Hurrah! Planting Time!

[Ramona M. Faunce]

Got home yesterday at around 5:30PM. Unpacked hubbys medications and left the rest for today.

Grandson called this morning at 1:30AM to pick him up because it was raining and he didn't want to bike home. Since my garden didn't die I went and picked him up. Ha! Ha!

Got up this morning and gave a thorough examination of my garden. There were some potted plants that were dry and on the wilted side, but a watering brought them right back.

Everything looks great! There are hundreds of green strawberrys and rasberrys on the plants that weren't there before we left on vacation. That makes me happy! Happy! Happy! I was wanting enough to freeze for the winter and it looks like my dreams will come true.

Most of the tomato plants have blooms on them and some of pepper plants have blooms to. I do need to get in some more top soil/ mulch delivered so that I can plant the warm weather seeds and get the garden in order for the summer.

All 6 of the new raspberry plants have sprouted. Before I left I noticed that 4 of them had sprouted. I thought I had lost 2 of the new plants. Then when we left 1 of the 2 had a small green sprout at the base of the plant. I was hoping that is wasn't a weed. Well it turned out to be a raspberry sprout. And when we returned from vacation the last raspberry has a 2" sprout at the base. So it looks like all of them are going to live. This is great!. I am planning on a building a bigger huggle row for the raspberry runners nixt year.

The blue berry plants all have blueberrys and I know that I will have to re plant these bushes in the near future. So I do want to get a huggle row built for them to be transplanted to this fall/winter. I haven't really picked out a space, but I do know that it has to be where the deer will not feel safe enough to get to them.

I have 3 plumb trees and the past couple of years we have had little luck getting plumbs off of them. So I built huggle rows between the trees in hopes of cutting them down to extend the huggle rows. Well it looks like the huggle rows were good for the plumb trees because all 3 trees are now loaded down with plumbs. I think I will keep these trees around for a couple of years and see if it is the huggle rows that have improved the plum trees crop or if it is just a fluke. I will be expanding in width on the huggle rows this year. They could all do with another foot to 1 1/2 feet added in width.

Well our vacation went pretty well. We are both tired and hubby is really tired and worn out. But it was good to visit his family and I think it will help him mentally recover from his heart transplant last year.

We visited with his 80 year old brother and his nefew/family. Then we visited hubbys younger brother and sister. We spent 2 to 3 nights at each place and remeniced about childhoods and met and were entertained by the generations that are being raised now.

All in all we had a good time, but we were sure happy to get home and happy to stay here for a month or more before we have to heat back up to Portland for a doctors visit.

Now I need to get some homesteading blogs for northern Nevada. Hubbys nefew is homesteading in the desert. He has a nice solar arfay that is supplying enough for lights, computer, tv, and a freezer for the home. They do not have a well yet. He just found out that the driller is charging $50 a foot! Is that normal? He is trying to get some of his neighbors together to raise $ to dig a well they can all use. But they are new to desert living. They need a blog on how to turn sand/dirt/rocks into a viable garden and orchard.

Well I think I have talked your ears off so I will let you go for now.

It sure is good to be back home!

God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

Some more info about our vacation.

Met my nieces husband for the first time. He admits to being a semi socialist???????? Does that mean he is a big-rig socialist????? Don't know.

Anyway, he likes Obama. I am not going to cut him on that. We are allowed to like whom ever we want from our country.

But then he was saying that the rich make too damn much $.....They need to spread it around more then they are doing now! It wouldn't hurt them to put that $ into medical for their workers.

So I gave me speal on Obama Care and the rich. It was amazing to see his eyes open up and his mouth shut up. He wasn't sure which way to go so he just stopped.

He did let it drop that he was thinking about buying a gun and they had been talking about storing up some food. And then he started talking about those "Prepping Survivalists". I told him I was a prepper and what I had been doing over the past several years to set my self up with a sustainable lifestyle.

He decided that all he had to do was move his family 1,000 miles to my place if anything happened. I informed him that he and his family would get killed trying to leave their own area and never make it to my place. He is totally unprepared and I gave him this site and several others to read and get an idea of what his family will be facing in the near future.

