but still probably 100 years ago or so.  We are thankful to have a place to go in storms and to store canned goods.  I don't make as good of use of it as I should, it is kind of yucky down there to me.

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

Wonderful Day

Today was the most beautiful day here, about 75 degrees and cloudy most all day, didn't seem like the first day of summer is so close!  It was a fantastic day to work outside, which I did all day long.  I got some work done in flower beds, herbs set out, some garden tilled, and more weeds pulled!!  It has rained enough that the weeds pull really easy and so it is almost fun............well, it isn't hard and you can see the progress you are making as you go........so as much fun as pulling weeds could be.  There are quite a few left over plants in the greenhouse and although it is getting late to set them out, since it hasn't been really hot yet and we have had plenty of moisture I am still trying to find places to stick them in the ground instead of letting them go to waste.  I still have way more tomato plants than I would ever need, and lots of herbs we started from seed.  Wish some of you lived close enough that I could share!   I also have hundreds of volunteer petunia plants coming up and already blooming, so I am recycling them as well.  Speaking of flowers, I have Hollyhocks planted in front of our barn and they are just absolutely beautiful this year.  I took a picture this morning so I will share it another day.

We dug a bucketful of potatoes today, didn't get the beans picked, will do that tomorrow.  I did pick the first cucumbers.  I also still have to set out the sweet potato plants.  It sounds like tomorrow will be as nice as today was, so I plan to take advantage of it working outside again.

As it turned out we do not have to serve a funeral dinner tomorrow.  That is really a blessing as hubby is supposed to be resting and I have so much that needs doing around here the first part of the week.  It is a really nice out reach for our church to do and we usually don't mind it, but this week it is just best for us that the family did not request a meal.  I hope that doesn't sound selfish of us............

We needed a big bale of hay moved for the goats today and our neighbors that usually do it were not available.  Hubby thought of another neighbor to ask and he came immediately and did it for us, it is so nice to have such willing and friendly neighbors!  I gave him some fresh eggs and a plate of brownies in return. 

We actually thought far enough ahead today to put a pork roast in the crock pot for supper!  We keep saying we really need to use the crock pot this summer 1) so meals will be ready and  2) not to heat up the kitchen...........but we usually fly by the seat of our pants around here  and don't have meals planned well enough or think of starting anything early enough in the day. 

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

Where do I begin

to catch up after not blogging for 10 days???  I have some excuses, but I don't know if they are good ones.   Storms and tired that would about cover it.

A week ago Thursday, they began predicting severe storms for our area a week in advance, that made me a little nervous.  There were storms but nothing like they thought at least for our area.  Then this past Thursday there was a tornado on the ground in Kansas for 80 miles!  It was west of us, so we were in no danger, but it nearly destoryed the small town of Chapman and also hit Manhattan and then north of Topeka.  They said it did $20 million damage to Kansas State University Campus!  The following evening the same type of storm was about 40 miles east of us and headed our way.  However we only got rain out of that one.  Our kids homes were much closer to the path this time and they all took cover, but there was no damage.  Praise the Lord for his protection in each of these storms for our family and homes!  This has been such a stormy spring in our area.

Farmers Market on June 7 was a good one, hubby and I both had good mornings.  Then we hit a few garage sales and got a huge bird cage for $10, quite a find we thought.  A few other small purchases, but nothing exciting.

Tuesday, hubby had Dr. appointments so we were on the run all day, errands and grocery shopping while we were in Topeka.  As it worked out, we were able to see part of Nick and Kaylan's ball games that evening on the way home.

Wednesday was the first birthday party for Madelyn.  How does time go so fast??  Her birthday is actually the 18th, but that will be a busy day, so they scheduled the party a week early.  She was so cute and we all enjoyed watching her celebrate.  The same evening Lexi had a ballgame right across the street from the party, so we were able to watch part of her game that evening.

That brings us up to Friday the 13th............that was my 55th birthday.  My 50th was on Friday the 13th also!  Of course it was "baking for Farmers Market" day, so that is all I got done, no time to celebrate.  However Saturday evening hubby, Mom and I went out to eat. 

Farmers Market this week was not as good, and I baked more items, so I had quite a bit left over.  Saturday afternoon, some folks from Texas and Ohio that have family here came out to visit and see the animals.  We had a nice time with them.

Today was a really nice day.  Hubby wasn't feeling the greatest this morning, so he stayed home from church.  When I got home he told me that his son Jimmy had called and he and his family were coming to visit this afternoon for Father's Day.  We had a very nice time with them, we don't see them very often, so really appreciated them coming.  They brought us the most wonderful gift, a huge Scrapbooking kit!  The two older Grand daughters were not able to come along so we missed them though.  He got calls from some of the other kids wishing him Happy Fathers Day.

I also spent some time early afternoon visiting with a friend from school, church and 4-H.  We are about the same age.  She had moved 30 some years ago, and I had only seen her briefly once since then.  She was in town with her family and wanted to see me, so we met at Mom's and enjoyed catching up.

A busy week ahead, we will find out in the morning if we are serving a funeral dinner at church this week, one of our county fairs is the end of the week and our grand daughter, Whitney is getting married on Saturday! You will be hearing more about the wedding and pictures following.

