It is January 8th and temps for this weekend have been in the 70's yesterday and 60's today. A large part of me has thoroughly enjoyed it. I love being outdoors in short sleeves and flip flops and being able to hear the crickets and the tree frogs chirping. Days like these give me so much energy!
On Saturday I got the big field plowed and the corn field plowed again. It is going to take a couple of more trips over that one before it is broken up enough for the corn stalks to be able to compost down by spring. Plus I think Jeffrey needs to lower the disc a little more on the tractor. I just couldn't seem to get it low enough to break up the grass in the sled row. Other than being irritated with that aspect of plowing, tractor time is zen time for me. My mind can wonder and can plan on what needs to be planted when and where. I love feeling the warm air on my face and having to squint to keep the sun out of my eyes. And the smell of a freshly plowed field is one of the sweetest smells on earth.
The big field I plowed is one where I had hoped that one day we would build the big farm house of my dreams. But our little home is sufficient for what we need. Plus if we ever decide to build that farm house I'd much rather have here in the pine thicket where our home is now. But in my hopes for the fields future we started planting trees and bushes in relationship to where our house would be. Since the change in location of the possible future home we decided to move the trees and bushes so that we could plow the entire field instead of dodging all of them and having a sporadic mess out there.
So today we spent the latter part of the afternoon digging up these trees and bushes and replanting them. I can't wait til spring when all of them will be blooming. There were 2 lilac bushes in the field that we transplanted outside of our bedroom window so that when I was raise the windows I can have that sweet smell wafting through the house. Jeffrey had a flowering almond bush that we transplanted behind our house sign at the fork in the driveway. I thought it might just be something to put a smile on his face when he comes home in the evenings if he can see his favorite bush in bloom.
About 4 years ago we planted flowering pink cherry tree seedlings down our driveway. Our goal was to have a driveway that was canopied by trees. Jeffrey got these seedlings from NCSU while he was a student there finishing his grad degree. He got on his hands and knees and plucked these little seedlings from the ground and lovingly wrapped them in a wet paper towel to bring home. People were looking at him like he was crazy-haha. In all he brought home about 40 little sprouts that we potted and cared for. Out of those 40 only 6 survived but that was enough for the driveway. Today number 7 was added to the line up. We had planted one in the field and didn't even realize we had-we had forgotten about it.
During the summer the evening sun directly hits the middle of the back side of the house. This is especially tough because that's just where my kitchen is-so summer meals are most often cold sandwiches or something from the grill. But since we were trying to find homes for the field trees I thought one would be perfect to fill in the gap between the pines that let so much sun in. Jeffrey planted one of the red bud trees in the 'hole'. This is the perfect tree for that spot. It will be full and gorgeous during the spring and summer and in the winter it will lose its leaves so that we can get that sun light to help heat up the house.
One of the other trees was a pear tree and we were at a complete loss where to put this one. It had grown quite large and required the tractor to dig up. Then it seemed like a light bulb went off inside of Jeff's head and he wanted to know where it was the sun through at in the morning that would blind us in the living room. It was like-Yea that's it-this will fix that. In the span of about 20 minutes in the morning we both have to shift from leaning one way in our spots in the living room to leaning the opposite way because of this blinding light that we just can't seem to get away from. I think out of all the trees we replanted that is the one that I am hoping survives the transplant more than the others. If it does, our mornings will be so much more pleasurable. We will probably still do the leaning thing just out of habit.
We also gave 2 trees to my sister in law who lives next door. She has not done any landscaping since moving in so we helped her out. It helped us out too since we didn't have anywhere else for what will be 2 very large trees. One was a Maple tree and the other a Hawthorne. We planted them in spots that would provide her with some morning shade and some afternoon shade too. I just hope they keep them watered and they survive. A lot of work went into today's project and I'd hate to see all of that hard work wasted.
That was our big project this weekend. One of the smaller projects was to till up some beds in the greenhouse that just were not produce what they should be. So we got that done and re-seeded with some experimental items like strawberry spinach, purslane, purple orach, and italiko rosso. I can't wait to see all of these little pieces of green poking through. I love seeing that. I feel like they are my babies-I know that sounds crazy but it's kind of like a proud mom seeing her child walk for the first time when I see those little seeds show their first sprouts. The one thing I am really anxious to see is the strawberry spinach. I have such high hopes for this. I am hoping it will help with our winter greens sales and that it takes off and everyone wants it. To my knowledge no one else is growing it here. It is typically a European green and our weather conditions are close enough to its requirements that it should do well here. I already have 2 restaurants that are anxiously waiting on harvest time. For me I am just anxious to see those first little green sprouts.
