Pat's Been Quilting

In paint that is........

We have wanted to put up barn quilts for a while now and Pat finally carved out the time to paint them.  We spent quite some time looking for ideas, finally decided on patterns and I drafted them up.  He drew the cardinal one freehand.  The others are traditional quilt patterns and therefore are very geometric with precise angles and relationships between the angles. We had a hard time deciding on patterns as we wanted something that reflected us and yet were true quilt patterns.  Pat's favorite bird is a cardinal and since we have so many that live in our yard, this one was easy to decide on. It is the only one that is a non-traditional pattern.  In cloth it would be paper pieced. In paint it had to be free-handed.  The flowers are another dimension of our life that we liked and thought they would add a nice punch of color. And the last one is a needle and thread. Some people might not see what that is but we know.  The only item we could not figure out how to get incorporated into a square was a vegetable. So we gave up on that one. We like the three squares on the side of the barn and think it breaks up that vast wall of emptiness.   So, kids, don't ever tell me that you'll never use the geometry you learned in school.

And while we were at it we addressed the curb appeal.  We went from this.........

To this.....

The first one was put up in a rush as we were moving in, as by code we had to have house numbers that emergency vehicles could see from the street.  It was meant to be a temporary post but as you can see it took us 2 1/2 years to upgrade it.  The extra post was just sitting around in Pat's shop and as he was cleaning up I told him how he could repurpose (dispose of) it.  It was made the next day. He is all about cleaning up his shop right now and is all ears if I can come up with a way to repurpose something and get it out of his space. I love it. 

The fruits of our labor

The garden is bursting at the seams.  It will soon be that we are harvesting something each day after work.  We finally got rain this week.  We have been having to water with the hose but it is amazing the difference in water quality from the sky. No chlorine or fluoride does a plant good.

 I have been harvesting chocolate mint and using it to make a simple syrup.  It is delicious in tea. Just a hint of sweetness and packed full of chocolaty mint flavor.  I will plant some more pots of mint next year since I have discovered this nice little treat.

The patty pan squash plants are covered in mini squash.  These are the first two that were ready to pick.

 Blueberry season is upon us. YEAH....got one pint on the first picking.

We have been eating some good sized onions from the garden for a couple of weeks now. These three pearl sized ones had tops that were already starting to die back so we went ahead and harvested them. They will still slice up nicely and be sauteed with the squash. 

These are the first of the mini white cukes for pickling and a couple baby carrots I pulled to test for size.  The carrots were also in the way of the pepper plants so I needed to pull them to give the peppers some breathing room. The cucumber vines are covered in tiny cukes so we will be harvesting them a lot in the next few weeks.  Our friend Louise gave me seeds a few years ago and I have saved some ever since. I am now out of these seeds so I will need to let a few go to seed this year so I can have more next year.

And lastly.......don't ever complain of the cost of spices. This is a pan of rosemary that is drying and below that are sage leaves.  Some of the sage I dry as whole leaves and others I crush. Huge bundles crush up to be a few tablespoons.  I also did some thyme and those leaves are really tiny. Mostly I just use it fresh but when it is at peak I try to harvest some.

The Chickens Think They Own This Place

These are just a couple of the places the chickens have been that I have been able to capture.

This one of Gilbert was taken through our bedroom window.  I was getting dressed for work one morning when he crowed and he sounded like he was in our window. I went to investigate and there he was on the garden sink.  Sometimes we just chase them out of wherever they are before we can snap a picture. Tonight we went down to pick blueberries and two of them were jumping up into the bushes and eating ripe ones.  OH NO!  Tomorrow....... they stay in the coop while we are at work.

Gardening

June has been the month of radishes and peas. These are the first harvest a couple of weeks ago.

Then Wyatt was here and he helped me pick the rest of the peas. He was so proud of himself.

We then went inside to show off the goods to Bayleigh who had not participated in the picking.  A 2-year-old is a little rough on pea picking so we did it while she was taking a bath. They were both so excited to show off the treasures. The video below is priceless.  Watch Bayleigh's actions and eyes.

 

I don't particularly remember if anything happened after I turned off the camera but I can only imagine that Wyatt had an opinion.

New Bridges

So as we mentioned in previous posts, we have been construction some "bridges" on the property. The first one is to get the tractor from the shop up to the berry side of the driveway. It has been finished for a few weeks and we have been walking across it but we had been unable to drive over it until Mr King moved dirt to the edges.  We broke it in last night as we were mowing the grass and it is great.

The second bridge goes to the garden so we have sure footing crossing the rocks.  I had pictured a sprained ankle, as we were crossing these rocks multiple times per day and I was always nervous that I was going to fall on unsteady rocks. We got the support posts up a couple of weeks ago but got around to finishing it today. We also needed a place to cross with the wheelbarrow so we designed the "ramps" with a gentle incline. It is easy to get to from either the back porch or the laundry room door and goes directly to the garden gate. I am soooo pleased to have these finished. Now....... if we can only get all the bald spots to fill in with grass. 

Look What's Bloomin'

first daylily of the year

blackberries

potatoes

Bachelor Buttons

red hot poker

spiderwort

blanket flowers

sweet william

coreopsis

abelia

miniature columbine

miniature rose

pink and white coneflowers

And look at what is going to DIE.....HAHAHAHAHAHAH

poison ivy!!!

Drainage Problem Fixed

This past year was so wet with continued rains that some of the beautifully contoured landscaping that Tim did for us was starting to look a little worse for wear. The sides of the driveway were eroding away leaving huge crevasses that could swallow a bug (VW that is).  When he originally built the driveway, Tim installed a culvert to keep the water from ending up in the shop or under our house. The culvert feeds water under the driveway and empties to a ditch at the side of the shop. It was causing quite a bit of erosion as well.  Despite our best efforts, Mother nature always wins. So we had the big guns come with their heavy equipment and fix the problem.  They regraded the areas, put down rip-rap rock and seeded/matted the raw dirt. Parts of the driveway that needed more gravel got a top dressing. It is amazingly different. I will try to walk you thru the pictures.

New topcoat of road bond for the driveway and the first day of re-grading the sides of the driveway. 

The top side of the culvert where the water enters.

Re-grading the exit side of the culvert. He put down weed barrier for the rock to sit on.

 Finished product: This looks down the back side of the shop.  Our house is to our backs.

Standing by the opposite side of the shop. The drain pipe and shop gutter now empties into this amazing pile of rock.

All the "tan" stuff is the matting that stabilizes the regraded earth until the seed/fertilizer can become established.

These pictures really don't do it justice.  We are just amazed and thrilled with the results. Now if we can just have some gentle rains to help the seed to germinate but not wash away. It will really look nice when it is all green and established.  

Garlic

A few weeks ago I trimmed the scapes off the garlic.  These seed heads usually form about a month before garlic is ready to harvest.

This week we harvested the garlic. With the quantity we now have I think we are safe from vampires.

This tray is 15" X 30" to give you some perspective.  We will now let it cure some. We can use it both fresh or use it after it cures a bit. I will save some of the prettiest pieces to break apart and plant in the fall. We will likely put some in the dehydrator also.....outside of course.  

To give you a size reference that is a quarter next to this bulb.  It is 3" across.