Tips for the garden.

 This garden idea came from Kathy.She has a great blog called Moving on to the past. If your not following it. It's worth checking into. All this project  needs is 6 feet tall post and fishing line. The amount of post depends on how much ground you want to cover. Set your poles where you want them. Then string the line around the poles. One near the top of the post and one near the bottom.  The deer can't see the line when they hit it, so it confuses them and scares them off.
I found out first hand this works. We had 3 deer in our yard and it did spook them. So far the deer have stayed out of the front garden. My neighbor wasn't so lucky. They eat all her roses.

 This one came from Heidi ( my Simple Country living ) We were fighting ants. LOTS OF ANTS . We would put dyatamasus earth down.  Yes I know it is spelled wrong. But I warned you a long time ago I couldn't spell .( Isn't  it fun guessing what the crazy lady is writting) The ants would just move to a new home in our yard. Heidi had us mix  the misspelled word with powder sugar. The ants would eat it .They would also take it to their Queen. So you end up killing the whole mound.

This one was my own idea. I always have problems telling the different between my watermelon and weeds. I have pulled up more then one watermelon thinking it's a weed. Now I know right where they are at. These are lids from my canning jars. After they get so big, I will remove the lids. Weeds watch out! I know who you are!  Well that it. All my so called great wisdom.  Have a great week everyone.


 I messed up the ant tip. It is Borax and powder sugar mixed together. This is why you should  reread your comments before posting them. 

We have a winner !

  I want to thank  everyone that entered this giveaway. You make blogging so much fun.

 Teresa from the A happy Okie blog is our winner.  Congratulations! I hope you enjoy the book. Again, thank you everyone for playing.

Make the world stop. I want off !

I have had. I want the world to go a way. Just for a day or two. Let me have some time without my head wanting to explode. It started out innocent enough. Just a few little things.  The hose broke and  we had to build a fence to keep the deer out. I can handle this no problem. The deer are out of my front garden. That's wonderful right? WRONG! Since they couldn't get into my garden, they ate most of the fruit and leaves off my peach tree. But wait it gets better. I walk out to my garden to enjoy my plants and I noticed my cucumbers are losing their color. That the green is just fading away. These are not the things I wanted to come home to after a bad day at work. Have you ever hear the saying "1 step forward 2 steps back." Well somebody better revise that to 1 step forward and 10 back. Who ever came up with that saying never really had a BAD Day.

Finally, I am done with my busy day. I sit down at the dinning table with my laptop. I have a relaxing evening planed of getting to know the girls in the homestead group I had just joined. Heidi had told me how to bring the group's board up. I did as she said, only to be sent to every web search that was ever invented. I would go to one then it would send me to another. One very big viscous circle. I just wanted to throw the thing through the door. But my husband was sitting right there and he might of got a little upset.
(I interrupted this post due to Heidi calling me back from earlier call) 

Poor Heidi. She always has to fix my mess. I started asking a LOT of questions. Which did no good because she really needed the computer in front of her to do anything. She said she would be right over. I made a pot of coffee. If I have taken her out of her house at 8pm. I should at least  have coffee. I knew I  probably frustrated her, especially since I mess up a lot on my computer. And she has to bail me out. It turned into one big mess for her too. For one thing they had me get a goggle e-mail account I didn't need. Then they did the same thing to Heidi that they did to me. She also got locked into that viscous circle. Yay, for once it wasn't my fault. Any way to make a long story short it took the poor woman almost an hour to fix it. Heidi  saved my computer from being scrap metal. 
Now I will say good night to all before any thing else can go wrong.

YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!

I just found out this didn't post last night.
They say that bad days follow from one person to the next so if you end up having a bad day today, I'm apologizing in advance.


 

Sprucing up the front yard

 We spruced  the front yard this week. These flowers came back from last year. I can't wait for it to full in completely . They add a nice touch to our wagon wheel. 

 Rick picked these out during one of his trips to Home Depot. It's his candy store.

This was just the right touch for the front porch. Since taking this picture I added a few more flowers and a cast iron cat painted white. Every porch needs a cat.( at least in my world)

Self-Sufficient DIY book giveaway

Hey everyone it's time for  another giveaway. This time I am giving away a  DIY book. It has a lot of great ideas from green houses to cold frames. Several raised beds pattern  to choose from. If you have chickens, it has plans for that too. It covers so many different things.  Just leave a comment for a chance to win.

The bees were busy

My best friend Heidi ( http://mysimplecountryliving.blogspot.com ) has bee hives. She started out with two, but now has 4. Her hives are growing really quickly. Yesterday she had a swarm.Which means she has new queens. So she had to start a new hive. I am not use how it works.Heidi will be posting the whole process on her site. It's well worth checking out. A lot of great pictures.

The honeycomb you see on the plate came from one of her hives. The dark you see is honey. I am planning to make a small candle out of the wax, The honey inside will give it a nice smell.  I did get a nice little surprise. Heidi had put it in a plastic bag.So when I went to get it out I got honey on my fingers. The heat in the bag must of melted the honey in the comb. My fingers never tasted better. I can't wait to get a whole jar. Biscuits,pancakes,and waffles smothered in honey YUM. I need to quit  day dreaming. I am making my self really hungry.

sleeping kitty

                                                      So much for using the laptop.

