Howdy dear friends,

It is a beautiful morning here in northwest Indiana. It's the perfect morning to do a bunch of mulching. I hopped out of bed early today and made a bee-line for the free mulch pile and filled up my car twice, which was enough to mulch one bed nicely. The daylily bed along the road needed new mulch bad as what I had put there when I planted it was almost all gone now.

Yesterday i spent time in the garden doing other chores. The Latham raspberry twigs I planted in the spring are getting tall and floppy so I went to the hardware store and bought some metal stakes and wire to make the trellis I had been putting off for too long. After i trellised them, it looked a lot neater. The layer of half broken down compost I'd mulched with in early summer has kept the weeds at bay nicely. Then I used the old bricks from a neighbor to line the bed and finish it all off. It looks almost professional now. I'm pleased with myself.

I cut down the yellow scabiosa plants. these plants were considered 'weeds' by the evil association here, but I ignored thier dyer warning in the form of a ticket requesting that I "weed". Surprisingly, there were no consequences and the butterflies and insects got to keep loving the scabiosa flowers. Now though, I decided to go ahead and cut them down as they were starting to look very ragged and unkempt. Though as I was doing the deed all kinds of butterflies kept visiting the flowers as I worked, making me feel guilt ridden, even worse as they visited the growing pile on the ground of cut plants. If you want LOTS of butterflies, plant yellow scabiosa. Bees, hover flies and butterflies can't seem to resist them.

While I was out in the garden, I decided to share with you some of the very pretty leaves I have right now. (See the picture). Top: Blueberry, Hydrangeas. Middle: Coleus, Heuchera. Bottom: Ornamental sweet potato vine, native tulip tree.

In the veggie patch, I harvested a moon and stars watermelon. I read that you should harvest when the tendrils nearest the melon have dried. I'm hoping this is right. I'm too scared to cut into it yet to find out.

Well, have a wonderful Sunday!

Nickie

And things return to normal...

Dear Friends,

Things are high and dry now here at my place and almost all the roads are open once again. For a while there I was quite frazzled with it all. I was worried about the animals who were constantly wet despite changing bedding every day and trying to keep the wet out. I was worried about my father-in-law who lives in Munster, IN. which is still under mandatory evacuation. He's OK by the way. I was worried about my neighbors, and worried about how I was getting to work everyday as the traffic situation was very bad taking 2 hours to get around instead of the normal 45 minutes.

But now, things are getting back to normal. I cancelled my mini-vacation plans because of this storm, and as upsetting as that is, I have the opportunity to help out my not as fortunate friends, neighbors and family that were affected by this storm by helping them dry out and clean up. Considering I could of gone fishing from my steps the other day, I count myself lucky just to have suffered problems in the garden only.

In the garden I lost my Brussels sprouts, most of my pepper plants, a conifer shrub which I replaced today with something much more interesting (Burgundy Star Ninebark), and my parsley.

Today as I was feeding and cleaning and brushing the rabbits (who are shedding like I've never seen them shed ever before) I noticed that the buckwheat was already blooming (See the picture if you don't know what buckwheat looks like). I'm tempted to let it go to seed and maybe have yet another crop pop up from that since it seems to grow so fast and green. I'm still debating as I feel like I should be planting greens and such right now even though I KNOW there won't be time before the first frost. I forked up a good wide row of the buckwheat turning the soil so that I can at least get my garlic planted.

I need to get the trellis for my raspberries in this weekend while the ground is soft. I had no idea they would grow so fast and they are starting to get long and floppy. Luckily Mike won a home depot gift card that should cover the costs of the project easily!

To cheer up, I've decided to do some fall things. I'm roasting pumpkin in the oven for pumpkin pie right now and afterwards the seeds which I'm soaking in oil and spices will go in next. Those little sugar pie pumpkins have a LOT of seeds for their size. I'm saving a few seeds for next year's garden. Tomorrow I think I will go apple picking at the orchard down the road (providing that road is open tomorrow) as my favorite apples are ripe right now. MMMMM. Nothing cheers me up like a fresh picked apple! :)

Have a great Friday all!

