Pioneer Woman at Heart

April 9th - rain and snow mix, morning temperature was 21°F! April 10th - 38°, high of 44°F, rain April 11th - 30°, low chance of rain, partly sunny We should be picking asparagus, wild violets and wild dead nettle right now, but the weather is delaying it.  I surely hope we still get them all.  Time will tell. Despite freezing cold weather that is freezing my chickens water at night, my potted comfrey is already coming to life again.  The weather is to warm up again thankfully. I need help with deterring rabbits. Does anyone have any tried and true (non toxic) ways to deter rabbits from your flower beds and herb garden?  I read coffee grounds deter them, but they are not good for my herb garden.  I had motion sensor noise gadgets, but they did not work for the rabbits last year. A tree of some sort is growing in the edging (between the landscaping stone and chives of all places) of the herb garden, and it has thorns.  It needs to be dug out thanks to the b...

  We have been having some beautiful weather here lately.  I however, have not put laundry out on the line, as we call this "bird" season.  Flocks of them are in the area, so as soon as they move on out, I will be able to enjoy the clothesline once again. We purchased a "blind date" with a puzzle back on January 31st, from an area local store, while out on a getaway.  However, we paid $18.00 for this puzzle, and when we got it home, it was a used puzzle (box was falling apart).  I never saw any signage that stated the puzzles were used, so my husband insisted we purchase a 1,000 piece one.   Well, we finished the puzzle finally.  (puzzle is a portrait by a famous artist) There were two puzzle pieces in the box that did not even go to the puzzle. As we predicted, there were pieces missing from the puzzle.  We plan to donate the puzzle pieces to a place that recycles them with art/crafts.  Very disappointed.  We won't make this mistak...

  The weekend went by pretty fast.  Gardening continues daily, as well as yard work. We are planting less than usual, and making some changes.  We have yet to get the raised beds built, and that is due to life in general. The weather has been nice in the 50's at night and 70's in the day time.  We won't see rain for a week or so however. The new chicks have finally figured out the ramp into the coop.  Getting them all inside at night is going much smoother. Today I am joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom. I will link up when she posts. The weather . . . As I said above, nights are about the 50's, with days in the 70's.  As I look outside my window . . . The sun is up. Right now I am . . . Making coffee, and getting this post up. Thinking and pondering . . . So, I am thinking we need a garden bed, or raised bed just for potatoes.  They don't grown well with so many other vegetable plants.  I have some to plant, but they may go in grow bags...

  We made it through it!  My husband had to work 14 days straight, with a switch to 2nd shift, and that was hard for the both of us.  It has finally come to an end.  Now we can get back to our home projects and have the evenings to ourselves.  I literally have several lists going right now.  I figured, when this schedule is back to normal, I have options on what we do next, ha ha! I have been painting the upstairs sub flooring with odor killer paint, and have one room more than half done.  We are super excited to get this job done, so we can install flooring.  I should the larger room's flooring painted in 3 days, 4 tops. We have purged many boxes in the last two weeks, donated quite a bit, and our trash bin filled up as fast as it was emptied. I have just a few more boxes to go through, but they are larger boxes.  The bedroom/closet are almost done.    We haven't talked much about door paint color yet.  We'll pick up paint swa...

  I've mentioned that we make Four Thieves Vinegar for the year, and especially for winter months, and now I am making a Four Thieves Spray to clean the house with. You can get the instructions with Mountain Rose Herbs online (there is a video). It's been rough lately, when it comes to daily chores.  In the process of going through every single box/tote/bag for the closet, there are daily chores to do first.  It's been a bit overwhelming, but I know it will all be worth the work. I decided to mix up some herbal tea mix for my version of "calm the fluff" down tea.  There are so many recipes for this online.  I used what I had on hand. Asparagus is up a few weeks early and we are expected to have a frost tonight. If you were asking about the recent afghan pattern, for the granny/double crochet ripple with a straight edge, I posted it yesterday:  HERE Question: Forget The Pharmacy - Grow Your Own Medicine: The Homesteader's Ultimate Self-Sufficient Guide to Gr...

  I had a full day out in the garden.  It is a hot mess of weeds.  The asparagus bed is going to need TLC this year, or we'll just till the new part again, and buy plants this year.  We dropped seeds last year, and with everything going on called life, I neglected it.   Our wild violets are starting to come up, but I doubt we'll get enough by today.  Monday the weather forecast is snow.  Yes, I said snow.  Ugh.  I'm hoping the rhubarb and asparagus harvest is not affected.  I can live without violet jelly, but this weather is "all over the map." It is a bit on the early side for all three of these to be starting to come up. I managed to pull the long 30 some foot pea fence and t-posts all by my little ol' self.  Compost is being added today, so I am in a hurry to get 6 foot foxtail and other stuff pulled first.  I didn't get my other bean fence pulled.  It was already late in the afternoon, and the ground was drying u...

