The Last Days of Spring

Cherries, Cherry Tree, Chickens, Dogs, garden, Killdeer, Nature, Pond, Power Outage, Rain, Reflections, spring, The Farm, Tomato Weaving, Tomatoes, Weather, , , ,

The Pond

Hot weather moved in before summer actually arrived. It was time to make the pond more welcoming, so on Monday, June 16 I started by raking some of the weeds and leaves out of the beach area before rototilling the beach.

My husband brought out the beach chairs and I cleaned them up. Then we set up the chairs with the umbrella and a small table on the beach.

Ruby enjoys the pond as much as I do. She brings her ball the beach so we will throw it in the water for her to retrieve.

And Ranger, AKA our beagle fish, goes for regular swims just to cool off.

I’m not really a swimmer. I like to be in the water, but I don’t like my head under water..

I use this floating ring as my watercraft. With my upper body floating on the ring and my legs kicking in the water I find I can get a good lower body workout. Probably as good as the recumbent or stationary bike. So, my goal, as often as possible this summer, is 30-60 minutes in the pond each day.

My first time in the pond this year. In spite of my objections my husband took my picture. At least he didn’t figure out how to use the zoom.

Chickens

My husband gave the chickens a mound of fresh topsoil to bathe in. We had a very happy flock.

Prayer Garden

Abundant color.

So pretty.

Killdeer Update

I didn’t get any pictures, but on Tuesday afternoon we saw our young killdeers take flight. They are still hanging around the garden area which is fine with us because they do eat a lot of bugs.

Despite the storms that brought high winds and torrential rain both of the other killdeer are still dutifully sitting on their nests.

Sweet Cherries

The second sweet cherry tree that we planted last year was more productive than the first. I harvested these on Wednesday morning. Enough to have with lunch. And that concludes our sweet cherry harvest for the year.

Except for this lone cherry that my husband discovered on our youngest tree (third tree). I never even saw any blossoms on that tree this year. I did pick and eat this last sweet cherry.

Before The Storms

With heavy storms in the forecast for Wednesday afternoon we wanted to make sure the tomato plants were supported. Last year my husband discovered a method called tomato weaving. No more cages or staking each tomato to keep them upright.

To weave tomatoes, you need a stake at each end of the row. You also need a spool of twine or heavy string. You tie the twine/string to the stake at one end of the row then string it out weaving it in and out of the tomato plants. (On the right side of one plant then the left side of the next all the way down the row.) Make sure that the string is up against the main stem of each tomato plant. At the end of the row pull the string tight, wrap it around the stake a couple times, then weave it back down the row in the opposite direction, making sure that the string is on the opposite side of each plant and up against the stem of each plant. At the end of the row pull the string tight wrap it around the stake and tie it off.

As the plants grow taller you can add another layer of weaving higher up on the stake.

Once we were done with the tomatoes I spent about an hour pulling weeds in the garden.

Here are some views from when I was on my knees in the garden.

This storm went to the north of us. It was after we went home for lunch that the storms hit our place.

A baby tomato, I would not have noticed had I not been on my knees in the dirt. 🙂

Sweet Peas

In April I planted sweet peas in two planter boxes on our deck.

This week’s harvest.

After hulling. We normally don’t grow peas because you have to grow a lot to get a decent yield. I ate these raw with my lunch. 🙂

After The Storms

On Wednesday the storms dumped three inches (7.62 cm) of rain on us. We didn’t have any flooding, but the ground was saturated with standing water in areas. We got more rain Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Our gardens that were doing so well are now struggling. We will likely lose some tomato plants – hopefully not all.

The water level in the pond is up. It is littered with cottonwood seeds but the water is refreshing.

We are currently in the middle of a heat wave, experiencing record high temperatures and intermittent power outages but that’s a story for another day.

Thanks for visiting.

18 thoughts on “The Last Days of Spring”

  1. What an interesting way to support tomato plants. I have never seen it before. How are you doing with the swimming for 30 minutes each day? It sound like a good goal, but actually doing it every day is would be a hurdle for me. I get distracted too easily. lol.

    It looks and sound like you are having a really good summer. I miss being there.

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    1. We miss you too.
      Because of my Parkinsons exercise has to be a priority for me and I’d rather be in the pond than in the house. I’ve missed a few days when the weather was not right but most days I’ve been doing about 45-50 minutes. I think it helps me sleep good at night.

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  3. Everything was looking perfect, the beach and water was calm and beautiful enjoyed by all of you and the prayer garden was looking so pretty until those nasty storms. I hope you didn’t lose too much of your crops, or that your flowers got too water-logged, especially after today’s stormy weather as well. All is calm here now, but I despair we have to do the stormy weather the next two days. Other areas were hit worse than here – we were lucky. Take care Ruth.

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    1. Thankfully those storms missed us. We just got some light rain. We haven’t had any rain today either which we are thankful for. The prayer garden is still looking good. It is sloped so tends to drain well. You take care too, Linda.

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      1. That’s good they missed you Ruth – people still didn’t have power earlier today. I know you mentioned not having power in your post from the prior storm. We just had rain today, but they called for storms this afternoon and/or evening but thankfully it fizzled out. That’s a good idea to slope the prayer garden so the plants don’t get “wet feet” and root rot.

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      2. We had brown-out power on Suday for about 6 hours and Monday for about 4 hours. We couldn’t run the A/C and used the generator for fridge, freezer and fans. The last two days have been good though.

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      3. That’s bad about the brownout – thank goodness you had the generator as it might have ruined the fridge and freezer. We had a fridge break after a brownout. We also had an instance when only half the house had power … it was like that for our side of the street after a bad power outage. We had some linemen come in from Indiana and they figured out the problem right away and it had been like that for about a week.

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  4. It is always so nice to catch up with you, Ruth. You had me at Cherries! How wonderful for you. I will be praying for your tomatoes and gardens. The heat has been brutal! Thank goodness for your pond! It’s beautiful!

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  5. Everything looks lovely, welcoming, and yummy, Ruth! Your pond looks bigger than ours. I don’t go into it, but love it just the same. The dogs love swimming in it and our grandsons love fishing for the little fish in it. 🙂

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  6. your pond looks so inviting!

    I love seeing how names vary across the Atlantic- to Brits sweet peas are grown for scented flowers, but you are obviously using the name for edible peas. Enjoy!

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