Nickie

Chassed In By Rain

Good morning friends!

We are getting a nice hard rain this morning. I kept hearing the thunder in the distance and was enjoying the warm humid morning until the rain chased the hens and I under cover. But that's OK, we need the rain and it will hopefully be enough to make working in the dirt easier this weekend. Clay...hard as a rock clay.....

I got up nice and early this morning ready to get out and get hopping on the garden today. There really isn't a whole lot to do but a bit of puttering around like trimming the mint before it goes to seed, doing a bit of light weeding so I can re-mulch one bed this weekend and chopping up some things for the compost pile--mainly some corn stalks which would take forever and a day to decompose if you don't chop em up into small pieces. You would think that a grass on steroids would seriously heat up the compost like a bag of grass clippings does. It doesn't so I need to throw in some chicken turds this weekend to get it cooking. Part of me cringed at wasting such pretty corn stalks, after all the local shops sell bundles of them for fall decorations near Halloween. But it's not near Halloween yet and I don't want to store them as my space is very limited and even if I were to use them as decoration like last year, i don't expect them to last thanks to the deer who destroyed my fall display last year.

I keep starring at the small pumpkins scattered all throughout the corn patch hoping that with every blink of the eye that they get orangier. I really want to get those ugly vines out of there before all those squash bugs hatch. Some already are hatching. Did you know those suckers bite? I found that out this morning. And speaking of getting ripe, I realized today as I checked out my watermelon that I have no idea how to tell if one is ripe yet!

My finicky and somewhat spoiled rotten hens turned their noses up at cantaloupe slices this morning. But the rabbits didn't. They chowed right down. The buck is a pig. He'll eat anything without hesitation and if I don't measure his feed out everyday he would be too fat. He goes through a lot of feed. I've noticed that rexs are like that. The doe is much more hesitant about eating new things, even though I've fed her new things since she was a baby! She doesn't eat a lot and one dish of food lasts her days if I were to give her the same amount the other eats in a couple of hours time. My co-workers were going to throw out this perfectly good fruit from the office fridge last night....I thought of a much better use for it! I took it home and they shook their heads at me, the office weirdo. At least the hens don't turn up their beaks to elderberries. I have a couple of year old plants that bore some fruit, not enough for me to do anything with so I gave them to the chickens who sure love them. Word of warning though, don't stand too close--those suckers squirt!

This weekend I think i will do a plant sale, and offer up my kittens for free as well. They will be 7 weeks old and they are going through so much litter and chow. I need to find them homes this weekend! I found a home for one this week Monday, with some co-workers of my husband in the city. The big fuzzy fluffy laid back kitten. I also need to find homes for all the peppermint seedlings, rugosa rose seedlings, and red lily bulbs that are threatening to take over everything so that I won't have to trench them in for the winter. This particular dark red Asiatic lily increases itself like mad and it really needs to be divided and re-homed and since the almanac is predicting a cold hard winter, I doubt things in pots have a chance at survival if I don't bury them deep in the ground.

Other things I will need to do before winter arrives will be to fix up a place in the shed for the rabbits and chickens. last year I had one rabbit and she stayed inside the house until spring. That isn't going to work now that we have Brandi, who likes to kill rabbits--plus, they are very messy! And there is no way the chickens could stay inside either. I'll have to clean and organize the shed to fit them in, and add lights and maybe heat lamps for the really cold days. I could put the lights on a timer in case it snows so bad I can't get out to the shed in a timely manner but if its very cold we usually have very little snow so that shouldn't be so much of a problem. Snow likes to drift 4 feet high or more sometimes in front of the shed door! I also need to get some kind of protective tree wrap for my young trees or chicken wire to put around them, whatever is cheaper. The chicken wire helps my hawthorn and other small seedlings keep from getting chowed down, so it should work for tree trunks and blueberry bushes. I need to get a supply of hay or straw for animal bedding during the winter and for mulching more tender things like the cranberry, and some burlap for my not-as-hardy-as-it-was-advertised rose bush which luckily came back from the ground after last winter. Thats enough typing for now.

