digging for buried treasure

When I was a little girl my dad encouraged us believe that you can find treasure if you just look hard enough.  In fact he would regularly search in the basement of the farm house my older sisters and I were raised in.  It was a old house, built stone by stone by an old German guy for his family.  Dad was convinced if he looked hard enough he would be rewarded with a huge treasure.  Apparently he dug up the entire dirt floor of the basement piece by piece over the years we lived there.  He even pulled looser stones out of the walls thinking there was something hidden there.  When we moved to "town" his quest didn't stop there.  He was sure that his father had hidden money at the family farm (in his defense Grandpa and Grandpa did hide and bury money in crazy places).  I remember him searching in the basement, barns, chicken coop, everywhere.  I don't think he ever found anything. 
Phil came up with a brilliant idea recently.  I love arbors and arches.  He said we were going to bend a cattle panel and anchor it with fence posts so I could grow climbing crops on it, and they would fall down into the arch.  We did one the other night and it looks great.  Phil said we would do another one this evening.  We took everything down to the garden and got the first post into the ground.  We started putting the second post in and it would not go.  We both tried pounding and nothing happened.  I suggested it might be buried treasure and we should try to dig it up.  Phil, being patient and as usual letting me do as I please started digging.  We had no idea what we were after.  It was hard, and seemed to cover an area at least 3 feet square and down about 8 or 10 inches.  Then we found something else .... this thing was round.  It seemed to be 18 - 24" around.  Phil thought it might be a barrel (it was about the right size).  What in the world had we stumbled across? 
The next shovel, he was able to pry it up a little ........ and found a tire.  1/2 of it was rotted away.  Crud ....... well we still dont' know what the other thing is.  I reached in and pulled at it.  It seemed to be a tarp like thing.  Then we found part of a blanket.  Oh man ....... WHAT have we found.  I know I have watched way to many mystery shows so I had horrible visions of what might be wrapped up in that tarp.  What we found was just a nasty old tarp.  We have no idea why it was there ...... or how long it was there.  Thankfully it is out of my garden now. 
I still believe in buried treasure.  Most of my treasures are potatoes, carrots, worms crawling through my garden and watching God work daily in my gardens.  Treasure is in the eye of the beholder.  I thank Dad for giving me the ability to search for treasure.  I thank both Dad and Mom for giving me the knowledge to be able to grow such wonderful fruits and vegetables. 
Isn't it fun to live in such a wonderful, fun world?

Weekend Follies

My oldest grandson is a wonderful young man.  He is smart, good looking, and normally very sweet.  Sometimes his brain is so masculine he forgets to use it.  He was helping me clean wood in the yard this afternoon and decided to "flip" the rake with his foot.  I saw it coming, but could not get any words out fast enough.  He smacked himself in the head with the handle of the rake.  Poor kid, it really HURT and he got a nasty goose egg on his head.  Hopefully now he understands why I tell him not to leave tools laying around, and why NOT to step on them. 
The weather is still darn cold and wet.  I don't know if I am ever going to get my garden planted.  I hope this week warms up and it quits raining. 
The kittens are growing so quickly.  They are still staying in the "nest" all the time, but I think they will be venturing out very soon.

Spring is here

It’s Monday, and my body hurts again. Living out here is sometimes pretty tough. I’ve already talked about moving the shed on Saturday. Sunday I moved some bales of hay. Normally that would not be a big deal, but the has been sitting outside all winter and spring so they were soaked with water and were about three times heavier than normal. I planted potatoes so had to dig up the area they were planted (that area is not as soft and fertile as the rest of the garden). I planted tomatoes (maybe not a smart idea it looks like it may frost this week) and got them caged. Next weekend I hope to plant the tomatoes and peppers I started from seed. The garden is finally starting to look like a garden again. I love this time of year …….. it is beautiful to watch Mother Nature bring the world to life again.


The bees never seem to go smoothly …….. this year one of the hives seems to be growing very well, the other not so good. I installed the queen, but she either died or was a virgin and never laid eggs. Without a queen a colony of bees is doomed. I took a few frames of brood (eggs and larvae) out of the laying colony and installed them into the queenless colony. Yesterday when I went out to check I was amazed. The queenless colony has taken one of the eggs and fed her royal jelly. The cell is two to three times as big as the normal cell. It takes longer for a queen to develop so she will not be ready for about 2 more weeks. Even after she hatches she will need some time to mate then come back to the hive to lay eggs. Fortunately I will still be able to swap more eggs with the good hive so they don’t fall to far behind. It was my most amazing time in the hive to date. I saw the queen cell, drone cells and for the first time I saw the queen (in the other hive) laying eggs. Phil says this is my “hobby” I don’t see it that way. I have chosen to assist bees to live on our property. They in return will pollinate our garden and trees and give us the best honey I have ever tasted. If I play this right, in a few years my apiary will grow and I will be able to sell honey (and other by products) to help Pooh Acres become more self sufficient. My dream is to somehow make this property pay for itself …. this is just one of the ways to make that come true.

