Happy Birthday, Packo, from all boffen of us (from an old joke) I checked out that site and may order a couple Paw Paw trees when I pull it back up. Thank you for the site. Uncle Ben and Auntie Willie
Thank you Uncle Ben & Auntie I picked up 2 fig trees that do well here as well as a "Pink Lemonade" Blueberry plant. I also picked up 12 quinoa plants since I totally missed on creating seedlings of them this year. I just realized, I am inside when I could be planting! *noms cheesecake*
./walking outside listening to the birds with an eerie hum in the background. ./walks back into the house, eerie hum was loud for a moment, then passed. ./turn around, "Oh myyyyyy! What a lovely bee swarm!" ./runs into the house Coos County Beekeepers Assoc. came and picked up the swarm from here. That was exciting.
Mothers Day here today. I finally got the wife out of the house. Using a knee support and a crutch we slowly made it to the car. We went to our sons house and saw the grandkids. It was a nice day. Our daughter is away doing stuff with horses so didn't get to see her or the Son in Law. Not to worry she had a good day anyway. Got a few woodies packed ready to post tomorrow so that is good. Pak I am glad you had a good day. Uncle I looked up what your friend Charlie has. I am sure I might have it as I get terrible wind pain and I am sure that's what cause my hernia. Once the wind moves the pain is gone . Makes my eyes water at times. Glad you are seeing your sister. I suppose kids will take sides when people separate. As you said at least you got to see her too. Take care all
Glad to see your Missus is doing better and had a chance to get out of the house, Brian. Packo,That sounded like a real fun adventure if you were able to move fast enough. My brother Jimmy (now deceased) had a few hives on our mountain and I have climbed trees to cut the branches full of swarms for him to bring to prepared empty hives and never got stung by them. Jimmy explained that the swarming bees were too full of honey to sting you. I just figured they were more interested in finding a new home than getting a blue on anyone. Pauline's had her breakfast. Cereal and milk and agave and wheat germ. I've had my coffee and Willie's had hers. The Chooks have had their early morning portion. Two of them have gone broody, but, without Baracko, their chances of being mothers are nil to none. Sorry girls. Happy Mother's Day, ECO, wherever you are. We know so little about each other, I have no idea if Helenlee is a Mother or not. She's been missing, also, for a spell. I have to start Willie's special Bkfst now, so I'll have to sign off for now. Love is the answer. Uncle Ben
Benjy, glad to see you didn't get washed away. I know Helen is a Mom, i seem to recall Eco being a Mom too, but that is now some time ago. hope they are doing well for sure and miss them both. Pak, some adventure you must have had there, calm but purposeful exit from the area. i'm glad someone was able to come and get the bees and give them a home. belated happy birthday too. back injuries are no fun, so i'm glad to hear that your wife is up and about, after a few days if you can you sure do want to get moving, backs are not meant to be kept still for too long, the cushions/supports of the discs get full of fluid and stiff if they are not gently bent to push the fluids around and in and out that is how they are nourished... that is also why the morning is the most likely time to have a disc problem, if you bend too much before the discs get more flexible that is where the ruptures can come from... we finally got some rain and that is nice, today is going to be cloudy and chances of more rain. the rest of the week is gradually improving weather and so i should be able to get out and get more weeding and puttering around done. it's the calm before the whirlwind. strawberries are now coming into bloom and looks good. many of the spring flowers are fading, a hot few days made them go fast. one of the apple seedlings from last year is already an inch across or more and about five feet tall, the rest are all still alive, i will have a lot of fun getting them moved this fall... i have a whole pile of watermelon rinds from yesterday's mother's day. so that will be worm food for the bins in a few minutes. melon rinds are like worm candy they'll be gone in a few days except for a very thin paperlike outer callous for the canteloup rinds. for the watermelon rind nothing is left at all...
Happy Belated momma's day everyone that is one. So, lil oopsie. I went to the nursery again to pick up 2 Goji, and little did I realize, these get 8' tall, and 15' wide. I have to visualize this tomorrow and see where I can fit them. I think I need to start apple seedlings here too.. not for what i might get from them, but for what I can graft onto them. Night all.