It is a sad thing to watch or average person of reasonable intelligence flounder about basic survival. I will pray for them.

However, another family member has started their homestead in the desert of N. Nevada. They have a solar array for the basics. Are working on a water supply and trying to figure out desert gardening.

So any of you out there that have a desert gardening blog site that would help this family. I would appreciate a heads up.

Well that is all for now. God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

More info on vacation.

2 of my second nieces are artistic. One draws with perfect balance in her figures. The other one is great in creating a backdrop with texture and color.

I thought that they could work as a team and create their own t-shirt line. so I went down to Joanns and bought them some 5 shirts and dies and permanent markers.

Now it is up to them to create, wear and sell their work.

I will be helping with ideas and some product to keep them interested. I need to send them some of hubbys old hankerchiefs that they can practice on. I was going to go to Wal-Mart and look into buying cheap-white hats that they can work on too.

I told them with the economy the way it is, they can not depend on someone else giving them a job, they need to get out there and create a market for the products that they can make.

Well, that's it for now. God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

On Friday I went to the local nursery and picked up 4 more used planters for my tomatoes. These are planters that trees come in. Bigger then 5 gallon and I think bigger then 10 gallon. Last year I put my tomato plants in 5 and 10 gallon planters and tended them with love. It was one of the best tomato years I had. So this year I am putting them all in planters. There are several varieties to judge which one will or wont do well in the planter.

I also picked up a 6-pk of Cosmos to plant in each garden area. They grow tall and flower all summer to attract pollinating insects. I grew them in my garden the first year up here. Not sure why I haven't grown them since.

Tomorrow I will attend the new quilt club that I joined a couple of months back. I haven't been at a meeting in a month because of doctor appointments and our vacation. So I hope they will help me catch up on the quilt show project that they are giving away as little gifts and selling in packages to show attendees. They are gift tags made from the 3 different layers of quilting materials. I hope to make some for Christmas presents this year.

I picked up a Pre-Kindergarten work book for my nephew. My Mom will be working with him throughout the summer to keep him up on his skills. He is the one who is autistic but doing great. One more year and they believe he will be ready for a regular classroom.

Our valleys' organic farms are growing. We have had a Farmers' Market in the north end of the valley for several years. Then about 3 years ago they would alternate weekly between north and south ends of the valley. This gave everyone a chance to purchase produce at different ends of the valley. Now there is a Farmers' Market that is going to open up at the south end of the valley every week for the next 20 weeks. I am so happy to see our valley growing in this direction.

I planted pie pumpkin seeds, summer squash seeds and hubbard squash seeds. I still have zuchinni and butternut squash seeds to plant. I will be doing that in the next few days.

This would be the perfect time to plant them because we will have a weeks worth of summers rains. The garden has grown even more over the past couple of days because of these rains. I noticed that my sweet peas are getting small pods on them. Hurrah! Hurrah!

This afternoon we are taking a drive to look at a 5 month old long haired Taco Bell dog. I forgot how to spell the real name of that dog and don't know how to use spell check on my computer. I'm bad I know.

Hubby is starting to want another dog to fill his days. I want him to get another dog so I don't have to keep filling his days. ha! Ha!

Well, I will let you all go for now.

God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

It rained pretty hard last night and is continuing through today. The garden will be saturated if this keeps up. I am not worried. I am just waiting for the squash seeds to sprout. This rain should help if it doesn't drowned them all. Ha! Ha!

Sunday hubby and I drove into down to look at a 5 month old long hair female Chihuahua. She was so cute and enjoyed hubby holding her as we walked. She didn't seem jumpy but more relaxed then a lot of Chihuahuas I have been around. You know how they tremble when they are nervous? This puppy doesn't do that. It's like she hasn't a fear in the world.

