All about Photography

If you clicked on this post thinking I’m going to teach you ‘ALL ABOUT PHOTOGRAPY’ for your blog or just in general.
No. I am not.
That is not at all what this is about. I really should have titled this post “NOT All About Photography”
But I couldn't, because it's full of photos! 


I recently had a Teen-Teacher, with a very keen eye for photography come to my house to visit. She took some great shots around our place and allowed me to see them. I told her how wonderful they were and how she had such a wonderful knack for photography. I asked her for some tips.

But first let me show you an awfully funny photo—I snapped pre Teen-Teacher! “Audrey”:  YES! IN MY HOUSE….(we’ve got to get that screen door repaired!)

Now on with the show… lots of pictures to follow. But definitely better quality than you’ve most likely seen here before!

“STRAY  Sun-flower”  before Teen-Teacher Photographer— AFTER:   Precursor to the next two photos: Here is the deal; we started a lot of plants from seed. They were in a little flat tray sitting outside getting some morning sun— and a gust of wind came along and toppled that tray over. So yes, I mark my plants…but once toppled – it’s just a guessing game at that point.
The Honey calls this squash—but No, says I. I don’t think the blooms are large enough—I think they’re cantaloupe~ You may “chime in” – in the comments and tell me what you think. YOU WIN NOTHING FOR GUESSING … just the satisfaction of guessing correctly. I’ll let you know as soon as there is fruit on the vine! :) “CORN” close-up”RED ONION” “TOMATO PLANT””WEED”…
 Before: photo of strawberries in the washpot-- After: Pictures of the strawberries with my Teen-teacher!

So much more interesting…don’t you think? Looking up!

Finding beauty in a fading blooms--



BLACKBERRIES: (not the digital type…but the delicious type!)
A Hoary Frost on the black berries— just before I bagged them up to go back in the freezer~
Over all… I think these photos turned out great! I had a wonderful time hanging out with my Teen-teacher… you CAN teach an old dog new tricks.
These photos (for the exception of the watermark) are untouched! They look pretty good to me—but what do I know about photography?


If I believed in LUCK… I’d say mine is running out, by looks of this horseshoe over the barn door.



The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Philippians 4:23

Gardener in Training- “little things around the yard”-

I don’t have a very ‘green thumb’. I don’t know about you; But I almost kill everything. I either over water or under water. The last two years I’ve been working on ‘little things’ around the yard; not taking on too much, just trying to train my senses to gardening.

When I say train my senses—I mean just that. It’s like cooking…sort of. You have to use your sight, touch, smell, taste and hearing (last year I could HEAR THE GRASSHOPPERS MUNCHING!); but they both require your presence if you want it to turn out well. With cooking some say it takes a little bit of emotion.  I think it’s that way with gardening,too. You’ve got to put some emotion into it. Otherwise—it becomes mundane and a chore! …and then you end up killing whatever it is you’re trying to grow!  

So I’m a gardener in training. I tend to show you lots of photos of  what’s growing. Usually, what’s growing well or easily. But there are other parts of my yard that aren’t growing so quickly, or as lush. It is the ‘little things’. Things I’m nurturing to get them to come along. Things that really, I have to wonder…if they are nurturing me!?!

Momma’s wash pot—The Honey planted Strawberries in it! I hope they do well. I’ve never grown Strawberries.

This is the front garden bed that did so well last year…it is getting a late start this year… not doing so well.

In the fore ground… a twig tomato stake. and a couple of Tomato plants underneath it. We started this from seed and had POP BOTTLES over the tops for a bit… but they’re finally coming along now.  In the back ground it is our second planting of SPINACH. Hoping it does better than the first…it all died. Something is eating it. The Honey sprayed it with Lemon Soap and water …to deter the bugs!

A true test of my patience- THE CENTURY PLANT. My Uncle came down before the New Year—around the Christmas holiday… He gave me this cutting of a Century Plant. It is a succulent and supposedly only blooms Once in a Century. We’ll see…well somebody will see. If your around in a century… come back and check it out!   It has grown since this picture was taken… it hasn’t grown a bunch. This bed had shrubs in it last year—the grasshoppers first ate them, then the heat cooked ‘em! I dug them out in the fall. Not much else is planted here.

Some things are easier than others- This is a little growth of Four-O’clocks… It gets to be quite big and quite bushy. The seeds look like BIG pepper corns… and drop all over the place. It reseeds it’s self quite well. I wish all the seeds would fall inside the bed instead of outside of it.  I don’t have to do much to it…(except protect it with rocks from the mower)…it just grows and has pretty Fuscia colored flowers. Guess what time it blooms?! Four O’clock – unless of course it’s ‘daylight savings’ time… and then it’s as confused as the rest of us!

