Blueberry Plains

Saturday, July 17, 2010

MY NO-MANURE GARDEN!!!

For some reason I thought my garden would not grow well this year because I did not have the usual 6 yards of manure brought in. I was WRONG! As many of you know, we are experiencing an unusually hot and humid July here in Maine. Not a lot of rain but plenty of sunshine and heat. I opted this year to not get manure tilled in to save money. Gardens can get expensive and money was tight. My garden is all organic….no chemicals are used. I hand pick bugs off the plants and use solutions like vinegar and water or garlic and water. I put little bits of deodorant soap on my tomato cages to ward off deer but that’s it. The weeds were getting away from me a while back and I made a big effort to stay out there until I got them under raps. They are creeping back but not as bad as they were. The photo below was taken on June 30th.

Here is the garden about 18 days later…..

Giant pumpkin, corn (popcorn), roma tomatoes above.

Slightly to the left of the photo above is butternut squash, gourds, more tomatoes.

The weeds are taking over on the other side of the snow pea fence. Those will be gone today. To the left of that is regular corn.

Looking in from the other side of the corn. More weeds to get to today.

The Roma tomatoes are starting to fruit. You know what is next right? Those ugly tomato horn worms I get every year! That’s why for the first time ever, I scattered my tomato plants throughout the garden to confuse them! Maybe I won’t get them?

The gourds tend to be like 2 year olds….they are all over the place! To try and contain them a bit, I put tomato cages on some when they were small. Here’s one above….you can barely see the cage. This should be an interesting adventure.

Gourds and Sweet Dumpling squash. More weeds! Boy will I be busy today out there in the heat. It is supposed to be 90 degrees today but not as humid. Not as humid huh? Ninety IS humid as far as I am concerned! While taking these photos, Obie and Baby were following me through the garden and were ready to go inside. Baby’s personal space was invaded by Obie and she hissed at him! It’s rare for her to do that but it has happened twice this summer. She’s getting old and it’s been one hell of a hot summer so far. Here’s a picture of her HISSING at him!

Can you see her hissing? WATCH OUT OBIE!!

AHHHH…..I’M SAFE UP HERE! HURRY UP MOM!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Playing with collages….

Hubby found this collage program for me and I am having fun with it. I created three collages to see what they would look like. I have templates for holidays and every other occasion you can think of! Here are the three of them…. I am hoping it can be clicked on and opened! The above one is my room upstairs. Here’s another collage…………………… These are items from my garden 2 years ago. And the third one has garden goodies and a photo of my daughter sitting back to… after we had harvested the garden for the year. Can you tell that fall is my favorite time of year? I love these mosaic/collages!!! What do you think? Some of you already make these! I know Sheila does. Very cool….but there are so many choices…it’s hard to choose from so many great backgrounds and styles! I’m loving this!

My sister in law is home from Nashville and I am going to visit her today. Her mother’s name is Amy also and her father’s name was Joe. Guess what they named my sister in law? Yup…..Amy-Jo…..isn’t that cute? I am so glad she is home and with family that love and miss her. They have certainly been through a lot since that flood. Their home was gutted and is being rebuilt. That can get stressful to say the least. Can’t wait to see her in 2 hours!

My garden is going crazy!! I will get photos this week to share. It has tripled in size in 2 weeks with all of this humid heat we have had in Maine. At least 2 weeks of constant humid temperatures between 80 and 100 degrees here on the plains. I absolutely HATE it. I am NOT a hot weather person. I will hide inside in the air conditioning. We need rain desperately and I think today and tomorrow we are getting a little. I see very little blueberries on my property but if I walk down my street, they are plentiful on the side of the road.

I finally got my new orthotics! For about 3 days they were working well. I was feeling the plantar fasciitis but was not as crippled as I have been and then it happened…..my feet began to itch! I am allergic to something in the orthotics….my worst nightmare. They are very costly @ 350.00 a pair and the insurance does NOT cover them! Thank God I have a nice man named Eric who is going to work with me no matter what to get me back to normal…whatever that is? Hubby took my orthotics back to him yesterday. They are made of manmade cork. He then put a thin leather upper on top with a glue called Cargo Cement. I think that’s the culprit….the glue. So….Eric will take that leather and glue off and we will try that….one step at a time. I am allergic to three things that I know of right now.

1. Neoprene

2. Nickel

3. Cobalt

Usually, neoprene is the problem. Did you know it was the number one new allergen in the country last year? It was the allergen of the year for 2009! Check this out….Neoprene Allergy

So…we will try again. We are bound to get lucky eventually. Meanwhile, I have to remember to be grateful for what I DO have in my life, and that is many, many, blessings. Don’t forget to stop over at Good Old Beans and encourage them to “keep on bloggin!”…..it’s a fun blog that I miss.

Stay cool and be happy.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Been A Busy Girl….

We had a great time on the 4th celebrating Alice & Woody’s 58th wedding anniversary! There happened to be an ice cream cake…. that was to die for. Joe had prepared all of the fixings for shrimp and chicken fajitas, and I made a rotisserie chicken/vegetable/romaine/ salad. We also snacked on Joe’s homemade salsa and hummus dip and crackers. The hummus was loaded with garlic! No pictures though? I am getting bad at that!

My father in law built a bird feeding station out of PVC some time ago. He calls it the GoodOldBeanFeedingStation. He and my mother in law Alice get so much enjoyment out of watching all the creatures that come to this station. I made him a sign for it just last year. You can see it on this you tube blog entry he made a while back.

His blog is called Good old Beans……find it on my sidebar..… and he has not blogged in a while! I am trying to get him back into it! For their anniversary, I made them a newer and bigger sign to hang on the feeding station. I am in hopes that he shows it through his blog….hint..hint…..but just in case he doesn’t, here is a sideways look at it in a photo I took of the two of them!! You can barely see it to the left of Woody leaning up against the wall. But meanwhile, isn’t that the sweetest photo of them?? Here’s another…. and another… …they are so nice and tanned!! They sit outside on the deck quite often having a nice cuppa coffee! If you go far enough back in Woody’s blog, you will see many videos of the creatures that come to the station. Alice also has a blog called GeeGee’s Graffiti….. please check her out too on my sidebar. She stopped writing in March of 2009. I think it is time for her to come back too. She is the one that painted this for me….. in 2008 and I still have not found a frame for it! Shame on me! This was just a frame that didn’t fit I wanted to try. Isn’t the painting beautiful? Aren’t I lucky? She also did a mixed media mural on her living room wall. The mixed media is pencil drawings, oil painting, decoupage, and crochet. I think that’s it. Here is some of it unfinished and I am in hopes she will share the finished product in her blog. I will just show photos and let her explain what you are seeing. These are just a few. There are many more shots of this and many more wild animals. She just finished the most beautiful deer! It is so cool to see this in person! So….if you would like to see these two creative bloggers come back, go to their blogs and tell them! That’ll do it! I’m hoping to see a lot of comments….ha ha!