So hubby and I bought her and brought her home. On the way into town, we were thinking of names that hubby liked. He settled on Honey, Rosie, Lily and Cookie. When we met her the owner said that her granddaughter had named her Piper. On the way back to the car, we kept calling for Piper but she didn't recognize her name. So I told hubby he could rename her what ever he wanted since she doesn't recognize her name.

So he decided to call her Rosie? She is black with a white chest (go figure). Hubby, as I had explained in previous posts, was devastated by our little Peppers death several months back. So on the way to see this dod he broke down and cried because he missed Pepper and didn't know if this new dog would help him heal. Then again, when he saw the puppy and she was nothing like our Pepper hubby sniffled a couple of times.

But hubby said that this puppy was a keeper and we took her home. I got to drive because hubby wanted to hold Rosie and have her start to bond with him. She took to hubby like chocolate syrup over ice cream. Ha! Ha!

We headed on over to the store to purchase a bag of puppy chow and as I came out I saw my hubby over on the sidewalk running with Rosie and laughing. He was encouraging her to keep up with him. My husband hasn't run anywhere since before his heart transplant. So this was a wonderful site to see.

We have been taking Rosie out every hour to potty and settled her down in the dog carrier we had for the night. She wined and cried a little but for the most part it was a quiet night. I've heard her bark once since we bought her, so that is a good thing.

I am hoping that hubby will find loving companionship with little Rosie and reach to enjoy his life again.

Well, thank you for listening to me and giving me time to express one of my hopes for the future.

God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

Took Rosie out to the berry garden this morning. She is getting use to being outdoors with me and seems to enjoy running around the yard.

While in the berry garden, I got to looking at the strawberries. One of them looked almost ripe.....right on the cusp....so I PICKED it. Ha! Ha!

I wasn't sure it wouldn't be a sour mouth pursing bite, but I was ready to take the chance.

So Rosie and I head on into the house and over to the sink. I washed and slice the berry in half. I closed my eyes and ate my half. It was DELICIOUS! Definitely ripe. My first bite this season. It can only get better.

Went over to hubby and gave him his half of the berry. I told him he would enjoy it. His eye brows went up as he bit into the sweet and juicy strawberry and he couldn't chew and swallow it fast enough.

It was ambrosia to both of us.

Hope that all of you gardeners out there are enjoying your first bite of sweet berries this season and enjoying it as much as we have.

God bless and keep on prepping.

[2crows]

Originally Posted by Ramona M. Faunce

Hope that all of you gardeners out there are enjoying your first bite of sweet berries this season and enjoying it as much as we have.

We've been able to pick strawberries a couple of times and there's just no comparison to our home-raised.

Over the last 4-5 years, we've expanded the garden until it provides most of our veggies for the year. The 'store' grocery list gets shorter all the time. We still buy a lot of our meat, but I also supplement with several deer and the odd squirrel or rabbit.

I think the garden is plenty big as-is, but I'd like to add our own goats, chickens, rabbits.

I've noticed I eat a LOT more veggies nowadays -- they just seem to taste better when I grow them myself.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

2crows I agree with you. I find myself eatting more verges from the garden now a days. But I do worry about this new report. A Chinese firm is buying up the largest pork opporation in America. I am concerned about the pork quality we could expect from a country that feeds their own people plastic rice.

I am not going to bring up the poisoned children's toys or the poisoned dog food China sold to the American public.

You would be smart to grow your own meat.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

Well, our grandson came in from work about 3:00am and woke us up. The local post office was on fire! He thinks someone ran their car into it.

So hubby and I went into town around 7:00am to have our coffee and look at the damage. Sure enough the only thing standing was the studs and they were being pulled down by the county to keep anyone from getting hurt.

The RUMMOR is ...........drum roll..........some guys were making crack in their car and it blew up. They got out and took off like lightning. The burnt out car is still there. The cops will be able to find out who owns the car from the vin #. Sounds like some of the people that live in our valley. Ha! Ha! Sure blew my fanatical Islamist theory apart.