Pak, do you have enough cold weather to make apples a viable crop there? seems like it would be a challenge and perhaps the space could be better used for something more certain? considering it is likely that things will get even warmer over the coming years that will be a challenge for growing apples.
Currently very viable. Chill hours are based on 32f to 45f & for us it isn't a problem, winters are cold and wet.
oh, ok, thanks for the clarification. i recalled you having some cold there, but i thought apples needed more. how many trees you planning on putting in? starting apple seedlings might need some cold/stratification time first.
I got 3.3 acres and I have barely started on the Permaculture map, I am still filling in the area between me and the animal zone. As for chill hours, it all depends on the variety. Remember, my winters are supposed to be cool and very wet, just not freezing so the chill hours are there except when we get oddness from the south.
Benjy? hope you guys did ok through the rains? Pak, thanks for the more info. good luck with your apple seeds trees! it's quiet this week here with Ma off visiting a friend of hers. i've managed to get my car fixed so that it isn't a noisemaker and hope that this patch job will last for a while. parking a car outside in the snow all winter isn't the best for the exhaust system... for the amount i drive it i've considered selling it as the insurance is a major expense, but it has been a good car since i bought it back in '97 and only 130something thousand miles on it. most of those were in the first six years as i drove all over the country and even up into northern Canada several times and then i was living down south but driving up north to visit family. since then i've calmed down a bit. the gardens are doing well, we've had a little rain but not so much that it has turned the clay into muck. i've been able to get out and weed a little bit here and there, most of the early spring flowers are fading, transplanted some bergamot and it looks to be doing just fine, plenty of strawberries blooming. one garden of irises that we took out last fall so we could clear the sowthistle from that area needed to be gone through again, even small bits of root will resprout and i saw enough in there to go through it again. weeks ago i'd dug in some leaves, twigs and fireplace ashes and so when i was weeding and digging out those bits of root that had resprouted i was glad to see a very fat and active population of worms. the worms in the bins are doing well too and many of them will be going out into the gardens in the coming weeks as i get things planted. i also had to remove the rhubarb flower stalks. i sent a note to a friend that we have it to pick any time she wants some. i really didn't need to put in more plants but they make a good border planting and aren't that much work to keep up and so when i moved the last clump i put them further along that edge. they help keep the grass from the ditch having an easy path into the green manure patch. it's not a perfect blocker, but it slows them down. ok, that's the short news version... sunshine is out, time to walk around and look at some flowers and ponder what i might be up to today...
Songbird keep the car. It is like Fire Insurance where you keep paying but when you dont pay you need it. The bloody computer screen has died again. Hopefully like Jesus it comes back to life again. The phone is painful to post as l can't scroll the reply screen and the cursor jumps around and l lose everything.
Brian, did you check the cable connections/plugs? i know, i hate to sell the car as it is paid for. i managed to get it fixed for much less than the last time so that helps the expenses. it will get an oil change this coming week. once a year. i'm really hoping it will last long enough to where i can afford a tiny electric that will stand up to our winter weather. i don't need a long range car any more i could almost get by with a golf cart if i wanted to freeze in the winter.
