It's Fall!

Husband has been busy around the yard. He acquired some leaves from a yard raking job he had and incorporated them into the garden which is mostly a sand pit. We are going to try planting some alf alfa, as soon as we find out where to get some seeds, because I heard that alf alfa will regenerate the soil and that is what we need.

Fall garden area.

He put all the weeds he pulled from the garden in

 the fire pit and is ready for the next backyard burn.

Fire pit ready for a burn.

He got a couple of papaya trees from the neighbor and planted them. They are little twigs now but hopefully soon we will get a papaya.

Papaya tree!

Youngest daughter got an organic peach and noticed the seed had a sprout so she wrapped it an a paper towel and it got bigger so she finally planted it in a pot and, look, it sprouted and has leaves.

My mom has a peach tree in her yard and it has yummy little peaches on it every year. Florida peaches are just as good if not better than Georgia.

Peach tree.

The fig trees have a bumper crop this year every branch has three or four figs. It's still a fig bush though only about two feet tall.

brown turkey figs!

fig bush with figs on it.

All the plants are doing great this year. And Puppy dog loves them all.

Giant fern bush thing that my Aunt gave me and said it wont grow.

 A few years ago husband planted a plant in honor of his dear Aunt who he loved so much. It did not make it past the first winter and we thought it died but then it came back so we got another one and it would not grow. And people kept stepping on it. So I moved it to a shadier spot where it was out of the way of traffic and it died and then not only did it come back but another grew in the spot where it had been moved from so now we have three of these plants.

Auntie plant.

Plant that got moved.

I've plated carrots and radishes in the front planter near the peanut plant. And they seem to be doing pretty good too. I just need to do some weeding and I'd better do it quick.

Carrot plants surrounded by weeds!

 Another Aunt gave me some basil and I said that wont grow in my sand but it is doing great next to my oregano and mint plant.

Oregano with sexy frog and behind him is radishes and at the top of the picture is basil and ferns and in the front is part of the picture is the  peanut plant.

Next year I'm just going to plant a bunch of these peanut plants they seem to love it hear.

Radish plants with peanut growing over them.

Huge peanut plant! Yes, they have little yellow flowers.

 And then finally grand daughter helped me plant the honey dew plants we grew from seeds we got from a honey dew we bought. She was a little ruff with the plants but she is only two.

Honey dew in the top of the picture. I'm not sure what the other plants are anymore. but we will plant them and find out.

Hopefully we will have a good fall garden. It's late so this may turn into a winter garden. Husband has got to get busy to make it before the end of the fall planting season.

Long time waiting

Well, it's been a while. We have been having loads of problems here lately. Health, money the usual and I just haven't had time or inclination to sit down and write a blog post when things have been, well really, quite gloomy. But I figured people will want to know what we have been up to the past couple of months so... Here is the run down of it.

Grand kids in the pools.

 We have been watching a lot of the grand children while oldest daughter is busy with the national guard and now school. It's great to help her out while she puts her ducks in a row. And it's our pleasure to get to spend time with them as they grow and develop. We both realize how much different having children in the 40's is compared to when we were in our 20's. Ha! We're so old.

Baby boy grand baby!

 Plus we are getting to watch miracles happen, like baby boy taking his first steps.

Approach to home.

 Oldest daughter secured a place to live and moved out. It's a really nice place in the country on 5 acres. With a hog hunting range near by and loads of land the neighbors own. She is pretty isolated out there.

Great grandmother with grand baby boy.

Grammy's house flooded because of her dishwasher. These things always happen at night. She woke up to a house full of water. But the good news was most of it was covered under the insurance. So we spent some time with her helping her do repairs on the house. We painted and ripped out the old carpet. Her place is looking pretty spiffy now. She had some health problems early in the year and had a procedure performed that she had to go all the way to Gainesville for, and she is feeling a lot better too. So she is having a pretty good rest of the year we hope.

Granddaughter at her first parade

 For the fourth of July we got up early and went to one of the local parade in a near by down. At first the grand kids were scared to death with all the sirens and opening noises at the beginning of the parade. But pretty soon they learned that if you wave and shout the floats through candy at you. There was a little girl sitting next to us that had a very similar dress as Grand daughter and they looked so cute standing near each other waving at all the floats.