We are going to the big city this Sunday. A friend of ours belongs to the toy train club. He has a small train community built along the hilly side of their yard. A couple times a year they invite friends and family over to watch the trains travel through hill and dale and towns and farms and mining country. It is a blast! The business' are named after members of their family. Like Mikes Auto Repair or Bettys' Bakery. You know what I mean. So we will get to see them and have a chat.

The husband gave me some wandering Jew cuttings last year. The cuttings are from a plant that has been around for over 80 years. It was once his grandfathers plant. So I have taken good care of my planting. I will need to snip off some shoots and root them because they are 4' long and dragging on the ground. So I will pick up a larger planter when we go into town.

I got 8 strawberries off the plants this morning. I figure in a couple of days I should be able to start freezing some of them. Then when they really start to come on I want to dry some for this winter.

The peas have small pods all over the bushes. I doubt I will be able to freeze any. I rarely get them into the house to share. I usually eat them in the garden. I should plant a bigger patch. Hubby can't eat peas because they are loaded with sugar. But I might grow a patch this fall for freezing.

The fennel I planted this spring is growing nicely. I will have to look up some Greek recipes for the stuff. I usually use them in soups and salads. The carrots are starting to thicken and the rutabeggers are about 2" round. That makes me happy.

I am almost finished with the pillow slips I am making to go with the quilt for my nephew and his wife. I will try to get a friend to help me with putting pictures up on this site for all of you. That is if she knows how. I might try to get someone at the high school to show me how to do the picture thing. Ha! Ha! But it is so hard to get on the high school grounds. It is almost like a FEMA camp. Not really. But you do have to call ahead and get permission to walk on the campus.

Well I will be letting you all go for now.

God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

Saturday a friend and I went to the Farmers' Market in a town 30 miles away. I picked up 7 squash plants One yellow crook neck. 2 zucchini one delicate and 3 butternut squash.

The reason I picked these up is the seeds I planted before going on vacation never sprouted. Well one pumpkin seed sprouted. I will plant a couple more pumpkin seeds and crook neck and some blue hubbard squash to see if they will sprout in the second planting. I have planted the seedlings as back up.

My garden is coming along. I planted my sweet peppers and the hot peppers I will leave in the one gallon pots. But I will set them in a deep layer of straw to keep the pots from drying out too quick.

I will be getting my top soil delivered the first part of this week so that I can get my tomatoes in the pots that I bought.

Our neighbors behind us, have a commercial peony plant business. They started it about 7 years ago. Her husband wanted a way to raise $ to pay their property tax after he retired. Well their peony business has done so well that they make more then enough to pay the property tax. But with the economy the way it is he is going to continue to work for his medical until he is 70 or as old as he can and still work.

I hate to see our older generation going back to work to afford their medical. A lot of them have come to accept that this is the way it will be. But I thought our golden years were to sit back and enjoy our grandchildren????????

I do not plan on going back to work, but I do plan on expanding the garden and maybe in a year or so have my own table at the Farmer's Market that just opened up in our town.

When we were on vacation to visit with my hubbys' older brother, his brother showed us a letter he received from his dead wife's family Okanaha. It was written in Japanese. So I took a copy to my friend and she read it for me.

It seems that Okanaha has had economic struggles since the earth quake that hit the Fukajema power plant. They wanted to know if we were going through hard economic times in America. And they would like some pictures of the family in America. They are trying to get a history of the family and where they have migrated to.

This made my brother-in-law feel better. He thought that it might have had some bad news. So He is going to get some pictures copied and a letter written. My friend will translate the letter into Japanese to be sent to Okanaha.

We went to visit our friends this afternoon. They had the toy train open house. Yesterday they had 45 friends and family show up throughout the day to look and listen to the story of his train valley and how the towns/communities and names came to be. Today there were even more people who showed up. This was our second year in attending their open house. We will plan on going next year too.

On the way home I was talking to hubby about him getting a hobby. It doesn't have to be a train town just something that he would enjoy doing. I quilt and garden and can and pickle and go shopping with my friends. He goes out to coffee with me in the morning. But does very little else throughout his day.