The computer screen has a mind of its own lol. The standby light came on this morning after being off for a couple of days. Seems to be fine now till it goes off again lol. If the car owes you nothing other than on road costs I would keep it till it dies then look at your options. Pak I meant to say that the swarm of bees are nothing to worry about unless they want to set up home in your house. Swarming bees are unlikely to sting as they have no home to protect. Just a frightening sight I suppose for the unwary. Where's Uncle Ben? You still got your sister there with you and Willie? My wife is still mostly confined to bed after 2 weeks. She can walk unaided now but very carefully and still hobbling along. Today was Woodie Day and I screened off all my babies and vacuumed all the tubs out. I now have 15 tubs directly on heat and in the closed garden shed the whole area warms up really nicely. The tubs not on the heat are still getting the benefits as it must be 5 deg C higher in there than outside. They are ploughing through the food which is good as it means they are growing and putting on weight. Good numbers of babies today after 2 weeks since the last screening. I need to set up another 2 breeding tubs in the near future. Just checking before on my woodie competition. One hasn't updated his ad on a reptile forum for 3 months and usually he does so every month. The other one placed his ad a month ago and it should soon drop off so will be interesting to see if he renews it. They both might be out of stock. My friend who I restock from still has millions so I think I can meet most orders. I recently trialled a heat pad under some African Nightcrawlers. Too soon to see if it has made any real difference but I decided to buy another heat cord so I can use it under several other tubs. Set it up today under 3 tubs of breeders and a tub of young ones I need to grow out. Crossing my fingers it will do the trick and get them back into a breeding cycle I need thousands more before I can realistically remove the "Out of Stock" on my website. At least when I do I have more Africans now that I ever had before. The Reds are slowing for winter too at the moment. Ok bedtime. Take care all
Well, certainly missing Benjy, I hope he hasn't gone walkabout. Perhaps his computer is giving him troubles too... Certainly, hope all is well there with him and Auntie Willie and the chooks too... Brian, sounds like the woodies and africans are going along great. your backup supplier is a nice find too. It has been rather warm and humid here, but thanks for a breeze. the other day i overdid it outside as i only had a few more moments and said to myself, "It's only a little bit more." and i would have been done with the project. i finished it but i got overheated and after being cold all winter it's a change that should be more gradual. it takes a few weeks to acclimate. this week we are due to go from 84 to 50 in one day with a nighttime temperature in the mid-30s which means a chance of frost for us in the low country. i'm hoping this is just a one time and last time as we are getting close to the time when we get plants from the greenhouse and get them going in their patches. busy times too this spring, getting caught up on a lot of things but trying to be outside as much as i can too. only a little bit of weeding to finish up inside the fenced gardens for the spring plantings, but we have a pretty aggressive flowering plant that is trying to take over (similar to oregano, but not edible). we've had it in there for many years and it has gradually been taking over every garden it can get into and we've not really tried to keep it out. as it does flower and the bees love it. but so much can go so far and so now we are trying to clear it out of places so we can use those spaces for veggies or to replant with other flowers. more diversity eventually, but the short term is a decrease in flowering. this same plant has also spread into the strawberry patch behind the fenced garden and i've been out there trying to get as much of it out as i can before i get waylaid by other pressing business... the strawberries are blooming pretty well. i'm hoping this frost chance is really not going to happen as a hard freeze right now would not be the best... the friends came over for some rhubarb and said they'd be back in a bit for more. yay! i like it when people can use what i grow and they're willing to come get it.
Rhubarb... mmmmm, i could harvest some today.... Many tomatoes have flowers already, call me surprised.
Rhubarb makes me want to vomit. Force fed the shit as a kid. LOL I have a pumpkin vine growing with my tomato plant. Got a few flowers on it and had 3 small pumpkins started but on died. Cant believe the computer screen has lasted a few days now without going off. Getting daylight later and darker earlier now. Still not too cold at the moment. Had a chilly few mornings a week or so ago. Sleep in tomorrow as I am not working at this stage but all subject to change first up in the morning. Hope Uncle Ben is ok and just computer problems Take care all
I had 2 left over tomatoes & planted them with Jalapeno's & chard yesterday. Left me so tired I fell asleep around 3pm & didn't get up till 7pm when I was being nudged by the dog for dinner. I noticed my Sunchokes are coming up finally.
Getting pretty quiet in here. Not much changes in my parts so not much to report. I have noticed my Africans seem to be growing after I doubled their bedding. Just more depth basically which gives them more space and better insulation against the cold. They seem to be doing just as well as the ones I put on the heat cord. The only signs of breeding are in a couple of tubs but I found bloody Red wrigglers had jumped in bed with them. I have no idea how they get in. Just have to screen the beds again worm by worm. I did a count yesterday and I now have more beds of Africans than Reds. The worms are slow selling at the moment although I have an order for 3,000 this week. Once the Africans are listed for sale they will go like hot cakes I am sure. Looked at silkworms for sale earlier. $1 each they are selling for and eggs at about 30 cents each. That is crazy. Hmmmm time and space??? My wife is still hobbling around but says she is feeling better. Been a long time now. Not long now and she will be up and at it. Apparently I am using too much pre wash and washing powder so I will be glad when it is not my responsibility anymore. Anyway I am tired. been up early every day lately. No work last Friday or tomorrow. Got in 4 hours on Saturday so that helps. Ok take care all. PS Anyone heard from Uncle Ben? Might have to write him a letter and post it.
