Category Archives: The Farm

The Week in Pictures

Apple Blossoms, Apple Trees, Bees, Birds, Chickens, Flowers, garden, garlic, Killdeer, Nature, Reflections, Tadpoles, The Farm, Weeding, , , ,

It seems like we have been waiting forever for the weather to get nice and now, all of a sudden, we have so much that needs to be done mowing, planting, weeding and more.

Missed Shots

Monday morning when we got to the farm I started on my walk with camera in hand. I began taking pictures of flowers in bloom only to realize that my camera battery was dead. The pictures would have to wait until later that day.

After my walk I began mowing grass being careful, as I normally am, not to run over any bees that were foraging in the dandelions. It may slow me down a bit but to me it’s worth it. I was mowing in the area near the gardens when I notice an adult killdeer running around, then as I looked closer, I saw the four babies. I’m sure they were only about a day old but I’m not sure where the nest was. At least it wasn’t in our driveway this year. I didn’t have my camera but was fairly certain they would be around later.

Not long after that, I was mowing not far from our beehive when I noticed that the bees were swarming. This is when I regretted not having my camera available. This is something you don’t see very often, and it is a sight to behold. Thousands of bees swarming outside of the hive. Keep in mind, if you ever see a swarm of honeybees, they are not a threat. They are in transition from one home to their next home and at this point their main objective is protecting their queen.

My husband and I kept an eye out to see where they landed, because he wanted to capture the swarm and put them in our empty hive if possible. They landed in a great location in a nearby spruce tree at a height where he could reach them. After lunch he went back to the farm alone (I stayed home with the dogs) and captured the swarm. Since I didn’t get any pictures of the swarm or him capturing it, I will refer you to this post from 2017 when he did the same thing.

It really was a gift having this hive swarm and being able to start a new hive with these bees since these bees were able to survive this past winter.

Now for some of the pictures from the week.

Nature

Three of the four baby killdeer.

Adult killdeer doing the broken wing act, trying to lure me away from the babies.

On Wednesday, we discovered another brood of baby killdeer running around in the front of the property, with the busy parents trying to keep track of them. We have to be careful when driving in or out, as they spend a lot of time in the driveway and they tend to blend in making them difficult to see.

This red winged black bird posed for me as I was walking around the back field. I assumed there was a nest nearby but since I didn’t know much about their nesting habits, I did a little research and came across this article. It explains that the female builds a nest between 6 inches and 6 feet above water or ground, anchored to upright stems of cattails, shrubs or tall grasses.

According to the article “Red-winged blackbirds are polygynous, meaning a single male defends a territory that contains the nests of multiple females. In Washington state, males typically have harems of 3 to 8 females nesting simultaneously on their territory.” It also states, “Both males and females defend nests aggressively, but they play different roles. Males are the more physically aggressive sex: they dive at, and sometimes strike, predators and intruders that come too close. During these attacks, males produce a distinctive growl call that they use only when actively diving at a threat. Females, meanwhile, vocalize at higher rates than males when a predator is nearby. The female scream call is the most effective alarm in the colony, attracting more birds and triggering the highest rate of hovering behavior from defenders.”

I remember several years ago I was walking in the back field and Trooper, our leonberger, was a ways ahead of me, I saw a red winged black bird diving at Trooper’s back. Trooper never saw the bird because it was behind him and the bird never actually touched Trooper, but it was definitely not happy the Trooper was there.

On Sunday we discovered, newly hatched, tadpoles in the pond. I had been watching for frog or toad eggs but never saw them. Obviously, they were there somewhere.

Before long we won’t be able to see this squirrel’s nest up in the pear tree.

Pear blossoms.

Apple trees blossoming in the wood line.

Remembering Our Moms

My husband picked out this beautiful dianthus to plant in memory of our moms.

The lungwort is also blossoming.

Behind the rock there are hosta plants and day lilies coming up as well.

Gardening

The garlic was being overrun with weeds.

I got about half of it weeded Saturday morning.

I didn’t get any pictures of it, but on Friday we got our new strawberry bed planted – 3 different varieties – 75 plants total.

Chickens

Just thought I would finish up with a shot of the girls enjoying their day.

Thanks for visiting.

Catching Up

Chickens, Daffodils, Dandelions, Family, Gardening, Grandchildren, Reflections, Sewing, The Farm, , , , ,

Hello and welcome. It’s been pretty quiet here on the blog lately so it’s time to do a bit of catching up.

Sewing Projects

I spent a lot of February and March sewing for Jackson and Addie. The first three photos are things I made for Jackson. (I apologize it some of the photos are a bit blurry. Sometimes my hands are not as steady as I’d like them to be.)

T-shirt for Jacksom
Spiderman shorts
Spiderman Hoodie

Jackson loves Spiderman. My sister had sent me some Spiderman fabrics that she wasn’t going to use, since her grandkids have outgrown the Spiderman phase.

On Easter, when I gave Jackson and Addie their outfits, Jackson looked at the things I made for him, then looked at me and said, “You are the girl!” I construed this to mean, “Thank you Grandma. I love them!” 🙂

My sister also had some extra cat fabrics. Addie loves cats!

