Omicron and first snow of 2022

31 Comments

I’m getting too old for this. 

At 68, when I consider all the possible outcomes and variants of this C19 virus, I’m glad it got to us after the cooled down version emerged.  It is, as claimed “like the flu”.  I’ve had some deadly flu in my life with temps of up to 104 that left me unable to even get up.   This virus with low grade fevers nonetheless leaves you listless and feeling weak.

Bob came down with it on Thursday and I came down with it the very next day, which was New Years eve.  We stayed in, laid low, kept bundled, took eight hour arthritis strength acetaminophen (for fever, aches and pains), drank a lot of water and sipped on homemade chicken soup.  To keep our lungs clear we used an inhaler and took Guaifenesin (expectorant).  Both of us battled waves of low grade fever and chills, and spent a couple of nights sleeping sitting up on the recliner.

It is a trickster!  Bob was feeling like he was on the downside of the beast, and then suddenly he got another low-grade fever and chills.

We would like to have been tested, but due to the holiday weekend, and the mass of sick people, well, you simply can’t get in for DAYS.  NOTE:  I was finally able to get in on January 5th and found that I did indeed have the C19 beast.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year and good health in 2022

❤

 

Mother Nature sent us snow for the New Year, and it was beautiful!  However, it was the wettest snow I have ever experienced.  It filled the fences, stacked up 8 inches high, and ripped the limbs off of my Dogwoods and the giant Holly trees here! (Trees were felled everywhere in our area.) I will share the photos and also say that I was glad this all happened in the night.  It was sad to see the carnage next morning, but it showed us a very dangerous flaw in the giant holly tree!!!  The largest branches and the crotch of the tree are ROTTING inside.  The lovely old lady will have to come down and we will be looking for another small shade tree  to replace it. Pictures are clickable, but I am having a bit of trouble with the editor again today.  sigh….

beautiful…

But dangerous!

An Unconventional Scrap Happy Post

21 Comments

I have spent the past (almost) two years working in my garden.  No quilting, sewing or blog posting.  This means that I haven’t found my way to posting for Scrap Happy posts either.

Today I break that silence, albeit unconventionally, and bring you alternative scraps which I have made into useful items for my garden…

and my mud/laundry room!

*I took one old table, removed two legs, cut the edge off, and attached it vertically to the cut edge of the table.   This provided an old fashioned look, but more importantly it camouflaged the uneven wall plaster.  The newly modified table was then leveled and screwed to the wall. I now have a long needed laundry folding table!

But I didn’t toss those extra legs!

By drilling a half inch hole into each of the centers.  Then, using a 2 lb. mallet,  I drove in some leftover 1/2 inch rebar into the holes.

With these two table legs, and four others from an old topless table frame, I was able to make functional hose guides for in the garden and orchard.

I haven’t actually measured, but I think the garden and orchard areas are equal to about 1/4 acre.  It takes two 100 ft hoses to get around everything.  One is connected to a hose station with quick connectors on the backside to facilitate the primary hose from the house.  House hose gives me N & S access, and the hose station gives me E & W access which keeps my poultry in water.

A 100 ft hose has a lot of drag when going around corners of the raised beds and my blueberry bushes.  These oversized hose guides won’t budge even with the a 200 ft combined length!

I should probably paint them all,

But I couldn’t decide on a solid color for all of them, or if I wanted party-colored for fun.

This one is guarding a new blueberry bush.

I also had some old planks from the walls inside the 1840 cabin at the Mountain Farmlet.  I could never decide what to do with them.  So I went with functional and attached them to some left over cuts of galvanized electrical conduit.  I now have barriers to keep the ducks and (maybe) the chickens out of any newly planted and conventional beds of vegetables.

NOTE:  These legs will need to be shortened!  It was very hard to remove these barriers until we’d had a good soaking rain!

Scrap Happy is sponsored via Kate and Gun. The participants use/reuse leftover fabric scraps to create new and wonderful items.  I have done a similar thing with my wood and metal scraps to share this time.

Please do visit these other creative participants and see their lovely work!

