A Beautiful Sunday Morning in the Ozarks

 


I could see the pink through the kitchen curtains and tried to capture it.  It is times like these I wish our power lines were all underground.

Yesterday was another perfect day and I managed to work outside over two hours.  I planted three different kinds of lettuce and trimmed 6 or 7 clematis and the Annabelle hydrangea.  Now I need to pick up all that debris.

Max just came in and told me it is getting windy so I may not do much outside today.  The wind is supposed to be bringing heavy rains, fingers are crossed.

My little garden plum tree is loaded with buds and I am afraid it is going to get caught by a hard freeze again.



There are just some things we cannot control.......

I have some chain -saw pruning to do.  I will use the smaller electric saw.  Maybe I can get Max to follow along and pick up the litter using the mower and the garden cart.

I definitely need to start some egg plant seeds today.  I wasn't going to do any this year but have seen some interesting recipes for eggplant.......I now have three different varieties to try.  These will go under the lights on the back porch, but first will  sit on top of the lights for bottom warmth.

One of the Korean boxwood's near the back porch (aka the patio area) are just beginning to bud and I can smell them!  If Seedscatterer hadn't mentioned her boxwoods with scent  I would never have tried to chase down that fragrance!  Thank you Jean.

OK, now for the fun stuff.  I am loving  the Cuisinart ice cream maker and have to fight myself not to use it too often.  Then I tell myself it is a good way to use extra milk, cream and eggs........

This is the machine.  The only negative is storage....of course it went on the shelving unit along with a gazillion other things.

This is stage one, foamy ( I think this is foamier because I went heavy on the cream rather than the Milnot which I will not do again for caloric reasons and that is what we are used to).

and the finished product:  from start to finish just around 30 minutes,



I use a recipe that my Sis has worked on but I modify it by using Milnot in place of the cream element (except for yesterday.  the cream certainly did not hurt the flavor).  Her recipe overfills my unit so I have to cut back the amounts a little.  I need to work that out to an exact thing and then write it down for posterity.

Happy Sunday!

More Clean up in the Yard

We had a productive morning.  I am trying desperately to get the yard in good shape so my BIL won't talk about me when they visit this month!

I loaded the trailer with all the saplings I cut from the east yard a few days ago then headed to the garden with the chainsaw.
I had let several peach seedlings grow up from the compost pile inside the garden proper and they had to go!  The last storm broke several limbs. 

I had a new blade on the small electric saw and it worked beautifully.

Here is the view toward the garden before work  began:



Note the pile of limbs I lopped off out of my way first.  They were hanging over the fence.  The trees are that group in the middle of the picture.

There were about five trees growing close together.
And now they are gone:



I still have a large split tree mid-garden that will go next.

I am happy to see that the east end of the garden now gets full sun!  I topped a few pepper plants with the peach limbs but have enough peppers not to care.

This shot is a bit closer.  I wanted to show the clear end of the gas tank that was a tangle of tree-size perilla, lambs quarter and elm saplings.  I eliminated all that mess and found three treasures that the possum has missed.





This half dead evergreen on the smoke house will go next.....I will have to rig up something because a rampant clematis climbs all over it each spring.



This rose of sharon (a seedling) is looking very good now that the Japanese Beetles have gone below ground.



I am in for the day.  Lunch will be a soup of leftovers.....

Chickens are laying well.  6 girls/6 eggs some days.  They are still small pullet eggs but will soon increase in size.