Cat Nap Pajamas

The patterns on the fabric are difficult to make out in the photos, so I added close-ups of the fabric.

Close-up of fabric
Pants for Addie
Close up of fabric

I also made myself a summer turtleneck.

Turtleneck I made for myself.

I love the way it turned out, and my husband complimented it several times when I was wearing it.

Farm Views

We’ve had a lot of rain this month and much of it came last week but on the nice days I’ve been getting out to enjoy the weather. I love watching the world come alive in spring and each day we’re seeing more and more – flowers opening, plants sprouting, leaves unfurling.

These photos were taken early last week.

Since then, we have a hen or two that are sitting on eggs, so, you’ll likely be seeing chick photos in a couple weeks. Also, dandelions are blossoming and the fruit trees are beginning to flower, so the bees have plenty to forage.

Plantings

Each year since 2019 I have potted up pansies to display in the bed alongside our deck. In past years my husband was able to get them from the greenhouse where he worked in 2019. They are a wholesale business but allowed him to come and purchase a couple of flats.

This year, in March, when he tried to call them, he was only able to leave a message, and he never got a return call. I was disappointed but ready to accept that we would not have pansies this year. My husband didn’t give up so easy. He began calling around to other local greenhouses to see if they had pansies. Mostly they were not open yet for the season. Eventually he got a message back from one of the greenhouse owners that they thought they could help him. Several phone calls and about three weeks later he picked up a flat of pansies.

I couldn’t be happier!

My husband also picked up a package of pansy seeds so we can start our own plants next year.

I did have them set out along the deck but brought them in for a couple of nights when we had the temperature dipped down below freezing. Hopefully we are past that now.

My husband started some cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower plants in March. They are now big enough to be planted in the garden, and we are hoping things dry up enough this week that we can get them planted. We also have some potato seedlings that we will plant as soon as the soil is ready.

Other News

This is so exciting!

It was the last week in March when I received my preview copies of the book my story in being published in, Chicken Soup for the Soul, I Can’t Stop Laughing. The book goes on sale next week, on 4-27-26, and I will be doing a separate post about the book and about the process of being published in this book.

One of the benefits of having a story in the book was that I received 10 free preview copies. When I told my family that I would be getting them and that I would be giving them out, they decided they need to hold a book signing event. I was honored.

On April 4th we met at a local coffee shop for lunch, and I signed and passed out copies of the book. (That’s me at the far end of the table.)

As a congratulations gift my family gave me this beautiful garden statue. It says, “The Garden is my Happy Place.” 🙂 You all know that is true.

Thanks for visiting and Happy Spring!!!

December is Going Fast

Christmas, Christmas Tree, Reflections, The Farm, Winter

Going, going, and before we know it December 2025 will be, gone. We will be starting a whole new year. But today I’ll just catch up on a few things from this month.

Finishing What We Started

Back in February, I wrote about our adventures in shopping for a used car. At that time we did not find a vehicle that was what we were looking for so we decided to have some repairs done to our 2006 Honda Odyssey and continue to drive it. After some inexpensive repairs it continued to serve us well until a few weeks ago when the cold weather set in.

When my husband told me the van was not running good, we decided to restart our quest for a different vehicle. After about a week of searching online and at dealerships, discussing what type of vehicle would serve us best, how much we wanted to spend, and waiting two days for the snow to stop so we could safely travel the 45 minutes to view the vehicle that we hoped was best, it finally happened.

We purchased a 2016 Toyota Highlander. It’s been a week since we brought it home and I am so thankful every time my husband comes in and says, “I love that car”. I have to give a shout out to Jim Riehl’s Friedly Chrysler Dealership in Lapeer, Michigan and our salesman, Mike Lamet, who made the car buying experience pleasant and seamless. We couldn’t be happier.

Preparing for Christmas

Wednesday was our nicest day this week. My husband and I went to the farm to cut our Christmas tree. I know it’s late for putting up a tree, but we thought it best to wait because we are concerned that the tree will dry out before Christmas. We will keep it well watered, but we had a very dry year, and the tree is already excessively thirsty.

The temperature was near 50 degrees (10 Celsius) but as you can see there was still snow on the ground.

The sun was doing it’s best to break through the heavy cloud cover.

We did see bits of blue sky.

Some of the chickens even came out for a visit.

After looking at a few trees, we finally selected this one. The first one we looked at was nice until my husband went to start cutting and discovered a crook in in the trunk near the bottom. The next one was also a nice tree, but I thought it was too tall for our space.

The one that we brought home was full but still short enough that we could put it up on the table we have been using for the past several years. I like the idea of having the tree on the table thus Ranger isn’t tempted to lift his leg on it. Male dogs are known to do that with real trees.

Once we got the tree home and up, I discovered I only had one strand of lights that worked (and two that didn’t). Not enough for the tree. Since we planned on doing some shopping on Thursday, we decided we would pick up some lights then. Decorating the tree would have to wait.

