Old Age & Day Lilies

I'm 58 years old and finally reached a time in my life where I can stay home & garden & pursue other interests. But all of a sudden I have been struck with a terrible and painful diagnosis of arthritis in my knees. The left one is much worse to the point of dragging my leg to keep from bending it. Been to the doctor....several times... and have been trying every natural remedy I can find on the internet. What a damper this has put on my plans. I once told my son, "Life sucks and then you die, but along the way you will encounter some wonderful, beautiful experiences that make it bearable." Those experiences for me are the bountiful rewards that come from my faith, my son, my grand-daughter, my amazing husband, my family, my close friends, the God given creation that makes me ooooh & ahhhhh and never ceases to surprise me. I am very emotionally sensitive to animals, flowers, sunsets, butterflies & lightning bugs, the quiet cool stillness of the night, the wind & the sea.....you know. So I've slowed down, rest more and make smaller short termed plans. Bummer.

I wish I could have my 20 year old body back. Of course I would also like to have the knowledge at 20 that I have now. I spent a lifetime working in retail, standing on my feet all day and have nothing to show for it but worn out knees. Oh, and I can fold a dozen shirts in a minute, talk on the phone, take money & bag your merchandise all at the same time. I'm good but feel unfulfilled. I think I would have started a day lily farm and a koi business.

This is one of my favorites: Open Hearth

About 20 years ago, an elderly neighbor who was an avid gardener showed me her backyard. It was planted with dozens of day lilies. She would cross breed and create new colors & designs. I received my first day lily from this precious gardening angel. A couple of years ago I ordered several off the internet and was disappointed that it took about 2 years for them to mature enough to bloom. Then I found out there is a day lily farm right here in my area. I have gone bonkers and always wish I had $100.00 to spend every time I visit. Crenshaw Day lily Farm in Bay Minette, Alabama is owned and ran by Dianne Crenshaw. Dianne is the greatest and the sweetest and will make you feel right at home. The farm also has an antique store so be ready to spend 1/2 a day there.Take a look at their Facebook sight:  https://www.facebook.com/CrenshawFarmsDaylilyGarden

Me and Dianne. I took her a couple of my day lilies so she can use them to cross breed. She has made some beautiful lilies that she plans to register.

I purchased 4 unregistered lilies and named one of them after my grand-daughter.

My 5 year old grand-daughter loves flowers and gardening and know the names of many of them. When she came to visit this past Sunday she spotted the day lily I named after her. "Oh Lovey, this one is beautiful!" It is an almost white day lily that I've named Heavenly Lakelynn.

I also named one after my husband, my son and my step grandson.

I want a bright pink lily so I am looking and trying to decide from the dozens that are available. I have a gorgeous very dark lily named Ed Murray.

My garden is blooming and I have seen a few bees but the butterflies are no where to be found. This alarms me. Last year I had numerous butterflies of all colors and sizes.

My hydrangea, Flamingo flower and glads are also blooming.

Oh, and someday soon I WILL have a Koi pond!!!!

Ahhhhhh....perfect.

Squirrels.....baby squirrels

One of our wonderful southern thunder storms was rolling in from the West with winds gusting up to 50 mph. I ran outside to catch and secure things being blown across the yard, my Catahoula "Belle" was at my heels enjoying the excitement of it all. Standing underneath one of the large oaks in the front yard I heard a familiar squeaking and quickly scanned the ground underneath the tree. Belle had her nose to the ground frozen in place and I knew she had found a baby squirrel. Actually, she had found 4 babies just blown from their nest. They had fur but their eyes were not yet open. I searched the tree for the nest but it had been completely destroyed by the wind. I scooped up the 4 babies and took them in the house to show George. Belle was fascinated with the tiny critters and watched everything I did. Buckets of rain began to pour down outside and suddenly George and I realized Belle was not in the house. Belle is a spoiled house dog who considers it beneath her to be in the yard in rain or cold. She has a doggie door that she and the other pets use to come and go. We knew she had went back into the yard to hunt for more squirrels!. I opened the front door to call her in and there she lay against the door with another baby squirrel between her paws just waiting for us to open the front door. So now we had 2 boys and 3 girls. We made a trip to the pet store to pick up some puppy replacement milk and a feeding syringe. I had raised squirrels in the past to release back into the wild so I knew the routine.