  I was up and outside early to beat the 86°F heat yesterday.  I first got the chicken coop mucked, and washed the watering unit.  Why oh why do the chickens seem to dirty it up in one day?   Anyway, I spent the rest of the morning out in the gardens, pulling plastic, stakes, and anything I missed last fall.  I have more to do, and I need to move all the grow bags out before the rain arrives.  We are hiring a person to come till both gardens, so we need the pea fence and the bean fence pulled.   He is a friend, and doesn't charge a lot, and can get it all done nicely and quickly for us. We keep up after that with the smaller tiller.  Oh, and for 14 some years we've been growing gardens here, we've not had too much to deal with, in the way of critters.  We did very well actually. The last two years have been a headache.  Not sure if it's due to not having dogs here or what, but the rabbits and squirrels have been the biggest nui...

  I was told this is the best urine odor/stain remover for carpets, and other flooring.  I have been using it on the upstairs flooring, but you have to wait 24 hours to re-treat spots.  Our daughter was terrible at taking her dogs out.  Anyway, it's working, but we still plan to paint kilz on the flooring after I have the spots treated well.  We removed all of the carpet, so I cannot give a  review using it on carpet, but you can go to their website and read them from others. I'm so busy downstairs, I often forget to go up there and treat spots.  Hopefully, we will wind down and get things in order, but this week is a whirlwind of activity.   Yesterday was the perfect weather day to work out in the garden, but the ground is still too wet.  It's never been a problem, but has been the last few years.

  The first few days of start up hours, for my husband's work can be crazy.  It's a time of feeling whack-a-doodle, as far as routine goes.  He's either working 2nd or 3rd or who knows what shift, and it throws me off completely. It takes us a good few days to try and get flow to our daily routine, mornings, evenings, all of it.  I took the day off from purging and organizing and moving stuff, but it has been overwhelming for me.  I love to create crafty items, but it's sort of at the point, where I don't need to create so many items anymore.  I have to come to a point of deciding what to get rid of what to keep, in that area. I used to make homemade gifts, that required bottles, or jars or whatnot.  Not anymore.  The kids are all grown, and do not put up Christmas trees, so I'm not making ornaments like I used to.  By the way, the "starbucks" ornaments in the making, made their way to the trash. I took off what could be useable, and tossed t...

  The hot pepper seeds have arrived, and are now started in seed trays.  I am still waiting on my carrot seeds (back ordered for some reason).  I have limited space to start seeds, hence why I have asked for a greenhouse in the future, but these two are new to the garden.  The Datil are similar to a habanero, but more of a "sweet" taste, according to my research.  Seeds for Datil were sent free too. Replacement part has been ordered for our stove. I will update on that once we see if that was the issue.  My husband almost burned down the stove Sunday at breakfast.  He forgot and used the burner.  I have removed the knob, so neither of us use that burner until the part arrives. I am joining Sandra at Diary of a Stay at Home Mom today. I will link up when she posts. The weather . . . Warmer that usual, and possibly in the lower 60's mid-week (crazy). As I look outside my window . . . It's still pitch dark. Right now I am . . . Sipping coffee, d...

  I finally got around to dehydrating garlic.  I typically do this when I can open my windows, but saved this job for this winter. You put your cloves into the rubber tube, roll gently pressing to remove garlic skins.  My tools are from Pampered Chef, but I am sure Amazon sells something similar.  I got mine free, and love them!  It is so much faster than hand peeling/slicing. Put the cloves in the slicer compartments, and press and turn to slice garlic.  Not real easy to clean, but works great. I first started doing this all by hand - hand peeling, hand slicing then grinding.  I sliced my cloves onto parchment paper this time.  It just makes it easier to get it all into my coffee grinder to grind up. I am dehydrating the garlic on 125°F in my Excalibur for 8 - 12 hours.  I store garlic powder in an air tight jar in my pantry.  Unlike onion powder, it will not collect moisture (best way to store  my onion powder is in an airtight ja...

  Woke up to fog.  The weather today is high of 51°F.  No rain until tomorrow, so the chicken coop just might get cleaned today.  As you can see in the upper part of the photo, the Christmas lights are still up (but off).  I may just get those down and put away as the weather is nicer. The living room floor has been cleared of boxes, styrofoam, window screens, and whatnot.  The breakfast bar has finally been moved from kitchen to living room, and the new plant stands have been put together for Mom's plants.  It's early, so hence the dark photo, but will try and get a day time photo for you. The stands hold all but Mom's cactus.  It is blooming again.  I need to figure out a place for that.  I also need to re-pot it.  The cactus is still in the container that it came in (how it was at Mom's house).  I will need to contact a friend to make sure I get the correct soil, and I will need a new pot for it. We have no end tables or lam...