Kate, Gun, Eva, Sue, Lynn , Lynda (Me),
Birthe, Turid, Susan, Cathy,  Tracy, Jill,
Claire, Jan, Moira, Sandra, Chris, Alys,
Claire, Jean, Jon, Dawn, Jule, Gwen,
Bekki, Sunny, Kjerstin, Sue L, Vera,
Nanette, Ann, Dawn 2, Bear, Carol,
Preeti, Edith, Debbierose and Esther

Thanks for visiting and I hope this post inspires you to rethink using the landfill!

*GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE:  While the idea and design was mine, I did need the help of Bob in the muscle work.  Carrying, leveling and attaching the new folding table to the wall.  I wouldn’t be able to do it without his help.  ❤

Duck Bribery

21 Comments

As it happens, a duck will follow you anywhere for a bowl of peas!

I ordered them months ago to be sure of getting what I wanted and to be delivered at a time when I wasn’t dealing with new layers and the meat chickens.  I never expected, once they arrived, that their feed would have increased to $20.00 for a 50lb. bag.  I now have three laying hens and a rooster, my two pet geese (Polly and Fredrik) and the runner ducks.  I do hope some of those duckies are girls, so at least they can give me fresh eggs for baking.  But if not, they sure are taking down the bug and slug population and many of the weeds as well!

I used to give the eggs from all my laying hens to folks who needed them or just appreciated a good fresh egg.  However, since Covid nobody wants them anymore.  That’s sad, but in the end, it saves me on feed.

And on another note, I will share that even though I was not here, I did take pictures, shoot videos, and work in the garden daily.  I have a lot of material that never made it to my pages and would like to get it up here anyway.

Perhaps with some notation so you know the difference?

Thank you for visiting!

Regarding October

32 Comments

I haven’t been here for almost a year, and I could boor you with all the reasons, but you’ve probably heard them from others, or more likely felt them yourself. Depression and the Covid mess should about cover it. So onward and forward with last month:

Having realized that by the 20th of November it will have been a whole year to the day, I tried last month to write a new post… Block wall… Fish out of water…

SUDDEN REALIZATION:

Um, the old editor is really gone for good? Argh…(angry words -delete-delete-delete) Bad news!

But, I’m forging ahead this month in the hope it goes well when I do hit the post button.

In early summer I ordered ten baby ducklings, the minimum order, and they arrived in August. I lost two in the delivery process and one, about a month later, due to failure to thrive . When they were feathered and large enough for a daily romp in the garden, I then made sure to shore up the spaces between the gates and fence with three gallon painter buckets from Home Depot. Runner ducks are tall and very svelte. October gave us a very blustery night with raging wind and a bit of rain. Unbeknownst to me, the wind had picked up one of the buckets and blew it away. And so it was that one wayward soul, discovering the space between the gate and fence, went through that space looking for greener pastures, and found Walker instead. The buckets are now weighted down with a very heavy stone in the bottom!

My garden was a bust. Tomatoes never set fruit, potatoes, sweets, red and russet just didn’t grow. I did get tons of green beans as well as a new Jalapeno called “Nadapeno” which has no fire. Although the fruits of this pepper were many, they weren’t very exciting. Yet, my face did not turn red, so I guess there is that.

Last year I closed the middle finger on my right hand in the kitchen drawer. It hurt, but never blackened or fell off. Good I thought. But then, over the summer, a strange lump grew out from under my cuticle and it was large enough to cause a great groove in my fingernail. My Primary Dr. freaked out and sent me to have it checked for cancer. The Derm/cancer specialist said it was just a cyst and sent me to my hand surgeon. He explained that the drawer exacerbated the osteoarthritis in the joint, caused a leak of fluid at the base of my nail, which caused the cyst, which deformed the nail. He ordered surgery. The cyst was cut and will grow out with my nail, and the bone was cleaned of the arthritic bits. My finger looks like it belongs to Frankenstein’s monster at the moment and now has a titanium screw through that offending joint. The following image is the ex-ray of the offending and hugely swollen finger.

Apologies if you find it offensive, but the position provided the best imaging for the surgeon and shows the swelling as well. This was on October 28th. The swelling is now greatly reduced, and some of the feeling is coming back to the tip of my finger, but not yet to the bit behind the cuticle.

So far this month, Bob is building the ducks a hut to sleep in at night. Currently, they are still in the barn at night and sleeping in a 4ft. wide kiddie pool with straw in the bottom and wire fencing to keep them in.

If it doesn’t rain I’ll show you how I get them from the barn to the other side of the house in the morning! I find it very entertaining