Good Sales and In the Garden still!

 

It was a good sale day last week when I ran across all this yarn for $12.00.  Right now all my energy is outside but soon the cold wind will blow and I'll be stuck inside most of the time. Endless possiblities!

In the Kitchen:

I had 4 zucchini's I didn't know what to do with.  I've already made bread, used it in a vegetable bake a couple of times, and made some zucchini crisp this season. FYI: Youngest daughter didn't know the crisp was zucchini she thought it was apple.  Love it! 

In the end I decided to make zucchini flour.  I didn't get much but I think there are more zucchini monsters out there to make some more soon.

In the garden:

It's weird year in the garden ...all the frost/freezes where just north of us and now we have green beans that are just starting to get big enough to pick.  I think we will do that early next week.  

We like a bean that is full...they taste so good that way.  These are Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans.

We got a late start with a flooded/cold garden but we just might make it.  That would be a blessing if we did. 

How's everything going at your house?

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Apple Harvest, Mustard Greens, Zinnias, and a Cabinet Remake!

We are so excited this year to have a lot of apples!   Oh we have had one or two on the tree but this year was a great harvest for us!  

The grandkids helped us pick yesterday, I wish I had my camera.  They are not apple orchard beautiful..but still it's kind of cool.  

Oh my goodness there are my big feet.  LOL

Mustard greens growing in raised bed and in the ground garden.   We've had two messes already.  Taste  so good..nothing like the greens we have been getting at the store.  Nothing like them at all.

We have green beans on the vine ...hope they make it before the frost.

Zinnia's are blooming.

I finally painted and put decals on my bathroom cabinet.   I could not find a cabinet as sturdy as this one at any sale I went to, so I decided to remake it.  

I'm not sure if you guys are like this but when I have something I've finished I can't help but to keep looking at it and smiling.  So crazy, but I can't wait till I go to the bathroom to see it again. 😂

(Just so you know I can not recommend these decals.  They are pretty but they were very hard to put on.  Me and my granddaughter were very frustrated trying to rub on every detail).

I hope you all are feeling good and have had a great summer.  It sure did go fast.

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Getting the Garden Halfway Planted!

 We planted about half of the garden this week with tomatoes, cabbage, and honey rocks.  It's too wet and cold to plant seeds so hopefully we will get warm  weather next week to plant beans, peppers, and potatoes.  The garlic, peas, lettuce, green onions, radishes, mustard greens, and onions are coming up great already.  Lettuce, radishes, and green onions have made great salads!  

You know, I kind of like planting like this -it's not so stressfull trying to do it all at once.  Here are some of the 25 tomato plants I put in the ground.  I hope the sun coming this week will help them a lot.  Next to them I also planted basil and marigolds.  Basil helps with pests and the deer hate marigolds, or so I'm told.

Yesterday, the chickens were out and husband needed help, like now.  So, after helping him I replanted the cabbage.  Wonderful, just wonderful.  They look so small now!

We had a wonderful sunshinny Memorial day and planted flowers at my Mom and Dad's grave.  Every year my granddaughter helps me plant...actually this year she did it all.  So full of questions about life and death.  Mom passed away 9 months before she was born.  She would have loved her!  

I noticed that the soil was very low by the headstone.  I'm going to put a bag a soil there in the fall.  I think all the rain did that.

How was your Memorial Day?

A Wet., Cold Mess!

 Did I tell you we have the heat on?  Yep, it's chilly and wet here in Michigan.  Yesterday we reached a high in the upper 40's with rain.  

The plants are waiting in the greenhouse.  We managed to plow the garden for the first time but it is too wet and cold to plant.  The seeds would rot and the plants would die.  It's downright depressing. We have went through this before and have planted more into June and still had a great harvest. So, I'm going with positive thoughts 

I ordered two more raised beds for the back of the garden.  With the wooden ones this will make four raised beds back there and two by the greenhouse.  The back wooden ones have onions and garlic growing in them and the ones by the green house have mustard greens and snow peas.  

Eventually we will get more.   I think with the changing weather and  our changing ages 😀 we need to look ahead.  I would like it all done of course now but  Rome wasn't built in a day, husband says. We will get it.

On other news:  I managed to sell something yesterday that I had on marketplace for a month.   Don't give up people -someone will want it!

I woke up one morning and watched Becoming a Farm Girl on youtube.  That woman made me get with it in the kitchen.  Inspirational for sure!  I made Trim healthy Mama pancakes, pickled eggs, and boiled some eggs for the week.  

Grandson is here this morning...I'd better think of something for him to eat that he loves.  Sausage, pancakes, and biscuits might make him happy.

Have a great day!

First Harvests this Week 5/8/25

 

I have been harvesting lettuce from the green stalks that I have in my green house -for salads and wilted lettuce for husband. (yuck)

I also harvested some green onions.

I was able to pull up some radishes for salads too.

I'm thankful for the greenhouse and the greenstalks that sit on higher land than the garden.  It's very wet right now.

I just transplanted the herbs back outside.

I have mustard greens growing in two small raised beds.  There are some peas in the middle of them somewhere.  Crazy idea I had ...I'll see if it works soon.

The fencing is for the chickens...they love mustard greens and digging for no reason.  Help me.

Tomatoes are growing great but I can't grow a pepper plant for the life of me.  

Back is slowly getting better-I do a little at a time and all is well.  Apparently the chiropractor said that I will never feel 16 again but I will get a lot better...I guess that's ok.

How's your garden growing?

Book Review: The Shop Down the Lane by Leslie Gould

 

The Shop Down the Lane (Letters from Lancaster County): (A Sweet Contemporary Amish Letter Writing Enemies to Lovers Romance) 

                               by Leslie Gould

Lois Yoder has always found solace in the quiet life of Paradise, Pennsylvania, where she manages a gift shop that reflects her Amish community's simple values. Her tranquil world is upended when Moses Lantz, a former Amishman turned Mennonite and the man who broke her heart, buys the shop with ambitious plans to transform it into a tourist hub--a move that Lois fiercely opposes.

Seeking a distraction, Lois joins a bird watchers' circle letter under an alias. But unknown to her, Moses does the same at the urging of a friend. While their correspondence blossoms into a tender romance, the enmity between Lois and Moses in real life only intensifies. Can they overcome their animosity and embrace the love they've found through their letters, or will their stubborn hearts keep them apart forever?

My Review:

The Shop Down the Lane was one I would have delighted to walk into and been able to talk to Louis.  I could imagine the bird houses that filled the shop and the woods in the back of the shop filled with different birds.  Always a lover of birds, I now want to bird watch even more.

The twists and turns of different romances were there, with Lois and Moses failed one from years ago at the forefront. A good lesson in the book for me was that no one really knows what the other is going through and for that matter has been through. It's amazing what we can assume of each other.

I curled up on the couch one morning to read this book and stayed that way most of the day. I didn't stop till the last page was read.  Wonderful wonderful read!  

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What's Going On...

 

Hi Guys, 

Just a quick note to tell you where I've been and what's going on.  I have a bad back as many of you know for the past year and I have decided to try something besides physical therapy.  Physical therapy helped me walk better but not far without pain.  So, I decided to go to the chiropractor.  This took a lot because I had heard so much all my life against them but I put all bad thoughts aside and went in.  I hope it helps.

It's going to be awhile I think before I feel better in my back again constantly.  I don't think I should sit at the computer too long so that's why I've not been here.   I think of everyone all the time but I know sitting and typing is not the best thing to do for now.  Someday soon this will be a bad memory....I'll say remember the year of the bad back...and I'll be typing up a storm.   I believe it will happen!  

Thinking of all of you!

Vickie