"Eat it up,
Wear it out,
Make it do,
Or go without."
~A Pioneer Sampler, by Barbara Greenwood~

Pioneer Woman at Heart

One Flourishing, Frugal and Fun Family!

One family learning to live off the land, cut back on expenses, and to live a simpler and a more self-sufficient lifestyle.

Thursday, July 4, 2019

Random Tidbits







The news is calling the storm that hit my home town a "micro burst" and not a confirmed tornado, but it did a lot of damage.  Power was out in many places, roads blocked, lines down etc.  We are guessing that so many trees came down due to the massive rainfall, and roots very wet at the time.



Early Wednesday morning, I was sipping coffee on the front porch.  County workers cut grass on the highway and it was thrown all over the road.  Before I could call the Sheriff (pretty bad when you have to call on county road workers), someone else did and they came out and walked the highway with a leaf blower.  Pretty dumb way to do this, as it's unsafe, but they had a truck behind them.  At least they blew if off.  One motorcycle had already come up the highway before they arrived.

Our biker friend who mows, came out and helped clean out our barn, taking broken down weed whackers and a mower.  He'll fix them up and possibly sell them, and we are glad to help him out and clean out stuff.  He also took our tiller to do some repairs on it for us.

I took a trip there to do some shopping, and try and locate a salad dressing I wanted  (plan b was to try and make it from scratch).  I picked up our 20 year-old and spent some time with her.  Plan b is now happening today.  Hopefully it will taste even better homemade.

We got more rain last night.  If we get more today, the country highway by us will flood for sure.  Field is already flooded with standing water this morning. It's hot, sticky, no breeze whatsoever, and more rain possible today.

Wednesday, July 3, 2019

Heat Wave ~ Storm

The heat wave has arrived.  We hit a high of 93°F and yet another day of no garden work done.  Weeds prevail.  It would have been a good year to invest in a solar oven (in my best sarcastic but realistic voice, lol!)

Too hot to enjoy one bit of porch time, but we all knew it was coming with the massive spring rains we got.  



Hubby sleeps all day, so indoor work has to be at a minimum as to where it won't wake him up - no vacuuming, loud anything.  I managed to wash 3 blankets and got them on the clothesline early.  I also made a cold healthy treat for him in case he didn't feel like eating dinner on during this very hot week - homemade hummus and organic celery sticks.

I went outside very early to tend the chickens, pick plantain, picked radishes, water the half dead flowers (veggie garden looked okay), in preparations for possible afternoon/evening thunderstorms.   

We got a downpour about 3pm.  Thankful for that.  Except that I forgot I had blankets drying on the clothesline at the time.  Ugh.  A horrible storm went through my hometown and took down trees and power lines.  Thankful all is okay and thankful it wasn't that bad out here.

A second storm came through and took down trees south of us about 4 hours later.

Was disappointed to find out I cannot harvest my feverfew until the 2nd year of of growth.  Sigh.  As for Arnica?  It's my 3rd attempt at growing it from seed, and it just doesn't like our weather.  Double sigh. 


Although I didn't want to cook, I put chicken in the crock pot, and made radish hashbrowns

Although I'm tired of weeding, milkweed randomly growing in the flower bed has killed off my poison ivy.