As the little hungry sweeties grew I had to switch to a small bulb to keep up with their appetites. I kept a large wire cage that was on legs on the front porch and filled it with oak tree limbs and pine limbs. I also provided them with unsalted shelled sunflower seeds, dried corn on the cob and a selection of fruits and veggies. They would jump out of the cage on to my clothes and explore every pocket and opening. Their little white pot bellies were so soft and they would curl up for a nap hidden away in their "forest" inside their cage. Of course as all babies do, they grew, I weaned them and took them out to the swamp in the woods and released them. I think I would have liked being the person at the zoo that raises the baby animals. I seem to have a natural gift for it. I once was brought a baby bird that had just hatched. It had no feathers and it's eyes had not opened. I took it to the pet store and they decided it was a downy woodpecker. I had to buy meal worms, cut their pincher heads off and feed them to "Jonathan" with a pair of tweezers. I also soaked dry dog food in warm water and fed that to him as well. Jonathan grew to be very beautiful and would follow me up to my mom's house, sit in the redbud tree out front and wait for me to walk back down the street to go home. For a while after I released him, I could go out to my back patio and call him and he would show up after a few minutes for a snack. Then one day he stopped coming to visit.

I told God that I think I would much rather live in the garden in heaven with all the animals than in a mansion of gold. And I want to wear purple.

I was lied to....

She really wasn't a mini pot-bellied pig!!! We got Oprah....my husband named her that....when she was a tiny thing. My husband tucked her under his jacket and we took her home. I had read that it is very easy to potty train a pot-belly pig to use a litter box and within two days the darn pig was using its kitty litter box. I kept her confined to the kitchen/dinning area during the day when I was not home because of the tile floor. Taking no chances with any carpeted area!! I even bought her a lease and we took her exploring with us.

All was fine until one day I came home to find all my potted plants turned over and rooted out of their pots. My kitchen floor was covered in black potting soil. It became evident the little girl was wanting to go in the yard! Oprah loved the backyard and spent her days playing with the neighbors boys or laying in the sun just living a pigs life.



 



The average mini pot-belly pig gets to about 35 lbs when full grown but we had a problem here.....she kept growing like a pig exposed to nuclear feed. I had kept to the rule that you do not overfeed and limit the feed to 2 cups a day. My husband said she was crossed with a big hog and not a mini pot-belly. Next time I want to see BOTH the parents!! Oprah was kept in a large pen with an electric wire around the bottom to keep her from rooting out. She was very destructive when it came to my flower garden. She rooted up and bulbs, tubers and small plants. She killed my prize Tibochina bush. Every so often she would find a way out of her pen and it was almost impossible to get her to go back in. She was very smart and knew all the tricks we used....like luring her with Cheetos!! This pot-belly hog was over 200 lbs now. One day I came home to find her in the chicken feed....again....and decided to list this giant on Craig's List. She was beyond my control.





Two teenage boys responded to the ad from a farm south of us. They had a male pig and wanted to use Oprah to breed. I told them fine but she was not to be used as food or to be butchered....she was a pet. They assured me they would treat her good. Those two kids showed up in a pick-up truck and proceeded to catch, hog-tie, and lift her into their truck. I have never laughed so hard in all my life! Oprah was squealing and pooping at the same time. Those boys were covered in pig poop....and their truck by the time all was secured. No charge. Bye Oprah. I still want a real mini pig but George said NO!

Predators

I have always loved critters and visiting zoos is one of my favorite things to do. At one time I considered becoming a vet but knew I could not take seeing suffering animals. I once responded to a job interview at the University of South Alabama where an ad stated they needed someone to care for assorted animals. It was a medical training lab that had animals in all states of experimentation. Some had wires attached to exposed brains. The cat room got to me the most. Cage upon cage of beautiful cats crying out to me, reaching with soft paws through the bars of their prisons pleading with me to rescue them. I was told that some were used for training in surgery and the others would be drained of blood to use to keep the others alive. At that moment I wanted to just bomb the place. I left there crying so hard that I had to sit awhile in my car to stop shaking. Yes, I dissected a cat in high school biology and found it interesting....I even think I could work in pathology with deceased humans but don't leave me with someone or something moaning and suffering. I completely lose it. Poor George, he said God help him if he gets hurt and has to depend on me to stop the blood flow.

So, this is why I have a hard time with the predators killing my chickens. They are not evil mean creatures. They are just hungry. No different from us killing chickens or cows to eat. We have caught many a predator in our live traps and then taken them far away to be released in another wooded area. It's just harder because some of these crazy chickens have such a personality and I have raised them from hatching out of the incubator. Possums and raccoons are the chicken killers and thank God we haven't had killer dogs around....that is with the exception of my Catahoula which has red wolf in her blood line so it's a given. The chicken snakes eat the eggs. Luther and Mrs. Luther occasionally show up and eat some eggs and scare the dickens out of me when I find them in the hen house. But because they eat mice we protect them and tolerate them. George will catch and play with them then put them in the barn.

