Gonna be one of those days...

Funny thing happened. It's almost 1 am and I'm watching "The Money Pit". Out of no where, I hear a sudden spurt of water gushing somewhere. The water explosion was so loud that both me & my sleeping Hubby jolted from the bed and ran to find the source of the sound. We followed the sounds of a Yellowstone-like geyser to the guest bathroom. As it turns out, the hose that supplies the guest toilet with water burst open and poured a few gallons of water all over the floor before I could get to the cut off valve.

Yup, the plastic just broke all at once. Snapped right off.

Meanwhile, Hubby stood bleary-eyed in the doorway and started handing me towels and told me we'd take care of it in the morning, then promptly went right back to bed where he immediately fell asleep.

It's already one of those days and the day is barely an hour old!!!! Looks like I'll be looking for a METAL connector now... No More cheap, half-a$$ed piece of plastic...!@*%!@(*^@!!!!!

Our corn is sprouting!!!!!

At least 2 rows of our corn are sprouting!!! We kinda feel like farmers now that our crop is growing. Encouraged, we will plant some more seeds in the field for a variety of vegetables to harvest in a couple months. So, we are setting things up and starting to get our "Farm Groove" on!

Planting by hand... a strenuous endeavor.

OK. so, being the pioneering sort, we took to planting 3 rows of corn by hand (well, literally, by rake, hoe and prybar, but that's not important). Hubby & I, taking full advantage of the cold snap we've been in since the rain, decided to do the "light work" of planting some of the seeds we have for white corn, yellow corn, strawberry corn and pop corn after Hubby's cousin disked the field Sunday. We used the rakes to try to level the ground for the rows... though only 2 got leveled due to the inordinate amount of labor & effort involved. Then, we used the prybar to make the 2-3 inch holes while standing. Great idea we thought. Not as much bending to stick our fingers in the dirt to make holes. Then we dropped the seeds into each hole and covered them with our feet. As it happens, 30 pounds of iron is what a prybar is made up of. Approximately 600 reps of lifting the bar 600 times, each, it got a bit heavy & we decided that there had to be a better way. So, we hoed up the next row, dropped the seed in the trench and covered it back up with the hoes... we were SOOOoooo spent after that, so we called it a day.

Lining up the row

The field was disked N-S, our rows will go E-W.

I live in a town where signs like this are necessary

Yesterday, work after the storm...

No storm clean up, per se, but plenty to keep me busy! Worked on the flower & herb garden and veggie garden.

Found another old rusty barrel that I can use for a planter.
Weeded all around so I could "add it to the collective".

Kinda adds to the old, rustic, country look, I think.

Amaryllis are now on either side of the front steps! I hope they blossom brightly this summer!!!!

Remember the GREEN MONSTER in the front lawn?

We'd taken it down and now the frame will be a trellis for our climbing garden!

The East side of our NEW trellis (a.k.a frame of Green Monster)

There's Confederate Jasmine in the NE Corner.

Going south there are 3 types of Roses from NW Florida I'm hoping
will take root.

Mahonia (a.k.a. Oregon Grape)

The north Side

Cuttings from the same 3 roses...

More Mahonia (Oregon Grape)

The West Side

Clippings from the same rose bushes...

Althea

I figure the 3 different sides will give them a variety of light. That way I can see where they will do best. All the weeding, however, has my back & shoulders awfully sore!!

On a bright note, the Gloriosa Lilies in the garden arch are doing well!

Glorious Gloriosa Lilies

Of all the...

I said it was just a myth, Hubby said it was real. He was right. True to my word, I lost the wager and now must post that Vagina Dentata is indeed a medical condition that affects 1 in 12 million women. Done.

Up early to work outside?!?!?

We knew it was going to be a HOT day today, High of 95 degrees F, so we planned to get up early so we could get some work on the driveway done before it got swelteringly hot. We even went to bed early (by 9) in order to accommodate this plan.