Hope all is well,

Nickie

Invasion of the Blackbirds

Good Morning Friends,

I hope the new day is bringing you joy. When I woke up this morning and the first thing I noticed out the window was that the female blackbirds were everywhere outside. They coated my lawn, my trees, my corn plants, the power line and anything else they could perch on. I think my home must be marked on bird maps as a resting place because I get all kinds of flocks stop by from geese, to finches, and I've even had herons and ducks show up.

The blackbirds are getting ready to fly south. The females always go together, flocking for the journey. Then the males. It's the males who come back first in the spring. Seeing them puts me in the joyous mood of fall, where nature and harvests are celebrated but it also reminds me that summer is coming to a close and soon after that, barren garden and icy weather for months.

I went outside to enjoy the cool morning while it lasted, to finish 'weeding' my garden and then I weeded the real weeds in my elderly neighbors yard. I use those weeds to give my rabbits and chickens something fun to do. I layer the weeds thick in the bottom of their cages. Much better then sending it to the landfill as I am not about to stick crab grass into my compost. I have enough problems with it thank you very much. The critters will eat it, seeds and all and turn it into some great manure for the compost.

The pumpkin vines are looking terrible now all except for the new growth. Seemingly over night the invasion of the powder arrived. Powdery mildew is pretty much a given in this climate but this has been a pretty dry year and so i haven't had a problem with it on anything else. The pumpkins are just about done anyway, as is the corn. I will be cutting back vines this weekend to encourage the pumpkins to start ripening. If I get the corn out soon enough I can plant a quick cover crop of buckwheat. That spot really needs something. Its clay. I'm surprised my corn and pumpkins did so well there without any amending. I love fresh from the garden corn, but I'm debating on whether or not to grow any next year. In the same space I could probably grow a lot more food and I have neighboring farms who grow plenty of corn. I'm also debating on changing my big flower bed that is along the side of my patio over to veggies, exclusively and moving flowers over to the front as the people here give me a hard time about growing vegetables in the front. *sigh* I might do it anyway but not because of them, It would give me more space for things like greens and herbs. and I would have to buy less seeds for flowers.

I went to see if I had any blueberries left, so that I could throw some on my oatmeal. I didn't find any but I noticed that I have cranberries. 6 of them. At least I have an even number! I only planted one sprawling little plant and didn't expect anything to come of it this year but it did bloom and now I have berries. I'm hoping it spreads and fills in around my blueberry bushes which also didn't grow much this year thanks to deer and rabbits eating them down during the winter. I'll have to protect them this year.

I told myself that in order to focus on the future, I had to stop living like I'm going to be here forever, which means buying no more fruit trees! But then yesterday, the very day after I told myself that, the Stark Brother's catalogue arrived in the mail box with pictures of luscious peaches, apples, plums and cherries, with a promise of 20% off on the trees if I were to order before October no less. Its cruel. Just plain cruel.

I also got an invitation to the Midwest Hound Dog Hoot-N-Nanny and fall faire parade in the mail.. Its a get together and donation drive for those who adopted and who volunteer with Robdar's Houndsong Hound Dog Rescue, whom we'd adopted our dog, Brandi from. We would of loved to go, and I know Brandi would of also. She would be able to play with other dogs like her. Because she is big and strong and barks a lot, a lot of dogs are intimidated by her around here, all except for one Australian Shepherd dog, who adores her down the street, she really doesn't get to socialize much with other dogs. But she has a hoot with other hounds! Unfortunately, the day of the gathering, I have to work--and since I don't have to work most weekends, it would be unfair to my co-workers to ask for it off instead of taking my turn. Maybe next year we can participate. :)

Well I think that is more then enough typing for now. I have other chores to do.

Have a great day!

Nickie