 

Two possums.....

 



One mean raccoon.......

 



And one spoiled Catahoula Leopard Dog......

 



Hobo is one of the farm cats and brings me mice all the time....he thinks the chickens belong to him and will often follow them around watching over them. He's a super cat!

A day of hatching chicks....so much fun to check the incubator to see what color has hatched!!

Reflections of the Beginning

Beginning a new garden at 57 is much harder than when I was in my mid twenties. The early 1980's found me married to my first husband, living in a cottage house with the perfect backyard for a small garden. I removed every blade of grass in a 14x16 area with a hoe and a shovel. I added compost and fertilizer, hoed up rows and planted an assortment of veggies. My husband was not happy. He much preferred a golf course yard....all grass, no flowers and definitely no garden. Although I received no help from him, he would pick a big juicy tomato to show his friends what he had grown and smile with pride at "his" garden. Digging in the dirt and watching God's handiwork appear always brought me joy. All the hoeing and digging was work but my tired body felt different then compared to now. Back then, it was a good tired. Now it is a cry myself to sleep, what the hell have I done tired. Extreme frustration and even anger is the reaction to the pain I have after doing a minimal amount of gardening. Thank God my dear now husband George, has a tractor and a nice large tiller that he used to prepare my site otherwise I'd probably be dead from it all. I am one of those people who pushes through pain with a determination that I can and will do this. Then I spend a couple of days in terrible pain, depressed and wondering if I'll ever recover. Picking a shiny green bell pepper, smelling its fragrance, seeing the little flowers bloom on my snap bean vines then harvesting the perfect fresh yummy pods are the things that compel me to garden. What will I do when I can no longer garden?

We decided to grow heirloom vegetables so we could begin to save seed for future plantings and to share with others. I planted seed from 6 different varieties of tomato and transplanted the plants into the garden. Multiple peppers both sweet and hot, a couple of eggplant varieties, a roma flat bean, mini Indian popcorn and several herbs. We had a late cold snap and had to replant okra and some peas out in the big field. Several corn varieties were also planted in the big field. I  had the "garden" and George had the "big field". All the tomatoes did terrible as did everyone else's in the area. The weather was very strange with long drought periods then an over abundance of rain that caused havoc. The peppers did amazingly well and George made a lot of delicious pepper jelly. The okra and corn was almost more than we could handle. After selling okra, canning okra and freezing okra I dehydrated some pods and made Christmas ornaments.

 We printed labels for our pepper jelly and we also made corn cob jelly, dill pickles, peach jelly, jalapeños and pickled okra to sell. Of course we also canned corn, peas, beans & okra to add to our pantry. The top seller at market was George's Pepper Jelly and his Pickled Okra. It will be our main focus in the future.

Winter's Rest at the Farm

Yes, It has been waaay too long since I last posted. Blame it on Google's stupid "must add an account" new rule which I finally figured out in order to even find my Blog and sign into it....sheesh. Yes I have multiple accounts with multiple emails & interests and Google only allowed me to access ONE!! Talk about control freaks. Now, ranting complete.

My experimenting with farm life has brought both disappointments and surprises. I gave away dozens of eggs but have only had a couple of steady customers. My chicken population was decimated by predators thus reducing egg production. Eight possums and four raccoons to be exact. Each episode has its story...the night of the three possums is the most memorable and funny now, but 3 am tussles with possums is not funny at the time...especially when they are dragging off chickens who are in the sleep zombie state and you've raised these birds from egg hatching. I think we have cleaned the area of predators for awhile and haven't had an incident for a long time. Er....that is with the exception of our chicken loving Catahoula Leopard dog, Blue Belle, who I have to pen up or have a muzzle on when I let them out to free range.

 I like to let the chickens free range because it makes for happier chickens, harder egg shells, richer eggs, compost in the garden, harmful insect reduction and cuts down on the commercial chicken feed which is outrageous in costs. We acquired a couple of Cochins, a Silkie and a Banty rooster named "Glory" because he is beautiful. I now have 6 roosters....had 7 but we just butchered and cooked one. Too many roosters eat too much feed and give nothing in return. My "Big Boy" rooster is all I need to watch my girls and give me eggs for the incubator. He is a rare rooster in that he is very docile and has never threatened me or the grandbabies. He's a real keeper.