Grandma got run over ........... by Grandpa

We bought an outbuilding and decided to use it as our new chicken coop.  Then we found another building that will work better for the chicken coop, so we need to move the first one.  We decided we had to get it done this weekend since the new coop will be here on Wednesday.  We jacked up the shed and put it on "skids" trying to move it.  We spend the entire day moving this shed, and didn't get it where we wanted to, but at least it is moved enough to get the new shed where we want it.  During the process of moving, stopped, putting the boards in, repeat repeat repeat I was guiding Phil so he could back in and hook up to the shed.  I am not certain what happened, but he hit the gas and backed up REALLY FAST toward me.  Horrible thoughts flashed through my head about this guy I heard about who was squished to death between to train cars.  I thought that was going to be me (except I would have been squished between the truck and a shed.  I think Phil was almost as frightened as I was.  (He said he could never have faced the grandkids!!)
I didn't get to go to garage sales today ....... living out here we tend to give up a lot of the weekend fun stuff ... I had wanted to go into Bellevue because Delana's neighborhood is having sales.  We popped over there last evening to see the kids, and we were able to prevue their garage sale.  The kids were selling cookies and lemonaid so Grandpa and I bought some of the cookies giving the kids a head start on their money making day.  Caelum even had a sales pitch planned out for his customers.  I am excited to find out how the sale went.  I hope they made a ton of money!
Our kittens are growing so quickly.  Clyde is such a good mommie.  I was amazed today to realize they really are getting bigger.  Our neighbors were over this evening and they also have kittens, there were born a few days before ours were.  Hopefully I will be able to find homes for all of them.  It seems the stray tom is the dad of both litters.
In February my boss at work was promoted to a new position.  I wasn't sure what I would think of our new boss.  I had met him a few years earlier when he first came to work at Info and I was training him in what our department does.  I am happy to report that I do like my new boss.  He is very down to earth and we both have the same values/goals etc.  He is a hunter.  Thankfully he is a hunter with values, so no road hunting for turkey, no killing frogs and turtles to watch the die.  He hunts only for what he eats.  We have become friends, I have brought him some of the things I have made or grown.  His son loves the things I send home with him and last weekend when he shot a turkey asked his dad if he could give it to me.  What a great kid!  I was so amazed that he would do that for me.  We ate it tonight.  Yummm, it was good.  I am now making broth to can tomorrow.  Dale has promised me more meat if we want it.  How cool that he is able to hunt for almost all the meat his family eats!
Off to bed for me.  It has been a long day.

It's spring ..........new babies

Clyde is almost a year old.  We intended to take her to the vet and get her spayed, I guess we didn't realize how old she was, and she got pregnant before we could get her to the vet.  (Knuckles got to the doctor in time).   Before we knew it she was pregnant ... and we were to late.  The doctor said he could still spay her and abort the babies ... but I didn't want to do that.  So today was THE day.  When I left for work Knuckles was jumping up at the front window but I didn't think anything about it ..... she does weird stuff all the time.  When I left for work I asked Phil to give the yolks from my hard boiled eggs to Clyde because I thought she needed some extra calories and protein due to being SO pregnant.  When he went out to give her the yolks he found a baby!  Clyde gave birth in the "cat house" we put on the front porch last fall to keep them warm and dry.  It is a very small dog house with a "flap" over the front to keep the wind out.  We filled it with straw to keep them warm over the winter.  Apparently she likes it since that was the birthing place.  He picked up the house and moved it into the garage .... she didn't seem to mind.  She stayed tight and gave birth to two more babies. I was sure she would have more than 3 .... I was betting on 6. 
I got home around 5 PM ... and Clyde was safe and snug in her garage bed.  She is being a very good Mom and taking care of her babies.  She let me pick them all up, but watched me very carefully!

Quirks??? Me? I don't think so

We all have our Quirks and things that bug us. Apparently one of mine is thistles. When we first moved out here 3 years ago I found tons of thistles growing in the neighbors field, and HORROR or all horrors on our property. I started spraying and chopping them out in the summer of 2007. In fact one of my “smile” memories is of my sister Betty and I walking around talking and spraying all the darn thistles. Over the past two summers I have put the grandkids to work for me. They walk over the yard to look for thistles and when they find one will yell for me to come get it. It has become a game for us. They want to be big enough to get them too, so this year we cut off an old broken hoe to fit the girls and they will be able to chop at them too.


Friday evening as the kids were leaving I spotted a huge thistle behind Molly’s house close to the back door! I was horrified to see this monster thistle living so close to the door I walk in and out of at least 15 times a day. Phil laughed and said he wondered how long it was going to take me to see it (it was hidden by the dog house and a tree). I wanted to get it out of there right then, but Phil said it was to late, just wait until morning. Saturday morning everything was still wet from the storm of the night before. I had let the dogs out to potty and spotted my trusty hoe leaned against the cupboard on the back deck so I snuck outside to kill the wretched thistle. Phil caught me by looking out the dining room window. He was inside laughing so hard, and said he was surprised I didn’t get up in the middle of the night to kill it.

This weekend was rainy and nasty outside. Saturday we spent running around getting chores done (I found 7 morale mushrooms during one of those chores) and the day was gone when we finally got home. Yesterday morning it was cold out but I really needed to get outside. In the drizzle I walked all over the property and chopped thistles. Whew, that felt good. It is always no nice to have a job well done. I sure wish Betty would come back and help me eradicate these dumb things!

Happy Birthday Phil

Phils birthday is today.  He is 55 today ..... Whew I am happy that I am younger than him again. 

He is still so excited for birthdays.  Every time I talked to him on the phone he was singing "Happy birthday to me"  He has been asking for a carrot cake for quite a while so I tried to fool him into believing a forgot the cake .... he didn't even notice! 

Delana, Rick and the kids came for dinner.  The kids were so excited to give Grandpa his presents.  When we FINALLY finished eating and the cake came out they went crazy!  Open mine, NO open mine first  No me!!  He worked him way through the amazing gifts silly puddy, a duck bill whistle, slappy hands, slimy sludge, silly string, small cars and toy guns.  Any kids dream!  He got a great party hat, and noise makers.   Caelum made him a wonderful card (Caelum, Ruby and Olivia are wonderful card makers!) 

We all had a very nice evening.  It was nice to have Rick and Delana out here.  I wish the weather would have been nicer .... the kids really wanted to run and play outside.  As Caelum says .... April showers bring May flowers...............