Finally got my soap

 I went back thru my post. Looking for the date I first posted about not getting my soap.That was May 10. That was also the day my husband called them for the third time.( he also e-mailed them twice.) He told them that I had a homesteaders blog and would be posting about not receiving my soap. And since most of their business came from homesteaders. They might want to think about sending my soap. My order was mailed out the next day. I am just glad I got them.

My little Fan Dancer

 I was showing my friend Christina my blog, along with the sites I followed. We came across this pillow case on Willow Homestead site. Christina fell in love with it.So I had my daughter draw me a picture of the fan dancer.  I really enjoyed stitching it for Christina. It does have a little surprise.

Butterscotch Oatmeal Cookies

1 cup butter' softened                                                      1/3 cup buttermilk
6 tablespoon butter-flavored shortening                             2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1-2/3 cups packed brown sugar                                        3 cups quick-cooking oats
2/3 cup sugar                                                                   2- 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour
3 eggs                                                                              1- 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1- 1/4 teaspoon salt.                                                           3/4 cup butterscotch chips
                                                                                        1/2 cup pecans

In a very large bowl, cream the butter, shortening and sugars until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in buttermilk and vanilla.

Combine the oats, flour, baking soda and salt; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Stir in the chips and pecans.

Drop by rounded tablespoons 3 in. apart onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for 10-20 minutes or until golden brown. Remove to wire racks.                                                            
 It makes a big batch, so I  cook half then freeze the other half for a later time.
This recipe comes from Taste of Home Cookie book. My family rated these as one of their favorites.

WARNING Please Read this post !

 I wanted to make a batch of homemade Dish soap that I saw made on you tube. You needed Octagon Soap to make it. So I ordered it from the web site ( www. Soap gone buy.com.) That was on April 15. We still have not received it. We called the number on their web site. There was a message that a Tornado had gone thru but they were back in business and all orders would be going out Fri. The picture on the site was dated Feb 12. Our order was sent in well after that. My husband e-mailed them twice and never received a reply. I called their number and left a message. I got no reply back. A week later I tried calling them again. This time I tried both numbers that were on their site .The message on the phone was the same. Only this time both of the mail boxes were full.  They received their money with in a few days of our order. With no reply's or soap in site.I feel we have been taken. It is up to you if you wish to try this site. Personally I would not recommend them. If we do receive our soap I will let you know. Unfortunately that's a long shot. Please let your blogger friends know, so they don't make the same mistake we did.

Visiting my babies

Went to see my babies at their second mothers house. Heidi is letting my babies grow up with her chicks. I didn't have the room for them. I also have animals that would love them as a afternoon snack. They will return home after they are big enough to add to my coop with my girls. But for now they are very happy being spoiled by Heidi. If you ever need a chicken sitter , she's your girl.

 This is my Blondie. She is so sweet. She likes to be held.

This is my daughter's Brownie. She hates having her picture taken as you can see.

 This is Queenie ( Heidi's favorite.) He is very friendly. I really enjoyed petting him while he set on my lap. I thought of taking him home. But Heidi would of got her gun out and hunted me down.

I can't believe you would think that I would mess with the chicks! I am so hurt.

Tiff did great while we were gone.

 We had to do a emergency trip back to Idaho. My husbands mother ended up in the hospital. She was told she could no longer live on your own. We had a little over a week to get her in assisted living and moved out of her apartment. We were lucky a new assisted living complex had just opened up and had a bed for her. It took us the whole week to pack her up. But we got it done. She is doing great  at her new place.

  Other then his mother I was worried about my plants and chickens. My daughter was kind enough to offer to take care of everything here.Last time she missed a few plants and they died. As you can see from the pictures she did a great job.

 The first picture is of my lettuces.Next pic is my cabbage and peas. the one above is my strawberries.

 These are my onions. I still have plastic over some of my plants due to the cold nights.

 Garlic is doing great.

 These are my zucchini. They are just coming up. I still need to put my cucumber in the middle,but it's still to cold.

 I can't believe how fast my carrots grow why I was gone. I plan on thinning them out tomorrow.

 If you read my earlier post you know I am trying to grow potatoes in a trash can. They are doing really great. Tomorrow will be the second time I have to add soil to the can. About once a week they are ready for more soil.

 This is so cool if it works. I was watching Alton Brown on herb storage. He mentioned that deer hate thyme. They wouldn't go near it or around anything it is near. We tiled a space for the three sisters (corn,green beans, and punkins ). I placed thyme all the way around. Hopefully it works.

 We did have a problem when we came back. Miss Priss was picking on one of the new chickens. She was pulling out her feathers. She now has a new home!

Almost forgot the picture of my bush beans. I am just so happy everything lived and did so well. Yes I am bragging on my daughter ,but she did a great job while we were gone.