Me being sick at the family get together.

We had a big family 4th get together planned, a cousin who we hadn't seen in years came from California but I was ill with and ear infection and stomach ache.Leaving the bathroom was difficult. But I wasn't going to let anything stop me from seeing my Cali cousin. I got up early that morning despite feeling like death and dragged myself to the local urgent care for some meds. My stomach started feeling better almost right away even though antibiotics usually upset my stomach. The doctor said my ear drum was about to burst so that may explain the stomach ache and dizziness.  I had a great time in spite of spending half the day sitting at the doctors and the rest sitting on the couch most of the time. It's always good to visit with family and I always have a great time.

Cali cousin and wife taking a plate of key lime pie to go.

It was definitely worth all the grief visiting my family caused. Getting to see my cuz made it worth putting up with the old bittty's at work that were mad cause I couldn't work that day. But with the ear infection so bad I was dizzy and my stomach had flip flops I would have had to take a day to visit a doctor either way their was no way I could drive. Some times we just have to see what is more important and with me family comes first always.

Youngest daughter got a CT scan.

Youngest daughter has been battling yet another mysterious ailment. This time involving her kidneys. With the lumpectomy she had last year and now this I think she has had enough radiation and ultra sounds that she should be glowing and humming. She takes all this stuff so much better than I could. She is a real inspiration to me. She always wants to help people, She volunteers at the local hospital as much as she can. And is always wanting to help the poor who we see occasionally holding need food signs. And recently was stopped on the way in to a store and asked if she wanted to do a walk-a-thon for a local church we aren't even part of. Right away she turns to me and says "Can I?"  They said it was on her birthday. So she got even more excited because the priest or what ever told her there would be cake and it could be her birthday cake.  She is amazing!

Birthday boy!

We had a milestone too for baby boy he turned one years old and got his first taste of cake. Mom smeared a little icing on his hand thinking he would put it in his mouth... but it was not the case. He did not like having his hand dirty, but once he got a taste of the cake he got over it.


I hope the rest of the year improves for us and I will try to up date this blog more and post more about our fall garden. So far we have only radishes planted.

We went to The March Against Monsanto!

We decided to go to the March Against Monsanto in Orlando, as we feel strongly about our food health. We have been told about a company Monsanto (the makers of Agent Orange, DDT, Bovine Growth hormone and GMO's) is, along with a few other large chemical corporations, is trying to take over the worlds food supply making us dependent on them for food. Or some believe to poison us so we will be dependent on the pharmaceutical companies. Or to control the population. Or to control the world by enslaving us all.

As we approached city hall we saw a lot of people holding signs. Everyone was very friendly. Mostly young people with children. There were a few tables set up with people handing out fliers. Mostly it was everyday people like us who are outraged at what is being passed off as food.

Wake up America our food is banned in 30 countries! 

 There were a few people from Anonymous and there was even one guy dressed like the Lorax. Most people were there to protest GMO's and spread the word about the bees. Round up, another Monsanto product, along with other neonicotinoids products are the cause of colony collapse and if allowed to continue to be sprayed will end our bees. A few were holding signs to protest the TPP. TPP is a secret trade agreement that corporations are hatching to be above national laws. But mostly everyone was there to try to spread awareness about our food and what has been done to it. When you add every thing up together it's really quite scary.

Person from Anonymous.

 It was good to see so many people who care about the environment and about their health and the health of the American citizen. Mostly people are not saying end this science now. Oh no. They just want to know what we are eating. Is it bread or a yoga mat? You eat it and you can't tell because science has progressed to a point where they can spray a chemical on poop and it will not only taste good you will want to eat more and more until you die, literally, from eating it.

That's us holding our signs for the cars who drove by.

 It was a pretty hot day for a march.  I think we started marching a little late too. Many of the speakers were very passionate about what they were saying and we learned a lot of good stuff.

Me listening to the speakers.

 They passed out chants and as we marched we shouted chants. Hell No GMO and the like.

The kids holding their signs for motorist to read.

