Mountain Musings

It Takes a...Family!

Yes, we're still here at the old homestead...and here's how we spent our Memorial Day earlier this week...lots of hard work in the garden!

Hannah tilled the paths because they were so uneven before we put down black material for the walkways to help keep weeds down: Tom rented a two-man auger to help dig the post holes around the garden on the remaining sides, and Sarah was a big help to them getting the posts ready. All of these purple iris plants below had to be dug up because they were in the main path of the new fence. So now I have to find new homes for them: And there are three more 5-gallon buckets full of them! I will be busy for days! Everyone wanted me to throw them all away, but how can I throw away flowers? Especially these...they're from our friend Evelyn when she visited us six years ago: The guys worked very hard to get those holes right: And while they worked, I shoveled topsoil into the raised bed which will become one of five strawberry beds: And even Granny got in on the action! She works on her baskets in the garden shed and watches us working in the garden at the same time. And when she gets tired she heads back to the house: There she goes at almost 86 years old. She loves driving that tractor!So...it just takes a family working together as a team to get things done!

What a very productive Memorial Day we had, although there's still much work left to do!

More later...

~Deb

The Poppies Blow

In Flanders Fields
In Flanders fields the poppies blow; Between the crosses, row on row.
That mark our place; and in the sky; The larks, still bravely singing, fly.
Scarce heard amid the guns below; We are the dead. Short days ago.
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow; Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe: To you from failing hands we throw.
The torch; be yours to hold it high; If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

~by John McCrae

Happy Memorial Day!

Pocketbook Straps, Cloth Napkins, & Garden Work

So, when you go to a yard sale or flea market, what do you have your sights set on?

Granny looks for pocketbooks with leather straps for the purpose of using them as basket handles! Who would have thought of that?!

Here's Granny holding a brand name little girl's leather purse she found at Goodwill for 99 cents. It seemed too nice to cut those handles! You can see the wall basket she's working on in the photo above, and it's gotten to the point of weaving in a pocketbook strap. Time to disassemble that purse!

Here it is all finished and ready to be dipped in walnut stain--a delightful little basket to hang on your wall: And this basket below Granny made awhile back using an old red belt of mine that I wore back in the 70s! Somehow I didn't mind her cutting up a belt when it no longer fits!

Granny, ever the salesperson, was going to sell this basket! How could I let it go with so many memories behind that red belt? I love this basket and keep it sitting on my windowsill that looks out over the garden. You can see the raindrops...which is why I'm inside today!Granny also finished a custom order this week for a tall trash basket for a long-distance friend. She's been busy:Lately, I've been looking for cloth napkins to build a good supply so just maybe we could eliminate purchasing paper napkins.

Granny and I went to a Saturday morning yard sale a couple of weeks ago, and I found a batch of 8 yellow napkins and 12 white ones...all for $1! What a great deal!

I mentioned to Granny that I'd love for her to make me a napkin basket long enough to accommodate the cloth napkins we've collected.

She quickly whipped one up for me, and here it is drying in the sun on the garden fence: I love the blue and red colored strips she wove into it, and now this basket is full of napkins on our kitchen counter. If you would like Granny to make you a cloth napkin basket, you can custom order one here. Speaking of garden fence...Hannah and I have been quite busy lately in the garden; and as Sarah mentioned earlier in her post, outside garden work = no time to blog!

Tom built some new raised beds for us, so we've been doing some major weeding and filling the beds with a huge load of topsoil that was delivered last week!

Hannah measured and cut the black garden material, and this week we're right in the middle of laying down the new pathways: Below is a "before" picture of our lower garden (not the picket fence garden) in the process of being weeded...all those strawberry plants will be transplanted into the newly built beds once we get them filled with new dirt. (In this photo these new boxes were just placed over the existing strawberry patch.) The old warped fence will also be torn down, and Tom is building a new one. So much work still to do! But it's coming together one day at a time. We have tomato plants waiting to be planted, and 25 new asparagus plants just arrived in the mail. Those raised beds will be the first to get dirt. Hopefully, I can show you an "after" picture before long!

Happy Gardening Season!

~Deb

Mother's Day 2014

Happy day-after-Mother's-Day, everybody! I hope you all had a great day with your family. :)
We had a full day, starting off with Dad's traditional breakfast in bed for both Mom and Granny. He normally makes French toast and went a little fancier this year with STUFFED French toast. Yum - he made some extra pieces for me and Hannah too!

We had a nice time fellowshipping with our church, and then had a relaxing afternoon enjoying the beautiful weather out on our deck. Ain't my Momma purty?!

We usually take a more official Mother's Day picture with all of us together in our church clothes, but we didn't get one taken this year.

Hannah and I headed inside to work on supper - one of Mom's favorites, sweet and sour chicken. It's a little bit more involved, but it's really worth it!

After finishing up our Mother's Day meal, we all piled in the car and headed over to Jonathan's property. He's been over there clearing brush and trees after work a lot, but there's still much more to go. Last night he and Dad were planning on doing a preliminary staking of where he wants his house.

Granny was happy to come along and watch all the activity! I watched for a little bit, then decided to get out the push mower and clear some of the lush and verdant weeds that are growing like crazy everywhere.

For quite awhile, Dad and Jonathan were digging trying to find exactly where the existing septic field is but finally decided to leave the rest of that job for later. Out came the measuring tape and stakes, and they marked approximate corners of the future Girotti homestead. :)

We headed home after a fun and busy day!

This week holds more outdoor work around our own yard, as Mom has both new mulch to put on the flower beds AND new dirt to fill the raised garden beds that Dad made. She's been outside a lot lately, as you can tell from the lack of blog posts around here. :)

What's been up in your neck of the woods?

~Sarah