May in a nutshell

I posted about the beginnings of my garden on April 30, then I looked up and it was mid-May, then May was gone. Oh how I have missed blogging. I am going to share with you in photos a re-cap of how May went for our family. You will realize, then, why I missed posting.

My birthday is May 1. I turned 46 this year. I don't feel it and if you ask most folks, they will tell you I don't act like I am 46 years old.

Vintage Postcard postmarked Jan 1910 and its mine :-)

David got me a Kindle Fire for my birthday and I just love it!  THEN a couple of days later he surprised me and was able to take his R&R two days ahead of schedule, so he arrived on the 6th instead of the 8th. While he was in route coming home from overseas (he is a civilian contractor over there), I used the information I got when I watched "Homestead Blessings: The Art of Making Candles" to make beeswax tapers. The night I was working on these, I was continually texting with David while he was in a holding pattern waiting to get on his flight home.

We traded in my 2009 Dodge Caravan and David's 2004 Avalanche in on a new truck! It is a 2012 Ford F150 Crew Cab. The new models have so much space in the back seat, it would compare in side to a small car.

This gorgeous machine drives amazingly & rides like a car!

While the kids were spending some days with their father, David decided we would take a road trip and head to the casino in Clinton, OK. It's only 2.5 hours away and was nice to spend the time together. On the way back, we stopped in. Shamrock, TX and saw the vintage gas station that was depicted in the movie "Cars".

David being his typical silly self.

"Look at that price! $.38 per gallon!"

Then we headed on down I-40 back toward Amarillo and stopped in Groom, Texas to see the GIANT cross.

The next adventure was to Palo Duro Canyon. It is less than a half-hour from our house.

Even though I have been several times....the canyon is still gorgeous to me!

Whew and I am only to the 13th!

We have been trying for the past couple of months to decide what to do about where to live. I currently have 1.17 acres with a 1981 very small manufactured home on it. David and I have gone through so many scenarios about what we want. This piece of land keeps calling us thought, to stay right here. So, we ordered a new manufactured home! OUR NEW HOME! Together. It is 320sf larger than the one the kids and I live in now. NOW this little homestead is OURS. We just found out yesterday that the home is built and will be in Amarillo sometime this coming week.

 

Ours is hunter green on the top and beige on the bottom.

We went with a single-wide because we don't want to put too large/pricey a home here and price it out of the area when one day we decide to sell the place.

The next thing I have to tell you is not easy to talk about. Many of you that have been reading my blog back to my old one, are familiar with Roosevelt, our Serama rooster. He hatched in my hand on January 2, 2010 and played a vital role in Gregory learning to talk. One afternoon, Felicity went out to the barn and found him dead. We don't know what happened. But I am thankful that David was here. The kids and I were in tears for quite a while. Losing Roosevelt was a huge loss for the kids and I.

Rest in peace our special little man.

Next, we headed to David and I's hometown, Leesville, Louisiana. I am the youngest of eight kids and we have not all been together in one place since 1983, when we buried our father. This weekend...we were all together! I am not sharing photos, because I don't know how they would feel about it.

Margo our Poodle, Petunia our Chihuahua

Bailey, our Maltese mix

Yep, all FOUR of our dogs went on the trip with us. (Ariel is in a later photo) They all did amazingly well and enjoyed the travel and meeting all of the new people.

I started and finished my first ever knitted project while we were on the road!

My daughter, son-in-law and first born grandchild, Madeline.

On Saturday of that weekend, we all headed out to Toledo Bend Lake for a day of fun in the woods (and on the water).

Toledo Bend Lake

Later that week, David and I enjoyed sitting out by the pool at our hotel and watched the kids swim.

Favorite things to read for me while watching the kids.

David was "pondering"...I don't remember what, though.

This was really the first time to swim in a big pool for Gregory, to the best of my memory. He loved it! It took him a few minutes at first, but then he realized his floaties wouldn't let him go under water.