 In the end as one of the signs said 'an informed public is their worst enemy'. Don't rely on one source for your news. Learn what you can about what is being done to your food. And try to avoid chemicals. Remember if we all stop buying GMO's companies will stop putting it in their products. If you pick one thing to stop buying and try to make more meals from scratch you will help bring the giant down. The giant being MONSANTO!

Peace out!

Relaxing the day away!

Just enjoying a relaxing weekend. Looking into the lake at all the water lilies that are blooming. Our whistling ducks are back this year but I haven't been able to get any pictures. They seem a lot more skittish this year.

Water lilies.

Max, my oldest daughters dog we found out also loves the lake. He has no fear and would run right out into it if we let him. It's a small shallow lake so no doubt he would run into more mud than water until he got to the middle where the spring is.

Max looking into the lake maybe he spotted a turtle.

Our garden is doing well. We've got some nice sized tomatoes and have picked some squash.

Tomatoes!

We planted two types of yellow squash!

Squash before we picked it.

Unfortunately all the baby oranges fell off the tree so it looks like no oranges again this year. We may have some sort of disease. I'll have to research it. Also the leaves have been curled up. I hope we don't have to dig the tree up.

I hope everyone has a happy and relaxing mothers day the way I plan to.

We've been working around the yard.

The front herb garden is usually mostly weeds with a few herbs here and there but if you didn't know what you were looking at you would think they were all weeds. The pond/fountain has been mostly frogs until Chris decided to get some fish. He wanted coy but they are so expensive and it is a very small pond so.... he is making due with gold fish. So far they are doing great. But... we think we have a cat fishing them because Chris found half a one laying on the ground.

Chris's fake coy fish pond.

We planted a few new herbs and picked the weeds from around others. Every year I add an herb or two. Some make it and other don't. I found a mint plant that I thought was dead growing in a completely different spot than where I had planted it. I planted some basil (that I can never get to grow) and sage. I have oregano and dill and garlic chives. I also put out some marigolds plants.

This is lavender.

Other plants just seem to come up in this herb flower garden on their own. Last year I was weeding and there was this pathetic looking little flower on a tiny little plant. Chris said pull it up it is a weed anyway. But I thought it was pretty and let it grow. Now I have this huge bush that is loaded every day with the prettiest flowers.

Wild flower! It is a blanket flower a type of sun flower native to Florida. About the size of a daisy.

We finished the garden. This year we went small and sweet. We've got strawberries planted and tomatoes, peppers, onions, squash, the usual. We may expand with some beans later in the season and it's too late for lettuce so... I may do some in a container where I can move it out of the heat.

Garden!

The blue berry bush is loaded. I hope the birds leave a few for me this year. It has a lot of air plants growing on all the branches. We are not in agreement as to whether these plants are harmful to the blue berry or not. So far it has a lot of berries not many leaves.

Blue berries!

So for the last few years we have not gotten a single orange off our orange bush. Why? Because of a tiny little snail. We bought this expensive organic snail killer they didn't seem to mind too much but then I learned a trick.....

Baby Orange!

If you save your egg shells and... grind them into a fine powder then sprinkle it around the plants afflicted with snails... it is like walking on glass for them. Their little slimy snail feet get all cut up and they go else where. So far it is working like a charm. And egg shell is good for adding calcium to the soil it's a win win for my orange tree.

egg shells

smashing them

turning them into powder.

Chris has been planting all the plants he had in containers around the house. We got two gardenia plants that my mom grafted from hers and a maple tree from  a seed that blew over from the neighbors yard also a fern palm thing my Aunt gave us, she thought would never live. All free stuff that is finally big enough to go in the ground. Also we acquired a banana tree but he has yet to put it in the ground.

Banana tree.

Gardenia

He also finally planted the mosquito bush. I hope it keeps the mosquito population down although I have heard it's mosquito shooing powers have been exaggerated. I first heard about this and have been saving every wild geranium in the yard but if they don't keep the mosquito's away I guess I will pull them up they don't really have flowers.

Geranium or mosquito bush.

The youngest daughter always complains about helping in the garden so she planted her own. It consist of sunflowers surrounded by pinwheels. Hey it's hard to get teens to do anything. 

V's garden!

Hope y'all got some work done in your yard. There is always something to do.