Veggies and wildlife - it's life in the country!

I went out back the other day to check on the veggie garden.  It's been raining on a regular basis here for a while so I've not had to water.  Decided to check on their progress and was quite surprised. 

For starters, I need to weed.  The veggies have been growing like crazy - especially the Blue Lake green beans - but that means the weeds are too.  The good news is the weeds are outside the garden, not inside the beds, but since you have to walk to the beds, I do need to pull them.  So, that's on my to do list this week.

I also need to get sturdier plant stakes in.  As thick as the beans are coming up, it's pretty obvious that what is there isn't going to hold them this year.  I'll look at some hog panels and rebar next week.  That should be plenty strong enough for them to grow on without having to worry about them being pulled down.  In the meantime I'll put the old chicken fence stakes up as a temporary fix.

These are the two raised beds.  You can see the weeds all around them and the veggies growing inside.

 

This bed is lettuce in the back and green peppers, zucchini and squash in the front.  Strangely, the lettuce isn't doing well this year.  Every year before this the lettuce has taken off like crazy, producing more than we could possibly ever use.  We've never planted green peppers, zucchini or squash before so I'm really happy with how well it's coming along!

 

This bed is the green beans and cucumbers.  The green beans are in the back and growing like crazy!  Last year we didn't get hardly any beans at all, so I'm very excited to see how well they're doing now.  The cukes in the front aren't doing so great, and like the lettuce they usually take over the place.  So funny how as the years change the vegetables come up so differently!  That said, a single cuke vine tends to take over about three acres of land and produce about 45 million pounds of cukes, so I'm not too very worried that we've only got a few of the plants up.  We should still have more than enough cukes for salads and pickling!

 

The other fun thing while I was taking the photo of the veggies was a neighbor popping out of the weeds behind the garden!  I just about fell over after I took the first photo and something big jumped up and took off through the pasture.  It was a big beautiful deer!  She ran behind my line of sight in a tree so it took a while before she was in a clearing and I could get her picture, but when I got them loaded it was very neat to see her still in full run in the first photo!

 

 

She's just in the center over the tree in the foreground.

 



She made it to the property line and slipped off into the woods.  Now I'm wondering if she's got a fawn in the weeds back where the garden is.  Maybe that's why there's no lettuce growing there!  Although when we had the land cleared and had it seeded we did ask them to put in a good healthy mix of clover since it does attract deer.  Heaven knows if she's looking for a place to bed down with a baby, this place is ideal!

The day before this the kids came over to visit and have dinner.  Our youngest walked in with an adorable little boxie, only a year or two old.  She was in the middle of the road down on Seamons.  The kids know the numbers are in decline and it's important to move them off the road in the area they're in heading in the direction they're facing, but they also knew that dad loves turtles so they brought her for a visit.  Before we left to take her back to her 'home' I got a couple pictures of her.  Gorgeous little girl!

 

Life in the country.  Pretty sweet!

Happy Sunday, Cavers!

It's a lovely day here in Caveland!  Currently it's in the upper 60s and rainy as all get out!  Normally I'm not a fan of rain.  We have dogs.  Dogs + rain = me cleaning mud off floors all day long.  But since the garden went in yesterday and since I didn't water my veggie garden yesterday, the rain is quite welcome.  And it was a very polite rain as well, which I appreciate.  John woke up at 1PM from his nap so I was able to get the dogs out for their afternoon walk.  Walking back to the house with the last dog it started to drizzle.  Perfect timing! 

The chickens on the other hand were not entertained.  Apparently the wind started earlier today and it blew the door to their room closed while all but one were inside.  Single chickens are at risk chickens and that's not a very good thing for them.  Poor Medusa, our Araucana, was locked out alone and the girls were calling back and forth through the door to each other.  I felt horrible!  The good news is Matti, our very last foster dog, leaves for rescue on Thursday and I can remove the cover from their 'chicken door' so they can come and go as they please again.  I'll get the partial temporary chicken fence down so that the entire backyard will be totally opened up for them.  I think I'll also move it back to where the tortoise pen used to be behind the barn so they get the extra room there too.   At least then I don't have to worry about the door coming open or closed when it shouldn't.  My only problem then is making sure the chickens don't pick on the Chihuahuas! 

If the weather will cooperate and the rain will stop before it gets dark I'll get some photos of the flower bed now that I've got all the grass picked up.  I need to move a few smaller rocks from there and then it's all done.  The grass I dug up for the flower bed is in a wheelbarrow and I've listed it locally as 'free to good home'.  My pie in the sky plans to move it to bare patches went out the window by the time I was out of the shower last night and could feel those sore muscles.  The majority of the bare spots are in the area where the fire pit is anyway, so I think when I go get those larger rocks from Cookeville, maybe I'll grab a couple tons of flagstone or something and just put a patio in there.  I've got some leveling sand still in the garage anyway.  Might as well put it to use, right?

I think I'm going to go put on an afternoon pot of coffee and sit back and watch the cows graze across the street and just enjoy this wonderful lazy day!  In the meantime, here are some photos:

This is the garden, before I'd done the clean up of the grass and rocks:

 

This is the veggie garden on the left.  The back of it is the lettuces.  The front is the zucchini, squash, and green beans.  This was a week ago after it had been in the ground only about a week!

This is the right garden bed.  The green beans are in the back and the cucumbers are in the front.  Again, this is a week ago after it had been in the ground only a week or so!

