Today is Tuesday and it is ironing day (among other things), I try to do certain chores on certain days but not always. If I skip ironing on Tuesday, it seems that everything else has priority and the next thing, it is the next Tuesday and there is double ironing so it is best to make Tuesday ironing happen.
Charles and I moved May from the small laundry / bath house, to under the carport. It is cooler under this area and normally at least a small breeze. Doing the laundry in this fully shaded area will be much better.
Since we bought our old washer several years ago now, we have found that these motors are tough and nothing like what is made today. I have very good memories of the days washing and rinsing the laundry in Grandmothers old wringer washer.
We have been replacing some old fencing with a better grade of wood and we added a cat walk for the old feral cat Mr. Bingley. He likes to walk around the top of the fence and now he can stop and nap along the way. We did not want to wait any longer because wood prices just keep getting higher.
This is Mr. Bingley this morning while I was out in the garden.
These are my new garden boots, I bought them from Tractor Supply and I sure do like them.
Let us go for a walk from our back steps out into the garden so you can see how much everything has grown in such a short time.
Salvia (purple) and Geranium (Red).
Our yard used to be just grass and trees but we set a goal to turn it into a food forest and we keep on at that goal. The flowers help the food forest because blooms bring in pollinators.
Dill
I wish I could have seen the victory gardens during ww2. The ones that were in backyards the size of ours.
I went back out and measured the dill and it is 5 feet 7 inches tall.
This mulberry tree is so big that I cannot get it into frame but it is loaded with mulberries. The birds called wax wings have been feasting on the berries the last several days and they are not the only ones.
And we have too.
Thanks to Rhonda Hetzel, at down to earth, for her post on comfrey we have been adding new plants that will help us along with making our own plant food. We have recently added comfrey and will be taking cuttings from this to make more comfrey and keep doing that until we have as much as we feel we need for our garden.
We will be adding stinging nettle but in a different area of our yard because it does sting if you brush against it. There are wonderful benefits of growing stinging nettle and it too can be used to make food for plants and my understanding that it can add nitrogen for the plants. There are numerous other benefits of stinging nettle.
We will need to be careful with the nettle so that it does not go to seed because we do not want it all over the yard. The most important thing is to learn to recognize nettle and the other plants as well.
Long ago my mother and grandmother would walk us around telling the names of the plants and the names of the birds as well, if I had only paid attention more. There is a saying, "when an old person dies, they take a library of information with them". That was true when my grandmother and mother passed away.
We have many herbs planted all around the garden and we continue to learn about the benefits of growing them. It takes time to study and understand about plants but each day will pass, one by one and before we know it, just like seconds on the clock the days are gone. If we take each day and try to do something in a slow and steady way, we can make a difference.
Look through and you can see a path, just past the rose arbor and back to what we call the upper garden (we have a small yard). Our yard looks bigger than it is because we grow many things and by growing some plants verticle helps save space.
You cannot see it all but there are onions, okra, tomatoes and to the right that did not get in the picture are eggplants, and bell peppers.
Beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, basil and zucchini.
More zucchini and peppers.
There are hard parts of gardening, the start up part with digging and moving dirt around and bending down and planting. Then there is the watering and feeding but worth it with the rewards of a harvest and we know how it was grown.
Back inside the house...
Last week we learned a lesson, and that lesson was hard. Since we have gotten older we have to concede to splitting up tasks. We were working on an old building and we had to wear those head to toe coveralls because we were handing insulation. The temperature was rising and we got too hot for too long of a period of time and got heat exhaustion. I got very sick from that and from that I had a hard lesson in patience and hydration. We were drinking water but not enough.
I am sorry for those of you that wrote to me and I did not reply but know that I did read all of my emails.
Dehydration is a serious problem for many people, if I were to guess most people do not drink enough water. So I will be drinking more water and I hope you all do too.
My new motto now is slow and steady. That applies to many things, housework, gardening, taking care of pets, cooking, any project. It will happen if we do not give up but stay slow and steady.
We cooked a hamburger patty for each of us and sauteed some onions and put that over the top and had zipper peas and mashed potatoes. For our ww2 study, that meat and dollop of butter required ration stamps. We had a nice evening and listened to Bing Crosby Armed Forces Broadcasts on the radio, Lucille Ball was a guest.
I am enclosing a link to Rhonda Hetzels post about comfrey. https://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2021/11/comfrey-liquid-fertiliser.htm
Rhondas blog is a library in itself, a wonderful place to visit, sit a spell and read. https://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/
Grandma Donna