In between these activities, I have been pulling weeds.........that is a full time job it seems.  They are everywhere, in the flower beds, in the garden...........  Mowing is hard to keep up with right now with all the rain too.  Speaking of garden, we had the first green beans today, yummy!  I should have a pretty good picking tomorrow or the next day.  We have dug quite a few potatoes to sell, all of the turnips, some beets, sugar snap peas, and lots of onions.  Peppers are setting on and cucumbers too.  Just waiting on tomatoes to get red!

Well, that pretty well tells you what has been going on around here lately.  I do hope I will be able to keep up dated more often.

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

Look what was for supper tonight

Hubby came in with the first nice little bunch of new potatoes.........so browned new potatoes was immediately on the menu for supper!

Yummy............

Kaylan's mama called this morning and said she was wanting to come to visit the farm again, so she has been here since about noon.  Will stay until Friday afternoon.  Anyway, when she ate the potatoes she said these are really, really good.

We spent the afternoon working outside, she helped pull weeds, plant flowers, water some flowers, of course do chores and played with the kittens. One tired and dirty little lady tonight!

Yesterday hubby went to the Dr., didn't get to see his, but at least got in and was given some antibiotic to knock this cough and miserable stuff he has been fighting for a week.   Thankfully, he was already feeling some better by this morning!  He was well enough to do a few things outside today, which he had not been able to do since last Friday.

Better get to bed, a busy day tomorrow.  Can't believe it is time to start baking for the weekend Market again already!  I will at least make Amish Friendship bread, Lemon Poppy Seed bread and Morning Glory muffins.   We will see how much I get done with the help of our little 4 year old gal?  Saturday in town will be the city-wide garage sales, so may try to make a few extra things because of the big crowd in town.

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

Thank you Lord

This morning there were some really severe storms in our area and I am so Thankful that our little homestead was protected.  The main damage was from large hail.  Hail as large as softballs, 4 inches across were reported as close as 20 miles or so!  Hubby and I had gone to a nearby town to the bank, as we left for home it started to sprinkle.  Within a few miles of home it started to hail, some pretty good sized, but not enough of the large ones to damage the pickup.  Two miles from our house we stopped and picked up a really large hail stone.  When we got home there were only  a few small ones laying in the yard, the sky was so dark the yard lights were on.   It rained really hard for just a few minutes, then moved on. 

I measured the hail we picked up and it measures 2 3/4 inches which I heard on the news is baseball size!   I can only imagine what damage that would have done to our garden!!  And the wheat is just starting to turn and looks good, that would have wiped out the crop for the local farmers.

There have been so many tornadoes in Kansas this spring and summer, quite an active storm season!  At least there were no tornadoes with the storms this morning. 

Thank you Lord for your protection again today!

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead

Nice Sunday afternoon

After church and dinner, we took a nice Sunday afternoon nap.  I didn't intend to sleep the afternoon away, but it happened.  Hubby is still feeling poorly, so I know he needed the rest and I probably did too.

Late afternoon a friend called and invited us to come over for homemade ice cream.........now that sounded soooo good!  I went out to do chores and when I came in to get ready to go hubby said that some friends were on their way over to get some bees.  So, I had to call and back out on the ice cream invitation.  

 Bee story is:  for years while I was growing up here in this house there were bees in the corner of our house.  They never bothered me and growing up with them I didn't think much about them.  After many years my Mom began to get stung and so someone came and got the bees.  Quite a mess as the honey melted in the wall and ran and didn't smell good!  Well last summer I heard a noise and saw a swarm of bees.............don't you know they moved right in that same spot in the corner of the house!   I am guessing it had been at least 20 years since the previous bees had been there.   Hubby was concerned that someone would get stung, I really wanted them around for the garden.......so pro and con, hard to know what to do.  We had offered them to these friends that have bees, and they decided to come and get them this evening.  He vaccumed them up into a box and off they went to their new home!  Sadly he told us to spray the remainder and then spray foam into the hole so they cannot continue to go in and out.  I hate to think of trapping those left, but there really is no other choice at this point.   I asked lots of questions about the bee behavior and learned a lot, they are really interesting little creatures!   They brought me a lovely little primitive pin cushion as a gift, Thank you Carmen, I love it!   Luckily I had some Lemon poppy seed bread left over from Farmers Market to offer...........Us girls had such a nice visit, we have a lot in common to chat about!  They have a lovely family, 3 very handsome, polite, neatly dressed, just good all around country boy sons!

Ahead this week...........lots of chances for rain the way it sounds.  Not what we need right now.  The yard needs mowed again, and the push mower must be used around the house before we cannot find the house!  Neither of us enjoy the push mower..............  Weeds need some attention in the garden, I will set out some flowers that are left over in the green house.  It is getting too late to sell them and I have lots of bare spots to fill.  I usually set out flowers the first of May......and today is the first of June???   I am behind on washing eggs again, so that is on the list for tomorrow too.

Forgot to tell you that I finally got my hair cut a few days ago.........I had let it grow quite long and while I really enjoyed how easy it was to pull back and go............it was making me look about 20 years older than I really am, so it had to go.   I do like it and am so glad I did it.

A friend of ours does a blog about local happenings and she often features the Emporia Farmers Market,  I just checked it out and yesterday's Market has another picture of hubby selling his wares, so if you would like to see it, check here.  Flyover People

Country Blessings,

Marilyn~at Heritage Hill Homestead