I do have to say that he filled his weekly pill box yesterday. He had tried to do it several times in the past but he would get confused and frustrated. So we waited until we felt that his mind would be able to handle all the medication he takes. So yesterday he spent 40 minutes filling his pill box for the week. He only asked me about 3 of his 16 medications that go into the box. So that was a mile stone in his recovery. Not that I want the weekly pill box refill to be his hobby. Ha! Ha!

The weather has been beautiful. it has been in the high 70's and windy. I think this year my allergies are affecting me more then usual. I have a dry scratchy throat and itchy eyes. It isn't bad enough to take any medication for yet. Other people I have talked with are having more trouble with their allergies too.

Well I will let you go for now.

God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

It has been close to 90 degrees the past 3 days. Hot! Hot! Hot!

We mowed the acre around the homestead again. Hopefully the hot weather dries up the weeds and we wont have to mow anymore. Ha! Ha!

I have been picking more straw berrys then we can eat every day. So I have started a freezer bag. Hubby loves them frozen. They will keep him happy during the hot days.

My peppers were moved to the fruit garden area. I have 2 long rows set up for squash, and peppers. I planted all the squash starts that I bought to replace the seeds that did not sprout.

This morning I planted more seeds in the bear areas and hope the hot weather will get them to sprout.

I still have not got my topsoil/mulch delivered. Hopefully it will come tomorrow. I need to get my tomatoe plants and some cucumbers planted.

Well, you have listened to me talk about getting hubby a hobby. Well I have come up with one. It is one he loves doing. We are going to look for a vacation cottage on the coast. This will double as a bug out location if our homestead doesn't pan out.

We've set up an appointment with a realtor for this Friday to view some homes with or without acreage. Hope that we do not find anything the first time around. This will give hubby more time to look and keep busy.

Well I am going to let you all go.

God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

Well, hubby and I took a trip to the Oregon coast yesterday. We were given tours of several homes that are for sale in one of the small coastal towns that both hubby and I like.

We found a perfect place to sit back and relax. So we put in an offer. We have to wait through Monday to see if our offer has been accepted.

I have picked up several perenneals to plant along the west side of our moble. It gets really hot in the afternoon, so they have to be heat hearty. I planted 3 of the four plants this morning. The 4th one is a Japanese plumb tree with little plumbs. I like the little plumbs for jams and jellys. Since it is a fruit tree I don't want to plant it next to the moble to have fruit decaying on the roof. Ha! Ha! So I will have to find another place for this tree that is only a foot tall, not counting the root system. Ha! Ha!

Yesterday I went to the farmers market in our little town and picked up a dozen fertilized eggs to put under my hen that is setting. I placed most of them under her when I got home and then this morning I checked and she is sitting like a good little mommy. I marked 21 days on the calendar to keep track of the days to hatching. Wish me luck. I want a rooster for my hens so that I can start creating my own chicken meat.

I am going to let you all go. God bless and keep on prepping.

[dealfinder500]

MARK THOSE EGGS!!!

I just about always have a hen that wants to be broody. A few months back I decided to let one go through it, so I put about a dozen or so eggs under her. The problem was that other hens kept laying there, too! What eventually happened is that the eggs kept building up, you couldn't tell what were the original eggs and what were new, nothing ever hatched. After about a month of waiting (supposed to only be 21 days) I ended up with twice the # of eggs I started with, and I'm pretty sure none of them were even the original ones. I smashed every egg open, and they ranged from fresh to stinky, but no partially developed chicks. I assume what happened is when the chickens would jump in to lay an egg, eventually they ended up breaking some of them because there were so many. I'll bet ya I ended up wasting three or four dozen eggs! But at least I learned a good lesson.

I'm trying it again now, only I took a marker and made a ring around each egg. This time there is only one other chicken that lays her eggs there, and now I can easily tell which egg it is so I can remove it.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

dealfinder500: I know what you mean. I marked all the eggs I put in and the 3 eggs that were under the hen and warm. I only have 2 hens right now. It was a bad winter for 3 of my hens but a good winter for a fox.