I am not - I REPEAT - NOT a gardener!!

I've always thought of myself as a pretty tough chick.  Really, probably more dude than chick for that matter.  I prefer sports cars to roses, power tools to perfume.  I'm a completely utilitarian type of person, totally lacking the ability to look at something and think it's pretty, let along make something pretty. 

Regardless of this little fact, I decided I was going to put in a flower bed out front.  Now, let's understand one thing.  Of all things I am, lazy must top the list.  I do not like yard work.  I like my house.  It's nice and cool when it's warm outside.  It's warm inside when it's cold outside.  I can putter about all day long doing what makes me happy.  It's a grand thing.  So when I decided to put in a flower bed the one thing I knew was I wanted something totally maintenance free.  I have a lot of friends that, for whatever reason, love to get up in the morning before God is even out of bed and slip on their gardening gloves and spend a day pulling weeds.  God love them, they're wonderful, but it's just not my cup of tea.  So when I say a 'flower bed' my thoughts were immediately bulbs. 

Bulbs are perfect for the lazy gardener.  They don't die over the winter, they just take a nice long nap.  I'm actually kind of jealous.  You don't have to dig them up and put them in the freezer like you do in south Florida because they'll go into hibernation all by themselves when it gets cold in the winter.  A trip to the store in early spring to grab six bags of mulch to toss on top and voila!  In no time they pop up and everything is beautiful again.  I love bulbs! 

So this is what started my brilliant idea last week of a flower garden.  How back can it be right?  Grab a shovel and dig up the dirt, throw some soil in there, drop in some bulbs and cover with mulch.  Pish!  Anyone can do that!!  Why in the world do landscapers get paid so much money?  Crazy I tell you!! 

Well, as of two hours ago my opinion has changed.  I now believe that landscapers should be making at least as much as doctors.  Why you ask?  Because they also save lives.  The lives of naïve home owners like me that think, 'I can knock this out in an hour'.  Uh, no, doesn't work that way.  For starters, trying to dig sod out of Tennessee clay takes an act of God.  That clay packs down like concrete and digging it up is very not fun.  Now, if I'd listened to my husband (yeh, right, that was going to happen) he would have told me this since he's been the one that has dug up all the sod and weeds and roots and trees and shrubs and everything else in this yard for the last seven years.  He turned a yard that was left alone to grow as it so chose for 15 years into a lovely lawn.  Sure, it's got it's bare patches but I figure I can just take that sod I pull up and plug those.  So I get two chores done for the cost of one.  Score!  Hahahahahahaha......................not!

Allow me to be the first to tell my gardening friends that I stand here, with my yuppy suburban housewife tennis visor removed and I bow to you.  You are tough cookies!  On my first day I got the outline of the flower bed up.  I went inside and wondered if that grass would grow well if I just shoved it right back in that trench.  Seriously?  That was just lining the bed?  I don't think I want any part of this!  But that stubborn woman that lives very deep in my brain rebelled against my weary old body and said we weren't giving up.  I'm not a fan of that stubborn old woman, especially at this particular moment!  As a matter of fact, I may ask her to return my friendship card! 

But I pushed on.  We had rain a lot the last week so every time I went out I was only able to get a very small area done.  Finally today was nice.  And it's a funny thing when the weather is nice.  I had to run to town and stepped outside and thought, 'gee, what a lovely day.  Low 80s with a really nice cool breeze.  I think today I'll finish that flower bed'.  Well, let me tell you, after sitting in the Grammy Van and running my errands and coming home to start the flower bed, it didn't take me more than 10 minutes to decide it wasn't cool enough and that breeze needed to be kicked up to high!  I understand the way the body works; you move and it creates heat.  Yeh, got it.  I know it will be a huge wonderful thing in winter, but this is NOT winter.  So now, I do not like this plan my body has created.   Not...........one..............bit!

Lucky for me my youngest daughter and her husband and their two babies came by when I was about half way done with the bed and way past done for my body.  Bless her heart, she immediately came over and helped me out.  Now, I also did discover a wonderful little tool today that helped too.  The pick ax.  It is now my best friend.   If I win an all expenses trip to Hawaii, my friend Ms Pick Ax is going to be my plus one.  I can do ten times the work with that sweet baby.  Between that and my daughter, we were able to knock out the rest of the bed completely!  By the time we were done I was sitting on the ground barely able to move or breathe, but by golly, it's all done!  I need to go to the stone store in Cookeville and grab some more larger rocks to finish off one side, but for the time being the smaller rocks are there and it's working.  Tomorrow I'm sure I won't be able to lift a fork to eat my eggs, but as I lay near comatose in my bed, whimpering like a beaten puppy, I'll have a fine view of the flower bed that's finally complete!

Welcome!

I've created this blog as an outlet to reach out to those interested in this wonderful area.  Our home here is currently for sale and there will frequently be updated photos posted.  Our last two kids had moved home briefly and left recently and we're still trying to recover.  As we get things completed I will get some photos and post them.  I'll also have information on plans for the house, local news and area events.  Feel free to also follow along on our Facebook page and see our website for more information!

http://bonecavehouseforsale.webs.com/

https://www.facebook.com/BoneCaveTnHouseForSale

For any information you can email us at RonniConnelly@gmail.com or call 931-273-5378

Home can be seen by appointment with an approval letter from your bank or with proof of cash available for purchase.