Thursday, July 3, 2014

Around the house

It's been pretty hot around here.  I've been getting up earlier than usual to work outside.  I go through the tomatoes and pick off the stink bugs.  There are about 28 here; that's a two-day haul.  Grand total for the last two weeks is 195.
 
I have picked some of the tomatoes.
 
I've been pulling up quite a bit of poison ivy and briars around the blueberries.
 

 
 
Most of it I've done myself, but Caleb did help with a few of the briars.  He also transported some of the stacks to the compost pile for me.
 
The blueberries are just beginning to get ripe.
 
 

By the blueberries, I've let a mullein grow.  It is in bloom.  When it's done, I want to use the stalk for a hand spindle to see if I can start a friction fire.
 
Also near the blueberries is a tiger lily that my generous older brother gave me.  It is in bud, will probably be open in a day or two.

A little laundry is part of the usual routine.
 
When Roger had lunch with his brother a week and a half ago, not only did Roger bring a pound of honey home, he also brought five sweet potato plants.  Ever the man of few words, he simply handed them to me.  I said, "Oh, sweet potato plants!" I laughed because my neighbor had given me some that I forgot to plant.  I almost forgot these too, but I did get them in the ground a couple of days later.  This is what they were looking like today.  (Caleb and I have watered them a few times.)  I don't know what critter made the holes--a toad, a snake, a mole?

 
A few days ago, I repotted some plants, one of which was an angel wing begonia.  I had purchased one a few years ago at an end-of-season clearance.  The original plant didn't make it, but a little snippet of it did, and I had that little snippet in the kitchen window for a couple of years at least.  It only gets enough light to be tiny and spindly, but the blooms cheer me in winter.   
 
Once piece got so spindly, I accidentally broke it. I rooted the broken piece by sticking it in a pot of regular begonias. Saturday, I put the rooted piece in its own pot, kept it in the shade till Monday evening.  Now it's on the front steps looking great.
 
We also celebrated someone's birthday recently.  (not mine)


That's what's happening in my world.


 

3 comments:

  1. Thou art one busy lady. I can understand the rising early in this heat. But you probably get up early every day.

    That is a lot of poison Ivy.

    Sister Shirl raises some blue berries. We have friends in Maine who at one time had a pie business and their specialty was wild blue berries they raked themselves. I learned they were not picked in Maine, they are raked. the wild ones grow low to the ground all along the highways and open country. I assume they are self perpetuating.

    But now the lady in maine is living above her son's garage, and he is a lobsterman. We LOVE to visit her, and will in a few weeks...

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    Replies
    1. No, when the AC works, I can sleep all morning.

      We picked some wild blueberries when we were kids. I'll have to look up raking them. Sounds fascinating.

      I know you're looking forward to the lobster.

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  2. Native Americans use ( probably many still do) smoke mullien for lung problems... We have not tried it or a tincture, but we do have mullien growing here... You need to come up one day so we can do a forge around the property..

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