I do have a batch of pullets I bought a couple weeks ago. 3 Bardrock and 3 Bufforfingtons.

I hope to get a rooster or 2 out of the batch she is sitting on. If not, there are always people giving away roosters during the summer. they chicken out when it comes to butchering one of their flock.

Well I tried to save the Asian egg plants that were eaten by something, but they died. So I bought another 6 pk and will plant them in large planters instead of putting them in the ground. I got a lavender and a Shasta daisy to put behind the moble to add color and medicinal use. I will plant them this evening when the sun goes behind the trees.

I am trying to add a little color to our homestead instead of doing just fruits and vegetables. So I started an herb garden behind the moble. I am putting in things that will fight to keep their territory. Ha! Ha! I do have 2 different kinds of mint plants that really spread out and come back each year. I have been putting straw down for the past 3 years in this area. So it is really loosely packed soil kind of dirt.

Well I'll let you all go for now. God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

Well all the herbs I planted behind the moble are doing great. None of them have died in the hottest afternoon sun.

I am not sure if I told you that all the crook neck and zucchini plant starts I planted died again! So this morning I asked the guy at the nursery why they were dying and he said my soil might be too hot for them. So I dug up 4 holes in the peony bed and planted them there. I will know by the end of the week if they will make it or not.

I believe the sweet-small pumpkin seeds I planted 3 weeks ago are coming up and doing fine. The blue hubbard squash seeds are up and doing fine. I did plant 3 butternut squash starts last week. They are holding their own. I may have to give up on the soft summer squashes and just stick to winter squash if this last experiment with the crook neck and zucchini doesn't pan out. I don't know why I worry about those squashes. People give them away all summer long. Ha! Ha!

I picked up 1 armanian and 1 burpless cucumber plant to put down by the berry garden. There is a fence for them to grow up on.

Oh! Oh! I forgot to add that the pumpkin seeds I planted last week during the heat have started to sprout. The delicate has not!

We are having cooler weather right now and the tomatoes have stopped growing. I did notice quite a few tiny cherry tomatoes on 2 of my plants. That makes me happy. The rest are blooming but no tomatoes other then the early girl that had a tomato a couple of weeks ago. It is green and about 2 1/2" across.

The 5 grape plants are growing but I don't see any grapes forming on the vines. I did plant them at the end of the summer last year so they may be too young to really put out any grapes yet. I do have 2 of them planted at the front of the porch. One at each end and hope to get the vines to grow up the porch and across the top to give more shade in the heat of summer and of course to give us grapes!

Well, I will let all of you go for now. I need to get some more work done.

God bless and keep on prepping.

One last thing. I have my 5 yards of garden soil being delivered this morning so that I can get those last 12 tomatoes into the big pots.

Wish me good luck.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

I didn't realized how stressed out I have been over the past couple of years with my husbands medical problems. We are in the process of getting a loan for that vacation home we want to buy on the coast. Well there have been a few set backs and information that we could not find and had to get it from another source. Then the bank we used on the coast had a different loan officer in Washington then the same bank that we use in our town. We were told by both banks that they use the same loan officer. Well they use the same loan office but that office has different loan officers. So it turned out that we had 2 loan applications for the same property started in 2 days. Thankfully it was all straightened out before we got to far into the process. But it was stressful yesterday morning until we figured it out.

This morning we stopped by the mail box and picked up our mail to find that our loan paperwork was there. So the bank president had us come in and she explained all 50 pages or so of the paperwork and told us where to sign. She made copies for our files, faxed a copy to the loan officer and then mailed the originals to the loan officer. She wanted to make sure that our loan went through with out anymore hitches. Thank you God.

Monday morning we are going over to the house and have the home inspection and the termite inspection done at the same time. Then the inspector will tell us how to operate the heater unites in 3 of the rooms and what we need to know about our electrical, plumbing and foundation and roof maintenance. So this will be great!