Felicity loves to swim. She is now 11 and as tall as me! She is such a wonderful big sister to Gregory, too.


Oh how I miss the green of Louisiana! I love the State flower, Magnolia.

Then before we were ready, it was time for David to fly back overseas and the kids and I to come back to Amarillo.

We stopped in Canton, TX at a little place called Dairy Palace for lunch and Gregory actually ate BEANS AND RICE!!! Of course, I mashed it all up together, but he ate it! This is MAJOR for him! He still has such problems with food textures.

At the end of our first day on the road headed back to Amarillo, we stayed in Dallas. I took the kids to Bass Pro Shop because I thought they would think it was pretty neat. We were in that store for 2 hours! Felicity really enjoyed it...Gregory not so much.

We were all exhausted at the end of the day. Even Ariel our 3 month old puppy.

I ended the month of May with 15 fewer chickens due to a dog that got into the yard while we were gone. BUT on a better note...my first harvest of the year. HERBS!

 

Basil, Chamomille, Oregano and Cilantro.

Hope you enjoyed your little tour through our month of May. I will be back to blogging now and am so glad!

Come and see...

My almost garden!

Since it is not quite time, here in the Texas panhandle, to put the garden in, all of the plants I have bought so far are in pots. Not to mention, I haven't even gotten my raised beds ready yet. I used "Mel's Mix" in my pots, as that is what I will use in my raised beds. Mel's Mix is the growing medium used/created by Mel Bartholomew, writer of Square Foot Gardening. This is the method I am using to garden this year.

At harvest time, with just the plants above, we will have 7 types of fresh heirloom tomatoes, tomatillos, rhubarb, POPCORN!, 4 types of peppers, spaghetti squash and patty-pan squash. All of that is in the pots in the photos. This week, I plan to add pickling and slicing cucumbers, zucchini, yellow squash, butternut squash, watermelon, okra, cantaloupe and pumpkin...in plants.

Once the garden is in, late in May (yikes, 6 years here and I STILL cannot get used to the last frost date of Mother's Day) I will be planting seeds for lima beans, green beans, green peas, purple hull peas, black-eye peas, pinto beans, black beans, red beans, radishes, carrots, corn, mustard greens, turnip greens, collard greens and gourds. WHEW! I am so excited for harvest time already!

For the first time ever, I have an herb garden, too!

Top shelf to bottom, left to right: basil, chives, sage, thyme. cilantro, lavender, spearmint, parsley, lemon verbena, rosemary and chamomile.

I still would like to get some calendula.

That old set of stairs was here when we moved here and it is a fantastic plant stand. I bought some white spray paint this weekend and will get it painted this week.

I used marigolds for natural insect repellant.

I put one marigold plant in 3 pepper plant pots and 1 tomato pot. Hopefully it will work. I will have the marigolds interspersed within the raised beds, too.

It is a cool, mostly overcast day here today. It is also supposed to storm this afternoon/evening. I thank God for the rain...but really wanted to work outside today. That means it is indoor work for me today.


Have a wonderful Monday!

Food scraps. Flowers. Herbs.

I shared this photo on Facebook on Sunday. Quite a curious photo, eh?

I am making an attempt to regrow celery and green onions. After I cut off the end of the celery and the ends off the green onions, I put them in a bowl of water for 24 hours. Then I planted them in pots with potting soil. I probably should have used top soil, but the only bag I had was potting soil.

You can see that I buried the celery a bit in the dirt, I wanted to have a little space to add dirt if I needed to once it starts growing and needs more support.

According to all of the other places I read about this, I think I cut my onions off too short. We will see.

While I was in planting mode, I planted the Peony tuber and basil and rosemary plants that I got the other day.

I am so ready for everything to begin to grow. I am more ready for spring this year than I have been in a really long time.

Here's a few links for the celery and green onions.

Chickens in the Road
Dream State Inspiration
Garden Swag
Veggie Gardener
She Hearts It

So what about you, are you gonna give it a try with the celery and onions?