This morning, the alarm went off at 5:00 am. I got up, started the dishwasher, filtered some water for coffee and went to the bathroom to give Hubby the time to "sleep in" a bit as requested. It was about 5:15 am when I started to wake him up. I let him be for a couple minutes afterwards while I took care of the cats for the day. He got up, went to the bathroom, turned off the light in the kitchen and went right back to bed!! After a whole lot of me prodding him and him complaining about how he hates my alarm, he finally got up (5:50 am) and headed for the coffee in the kitchen. Then he sat his ass down on the couch and read his news sites online.

The long & short of it is: it's 6:38 am and we STILL have not gotten outside yet!!!! He says he needs some time to get moving about in the morning... so, I suggested waking up earlier so we get out on time! He was not nearly as amused as I was... que sera sera.

The Fire Ants are spawning!!!

So, I looked out my window and saw all these flying bugs going up. A few landed on a screen looking out from the living room and a spider ran over to get the flying thing. After a few turns, the spider jumped back and ran back to it's little corner. It had been stung by the flying Fire Ant it had caught. There's TONS of them!!!

Yup, time to spread the commercial ant killer that sterilizes the ants... Orange Oil kills one mound at a time, but with all the flying queens I've seen today, I don't think it'll be sufficient to effectively control those millions of new queens I just saw flying around this morning!

If you would like some information on Fire Ants and how to control them, the Extension Office has put up a site that has links to several sources for information:

http://www.ag.auburn.edu/enpl/fireants/programs.php

We're planning on a "Skip-Swath" broadcast of growth inhibitor & metabolic disruptor baits that the EPA has OK'd for pasture and livestock areas. The chemicals in them are: hydromethylnon (metabolic inhibitor), methoprene (Insect growth inhibitor), pyriproxyfen (Insect growth inhibitor). The products listed with these are Amdro Pro, Extinguish, & Esteem. There may be more, but these are what I've found. We managed to find a product that contains 2 of the 3 chemical compounds and we'll be using a hand spreader this evening to apply to our yard area. Wish us luck!

This Week's Exciting Progress!!!

Whew! Finally taking a day to rest and reflect on all the things we've accomplished this week! 

Now, let's expand on that...
Sunday: Festival plant sale with Master Gardener Assoc.; 2 year anniversary; bought a trailer.

I purchased a hot pepper plant to support the PCMGA.

There was a train going all around the festival.

Lots of plants for sale.

Succulents, perennials, ferns.

 Then we purchased the trailer, hooked it up to the back of the lawn mower and went for a joy ride around the field!

All Hooked up...

and ready to go!!

The corn in the field is growing quickly despite the lack of rain!

Looking east over the pond.

The pond

The field approaching sunset.

Monday: Fixed the kitchen drainage (see previous post for more info & pictures), started working on the new reclamation Garden.

Dug a trench for the PVC pipe.

The cause of the bog in the front yard.

We laid some pipe. Yup, I said it! :)

We leveled the bottom of the trench.

Put in the pipe...

and covered it up!

Tuesday: Fixed some spots in the farm road/driveway by plugging up spots with wood chips! Weeding and planning the new garden.

Riding to the wood chip pile.

LOTS of wood chips!

Loading up.

Filled in the HUGE pot hole.

Re-replanted the Louisiana Irises

Laid down some grass clippings as mulch for the future garden.

Wednesday: Filled in more washed out spots in the road/driveway. More weeding in the new garden.

Planning the placement of plants in the garden.

Potential front line up.

Bird feeder as a focal point?

These herbs will go in the metal tub...

...here.

Herb garden with dill, lavender, sage, cilantro, rosemary and hot peppers.

Ferns as a backdrop? Perhaps.

The Louisiana Irises and Echinacea to shade them.

Thursday: Worked on Cub- It's running now! YAY! Drove a Tractor for the 1st time in my life!
More work on the road/driveway, finishing up parts of the garden, taking down the green monster.

Hubby riding the tractor!!

I'm driving the tractor!

Filled in some wash areas in the driveway.

Half-way done weeding. All the bulbs are planted. I THINK they are Spider Lilies.

Right by the door looks nice!

Friday/today: rest!!!! Blogging. ...and here I am! :)