On Thursday our first stop would be Hobby Lobby so I figured we could pick up some Christmas lights there. My husband asked me several times that morning “are you sure we can get lights at Hobby Lobby?” Since they always have a huge Christmas section, I was sure that they would have Christmas lights. What I didn’t realize was that they had all of their Christmas items on sale for 60% off. The light section was cleaned out.

Since our next stop was Culvers for lunch we decided we could run into Walmart (next door) to grab some Christmas lights. I truly realized how late we were getting the tree up when Walmart was sold out of the lights we were looking for as well. We were looking for strands of the muti-colored mini lights. They had None. They had a lot of strands of all white, but we didn’t want that. We also found, hiding on a bottom shelf, some strands on multi-colored lights with the larger bulbs. Since we didn’t want to spend the whole day running into stores that may or may not have what we were looking for we decided to go with the larger bulbs.

It was late in the day, and we were pretty worn out by the time we got home so decorating the tree would wait another day.

On Friday I decorated the tree while my husband made a delicious pot of chicken soup for our dinner.

This year our tree is decorated with lights and angels. It’s been several years since I decorated with my Snow Angel collection, so I decided this was the year. Incidentally the angel on the top our tree is older than some of my kids. My best guess is it’s around 35 years old and I have never replaced the lights in it.

The rest of the shopping we did on Thursday included picking up a few gifts for the grandkids and making sure I had things I need to make Christmas brunch.

I still have a few gifts that I am making that need to be finished but I should have time to finish things up by the 25th, even if I take time out to watch the Lions game on Sunday. I might even have time to do some baking. 🙂

Thanks for visiting.

Did you put up a tree this year?

Fall is in the Air

Bees, Black-eyed-susan, Chickens, Fall, Nature, Reflections, Ruby, Sunflowers, The Farm, Wild Flowers, Wildlife, , , ,

Fall is in the air but the temperatures this week were more like summer.

We’ve seen a lot of skies that look like this lately – deep blue with fluffy white clouds. How about joining me for a walk at the farm?

Ruby will join us, but since she likes to move faster than we do she will probably lap us a couple of times. Don’t worry if you hear something rustling in the weeds or the woods behind us it’s probably her.

I love these Black-eyed Susans that we planted along the fence two years ago.

Such a brilliant splash of fall color.

It was tempting to cut down this thistle, but the flower is so pretty. Maybe I’ll cut it just before it goes to seed.

Some of the chickens are enjoying their day foraging near the pond.

Maple trees are beginning to show their fall colors.

There are lots of bees in the golden rod.

Asters are beginning to bloom

The white ones as well as the purple.

And purple loosestrife is still in bloom.

This butterfly posed for a couple pictures then fluttered nearby as we walked the back field.

The oak trees are loaded with acorns this year.

Some have begun to fall.

The hickory trees have fewer nuts this year than last but still enough to feed some squirrels.

This Norway spruce is loaded with pinecones.

I wonder what kind of pinecone craft I can come up with. Do you have any ideas?

Oh my gosh! Elderberries! I’ll come back and pick these after we finish our walk. This is my first year picking elderberries. The first few years after we planted them I would wait for the berries to ripen but before they were ripe the birds would eat them all. I then discovered that the elder flowers are as good or better than the berries for making syrup or tincture, so I began harvesting the flowers in the spring. This year I forgot to harvest the flowers and while there are not a lot of berries here there are enough to make a small batch of tincture. 🙂

We’ve already seen a lot of the bees are foraging in the goldenrod and I’m sure some are in the sunflowers as well. One thing that you might notice, if the wind is just right, is the smell of honey drifting from the hive. This time of year, when the bees are in the goldenrod, is the only time that we smell honey while at the farm.

We still have a lot of sunflowers in bloom.

Some are so tall they are having a hard time holding their heads up.

Colby Jack (above) and Bernard (below) are waiting for some treats.

Should we give them some apples?

Somebody grabbed my camera while I wasn’t looking (and took my picture). You wouldn’t do something like that – would you?

Colby Jack and Bernard say, “Thank You for the apples”

I hope you enjoyed your time on the farm. Thank you for joining me.

Tuesday Morning at the Farm

Bees, garlic, Reflections, Ruby, Sunflowers, The Farm

It was a cool, crisp, fall-like morning despite being late August.

I visited the gardens and took a few pictures before getting started on my task for the morning.

The bees were all over the sunflowers.

This bird was perched on a goldenrod in the back field.

The above picture was my workstation for the morning.

These are the tools I used.

Cleaning the garlic was my task.

The sights, the sounds, the whole atmosphere was beautiful.

The sky was deep blue with fluffy clouds drifting by.

I couldn’t have asked for better working conditions.

Ruby stopped by to remind me to take time out to play.

It took about 75 minutes to clean that bucket full of garlic, including tossing the ball a couple times for Ruby. (I neglected to take a picture of the clean bulbs.) Conditions were equally as pleasant this afternoon when I finished cleaning the second bucket full of garlic. What a relief it is to have that job finished.

I am still canning tomatoes (31 quarts so far), dehydrating eggplant and freezing peppers. We have been so blessed with a bountiful harvest this year.

Thanks for visiting.