The front walk has a couple of bushes that have grown over the walkway and you have to push them aside to get by. The front yard is made up of bushes that survive off of the damp ocean air. No lawn to mow. So I want to ask the realty office if we could trip these 2 bushes to make access to the front porch easier.

I just got a call from the realty office and she thought it would be ok to prune up those 2 bushes. But she would find out for sure and let us know on Monday when we go for the inspection.

So........I did talk with one of our neighbors. They go to the coast every 4th of July. They rent a room at this same resort for the fire works display over the ocean and the party that the resort throws every year. So we might end up over there this 4th to see what it is like. Ha! Ha!

I got my 5 yards of soil yesterday afternoon and filled up 11 15 gallon planters half way with soil. Then I boiled 11 eggs and waited till this morning to break the shell on each eggs and place 1 egg/shell in each planter. Put a spade full of soil over the egg and plant a tomato plant. So they are all planted. I have half with an egg and 12 tomatoes without the egg. This way I can judge if the egg fertilizes the tomato plants or not.

The 4 summer squash plants I put in the peony bed yesterday are looking good. One of them was chewed on by a bug, so I put crumbled news paper around ach one of them to help keep bugs and slugs away from the plants.

My beets are not doing good at all. So I pulled them up and transplanted peppers and egg plants in that spot. hopefully the peppers and egg plants will thrive because of the soil amendment I did this spring.

Well I have some work to get done this morning. So I'll let you all go. God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

I have been thinking lately.....I was looking through the latest Costco ad book. There really is NOTHING in it. NOTHING!!!!! Is Costco trying to tell us something? Usually during the summer they have all sorts of sales. Not this summer.

Just something to think about.

I spent the morning filling 5-gallon buckets with water and fish goop! Then carefully scooping up the fertilizing water and pouring it over all the plants in the front garden, side garden and back garden. Tomorrow morning I will finish off the berry garden.

My hen is still sitting on the eggs I bought for her. The 6 pullets I bought are feathered out and almost ready to go into a fenced off section of the chicken pen. This will give them all a chance to get to know each other without making contact.

hubby and I went up to the Caves and walked around. We saw a strange sight. There was a thin rainbow that completely encircled the sun. I got some pictures of it on the camera phone. Not sure what it means. I know that a ring around the moon means rain. Not sure what a ring around the sun means. Have to look it up on the internet.

Bought a 5 gallon planter full of Shasta Daisies yesterday at the Farmers' Market for $5. Great deal. Next week I will get a garden bench off of the same man for around $20. He makes them from recycled barn board. The one I looked at was very sturdy. It would look good in the shady spot of my garden.

Hubby wants me to make him a quilt when I am done with the one I am working on now. So I took him to the fabric store to look around. I just wanted him to pick out some colors he liked. He couldn't find any material he liked. I had a hard time getting him to pick out a COLOR not a print that he liked. He liked the colors in the quilt I am doing right now. They are fall colors. So I will wait till fall and take him back to the store to look again. Ha! Ha!

Well I am going to let you go for now. God bless and keep on prepping.

[Ramona M. Faunce]

This morning I fed and watered the chickens and started mixing the fish goop for the berry garden. As I was fertilizing the berry garden I found quite a few places to plant some of my last starts of the season.

Found 2 pepper plants and 1 tomato plant that I missed. Then I found room to plant 5 sweet basil and 2 stevia plants. I did plant a rosemary to help keep some of the bugs out.

I picked a couple of hand full of rasberrys and strawberrys. We will eat them at lunch time. I can see the bugs are starting to eat up my squash plants. I lost one of the 4 I planted in the peony bed. But the remaining 3 look really good. I just need to keep the bugs off of them. I have to go into town and pick up a sprayer to make soap/tobacco water for the bugs.

My herb garden that I started in the back last week is doing great! I am very hopeful that it will be a success and fill in nicely over the next couple of years.

I do have a question. That 5 gallon planter of Shasta daisys that I bought, can I split it into 2 5 gallon buckets for next summr or do I have to keep the root ball whole?

Well I will let you go for now.

God bless and keep on prepping.