Friday, July 6, 2012

Life back to more normal- New Doors

Ryan went home this morning so we are all relaxed a bit and life should settle back down.   He improved so rapidly I think even the doctors were impressed.  I learned the trauma doctor (I forget his name) even travels to Springfield St. John's.   I am grateful we had him with Ryan.

We have our youngest granddaughter, Jennifer, 11 until our son and DIL get things more settled with Ryan at home.  She is addicted to television so this is one time I am grateful we have Directv (thanks to MIL for that gift).

We are still abysmally hot and dry here.  I am only watering a few shrubs I don't want to loose and the orchard and garden.  They are talking (note I  said talking) about rain Sunday and Monday.  I will believe it when I see it.

Between the weather  and my boo boo with the herbicide, things are looking pretty sorry here.  Be interesting to see what I have permanently lost.  I will replace nothing!

The beetles found the silks on the sweet corn but Sevin took care of that problem.  The row of peppers looks very good.  Finally I am getting some nice sized cheese peppers.  I will take a few pictures tomorrow morning.


The row  of tomatoes in the Orchard Garden still look very good.  I have quite a few fruit on the Granny Cantrell's and the other variety (I forget) is just now blooming so I don't know if they will set fruit or not.

After fighting beetles on the peach tree and finally realizing the orchard spray by Bonide was worthless, I changed  to liquid Sevin got that issue under control only to find almost all the peaches had been pulled from the tree and were gone!  DH inspected and found the seeds on the ground....either a groundhog or raccoons.  I hope they have a severe belly ache!  I see they have now come to the peach tree in the backyard garden.  I hope  DH sets a trap this evening.

The cucumber vines  are dying; probably borers.  Have you noticed nothing bothers disease or insects.  They seem to thrive in all conditions.

We have also lost two chickens.  We began today running the sprinkler under the shade tree they have in the chicken yard.  Chickens have a pretty fragile constitution and can take cold much better  than heat.  We are still getting 8-10 eggs daily though.

Pastures  are  drying up but so far, we haven't had to resort to feeding hay.......yet.

This has been a very disappointing year for gardening and that is putting it mildly.

I  am just so happy that Ryan is getting better nothing else  really matter.

Small Things Lead  to more and Bigger Things

My old security door to the porch swing porch had the God Awful scroll iron work on it and you had to dismantle the glass panels in order to clean them so they were always dirty.  It drove me crazy.  Well finally the handle broke off and was not replaceable so we decided to get a new door.  DH, much to my surprise, wanted to replace all three storm doors which were of poor quality.  So we did.  We now have this door at the two entrance  doors and a cheaper but insulated version at the back door.



Well, the full view door really exposed our ugly and cheap door to the porch swing porch and I couldn't bear looking at it.   We are now waiting for a new but simple door with just a fan light at the top to be installed.  I drooled over the fancy etched and leaded glass ones, but the old farm house just would have looked strange I think.   So from a small broken handle grew 4 new doors! 

6 comments:

  1. I'm so happy for you that Ryan is doing so well and I'm sure you'll enjoy having Jennifer around for a bit (if she can be pried away from the TV, that is. LOL).

    Sorry about the peaches. And the bugs. And the drought. And the (fill in the blank). *heh* Everyone is suffering from something this year.

    Nice doors! You're really going to like having snug doors, especially in winter. And I have to imagine that the view is better too.

    Glad you are more relaxed and good to see you blogging again. Fingers crossed for your cheese peppers.

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  2. It's great news that Ryan was able to head home to finish his recovery.
    Jennifer likes TV, that's a good thing because it's to hot outside.
    Sorry to hear about the garden this year. I think it's the same for most people right now. Either the bugs or the heat has been working against us.
    Take care and don't work to hard this weekend.

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  3. I am so very happy for you Glenda. I have been praying and sending healing thoughts to you.
    I think everyone, including me, has had garden issues, or some other issues whether personal or family, or garden, or weather, or *fill in the blank* of your choice of words. I am finding that I am pulled 200% beyond what I can handle, but I just have to bend more. My garden is doing well so far, but we are irrigating through a trench and mulching and powdering down things so the bugs are detered off of eating everything, and so far so good. My peppers are doing well in this heat, and the cukes are over 7 ft tall on my trellis. I will post later on my blog.
    Again, I am so very happy for you and your family. Things will simmer down.
    Hugs

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  4. Such good and welcome news regarding your grandson. As you say, everything is relative . . . but I sure am hoping you get an adequate amount of rainfall soon. It's so hard to see all your hard work dry up and die in the garden. And then think of the farmers' fields. It's pretty much impossible for them to water their crops.

    The woodchuck (ground hog) that we thought a neighbor had "dispatched" has been sighted (or it's a new one) going under our storage shed again. Traps are set out but so far, he/she has eluded us. I'm so afraid he'll get through or over the fence and wreak havoc in the garden.

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  5. That's wonderful about Ryan. You have much to be thankful for!

    I was worried yesterday about one of the chickens. She was really breathing hard and laying down. I make blocks of ice for their drinking water and let them have the run of the yard. But noonish, there is hardly any shade, anywhere. If we can just get through today. They desperately need a break. Last night was hot because the cloud cover held the heat in. We have 20% chance of rain but I did my usual watering this morning because WE don't get rain even when the percentage is much higher than that. But what else can one do.

    Merle Travis recorded a song, years ago, called "If We Make It Through December We'll Be Fine". It was about being poor. I think we gardeners should have a song, "If We Make It Through 2012 We'll Be Fine." XOXOXOXO

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  6. So glad to see Ryan improve so quickly and home again. I can only imagine how worried everyone was. You're right Glenda, nothing else matters if you have someone sick or hurt... everything else can WAIT! Love the new doors, the full view will be great for cool or warm weather. I love the fan top doors, that's the kind we had in the house I grew up in at Springfield. I'm sure it goes really well with the your farmhouse. Let's keep our fingers, toes, eyes crossed that we'll cool off and get some much needed rain. We've kept things alive, but we can forget about the tomatoes this summer.

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