On Saturday I got the big field plowed and the corn field plowed again. It is going to take a couple of more trips over that one before it is broken up enough for the corn stalks to be able to compost down by spring. Plus I think Jeffrey needs to lower the disc a little more on the tractor. I just couldn't seem to get it low enough to break up the grass in the sled row. Other than being irritated with that aspect of plowing, tractor time is zen time for me. My mind can wonder and can plan on what needs to be planted when and where. I love feeling the warm air on my face and having to squint to keep the sun out of my eyes. And the smell of a freshly plowed field is one of the sweetest smells on earth.
The big field I plowed is one where I had hoped that one day we would build the big farm house of my dreams. But our little home is sufficient for what we need. Plus if we ever decide to build that farm house I'd much rather have here in the pine thicket where our home is now. But in my hopes for the fields future we started planting trees and bushes in relationship to where our house would be. Since the change in location of the possible future home we decided to move the trees and bushes so that we could plow the entire field instead of dodging all of them and having a sporadic mess out there.
So today we spent the latter part of the afternoon digging up these trees and bushes and replanting them. I can't wait til spring when all of them will be blooming. There were 2 lilac bushes in the field that we transplanted outside of our bedroom window so that when I was raise the windows I can have that sweet smell wafting through the house. Jeffrey had a flowering almond bush that we transplanted behind our house sign at the fork in the driveway. I thought it might just be something to put a smile on his face when he comes home in the evenings if he can see his favorite bush in bloom.
About 4 years ago we planted flowering pink cherry tree seedlings down our driveway. Our goal was to have a driveway that was canopied by trees. Jeffrey got these seedlings from NCSU while he was a student there finishing his grad degree. He got on his hands and knees and plucked these little seedlings from the ground and lovingly wrapped them in a wet paper towel to bring home. People were looking at him like he was crazy-haha. In all he brought home about 40 little sprouts that we potted and cared for. Out of those 40 only 6 survived but that was enough for the driveway. Today number 7 was added to the line up. We had planted one in the field and didn't even realize we had-we had forgotten about it.
During the summer the evening sun directly hits the middle of the back side of the house. This is especially tough because that's just where my kitchen is-so summer meals are most often cold sandwiches or something from the grill. But since we were trying to find homes for the field trees I thought one would be perfect to fill in the gap between the pines that let so much sun in. Jeffrey planted one of the red bud trees in the 'hole'. This is the perfect tree for that spot. It will be full and gorgeous during the spring and summer and in the winter it will lose its leaves so that we can get that sun light to help heat up the house.
One of the other trees was a pear tree and we were at a complete loss where to put this one. It had grown quite large and required the tractor to dig up. Then it seemed like a light bulb went off inside of Jeff's head and he wanted to know where it was the sun through at in the morning that would blind us in the living room. It was like-Yea that's it-this will fix that. In the span of about 20 minutes in the morning we both have to shift from leaning one way in our spots in the living room to leaning the opposite way because of this blinding light that we just can't seem to get away from. I think out of all the trees we replanted that is the one that I am hoping survives the transplant more than the others. If it does, our mornings will be so much more pleasurable. We will probably still do the leaning thing just out of habit.
We also gave 2 trees to my sister in law who lives next door. She has not done any landscaping since moving in so we helped her out. It helped us out too since we didn't have anywhere else for what will be 2 very large trees. One was a Maple tree and the other a Hawthorne. We planted them in spots that would provide her with some morning shade and some afternoon shade too. I just hope they keep them watered and they survive. A lot of work went into today's project and I'd hate to see all of that hard work wasted.
That was our big project this weekend. One of the smaller projects was to till up some beds in the greenhouse that just were not produce what they should be. So we got that done and re-seeded with some experimental items like strawberry spinach, purslane, purple orach, and italiko rosso. I can't wait to see all of these little pieces of green poking through. I love seeing that. I feel like they are my babies-I know that sounds crazy but it's kind of like a proud mom seeing her child walk for the first time when I see those little seeds show their first sprouts. The one thing I am really anxious to see is the strawberry spinach. I have such high hopes for this. I am hoping it will help with our winter greens sales and that it takes off and everyone wants it. To my knowledge no one else is growing it here. It is typically a European green and our weather conditions are close enough to its requirements that it should do well here. I already have 2 restaurants that are anxiously waiting on harvest time. For me I am just anxious to see those first little green sprouts.
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