The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Phil 4:23

What the Chickens Haven’t Eaten-

I was cleaning up some photos—organizing last years YEAR END PICTURES--- from this years WINTER AND SPRING PHOTOS. They’ve all kind of run together AND IT’S TIME TO BACK UP TO THE TERA-BYTE DRIVE…
I found these pictures of some Flox   PHLOX I had transplanted back in November—and wanted to show you how it’s grown!   I planted this in November of 2011—and now here it is April and it is in full bloom. Easy plant to grow. I had this little rock garden here, because well… the dogs kept digging right here. So I filled it in with rocks. You can see the FLOX PHLOX  loves it here. It get full morning sun and around 1 o’clock… the shade starts to cover and shield it  from after noon heat.
This one had blooms on it… I didn’t circle it… I hope you can see it. I think it looks pretty here… especially with that big huge chunk of pink granite. There were lots of rocks here already when we bought the house 16 years ago… and this chunk of granite was one of them. I have others… I should show them; they’re pretty and it’s the only granite I’ll probably ever own (this side of the dirt) he he he…
I recently thinned out a bed of flox  PHLOX in the back and shared some Flox  PHLOX  with a friend and with my sister in law—both via mail. It grows from little rhizomes and they both said it was received and planted. I’m sure both ladies have such green thumbs that in no time at all, it will be growing and thriving! I’ve only recently been training my thumb to be ‘GREEN’…
I planted a small amount of Flox PHLOX  after we moved here—I brought it from my brother’s place in the country, in Hunt County.  It’s the only thing I haven’t killed
…AND THE ONLY THING THE CHICKENS HAVEN’T EATEN!
I’m linking this article up here:



*** edited to say-- jeesh! HOW MANY TIMES DOES ONE HAVE TO MISSPELL PHLOX... in order to catch it?  I'm so glad y'all don't critique me! 

The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Phil 4:23

Gettin’ the Scoop on the Dirt

Homestead Barn Hop #56


Last week I showed you the dirt I scooped out of the chicken pen… I think Easter weekend—it’s been a while back now.
This dirt had built up over the winter, inside the coop. During the winter we threw down hay and shavings when floor of the coop was muddy or wet. To give the chickens something to eat, before we had started letting them out of the coop during the day, we would toss in grass clippings (fresh) for them to munch on too!  After all of that broke down and they made their deposit…we got a large amount of very rich dirt for planting.
We still have leftover wood that was given to us last year, when we made our first raised beds; So we built another long skinny one.
It’s approximately 6 ft. by 2 ft. ….
I filled it with dirt. Not all of it—because it wouldn’t all fit. I have some dirt to fill pots with too! I haven’t planted anything in there yet, because we need to come up with a fencing strategy--- I don’t want the chickens eating whatever I plant!
Just one of the benefits of chickens and chicken dirt!

You may be wondering why the bed-liner isn’t in the back of the truck…it doesn’t fit the Nissan; it’s out of the back of our old truck we no longer have. But, we hitch it up with a rope and sometimes pull it behind the mower—this load was too heavy for the mower, so we pulled it with the truck. The kids call it ‘THE SLED’

It’s RED-NECK FABULOUS!  I know.

The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Phil 4:23

Stretching your Grocery Budget with ‘IFFY’ produce-UPDATED

This was our payday week. We went shopping and bought a lot of things we’re out of recently.  I’m trying to plan a no spending month coming up soon—so I’m trying to stock my pantry and freezer with essentials for meals.
One of the favorite things to do at our local grocer is to shop on days when they’ve culled the ‘IFFY’ produce and packaged it and marked it down. Lots of times I’m able to get quite a bit produce I can bring home—pre-chop or prepare and put in the freezer. This week I bought packs of  TOMATOES, ONIONS AND BAKERS (big potatoes) CUCUMBERS, JALAPENO AND BELL PEPPERS AND a package of LEMONS AND LIMES. Cost: approximately $6.00 dollars.
I didn’t take a picture before opening some of the packages, but you can still pretty much see the prices—every pack was $1.39 ; but the LEMONS and LIMES PACK  were $2.00 dollars.
Here is how I will divide this produce up for The Honey and myself.
The BAKERS easy. Baked potatoes for dinner one night with some grilled chicken or tuna salad.
The ONIONS, JALAPENOs and BELL PEPPERS and SOME TOMATOES—get diced up and laid on a cookie sheet in the freezer. Once they are frozen—I scrape off with a spatula and toss into pickle jars and put on the door of the freezer for quick grab ingredients for soups, casseroles, salads and what not.
The rest of the TOMATOES AND THE CUCUMBERS and the FRESHEST ONION will be eaten in a matter of days in salads and sandwiches.
The Honey likes when I make Cucumbers and Onions in vinegar as a salad; or TOMATOES AND CUCUMBER SALAD (chopped and drizzled with RANCH DRESSING.)  Both quick and easy on a warm afternoon—or with an evening meal. 
This is what I did with the LEMONS and LIMES:
***** Homemade Lemonade******
6 CUPS COLD WATER
1 CUP SUGAR
6 LEMONS – juiced.  (approximately 1 CUP)
ADD to a pitcher, stir together.  ** I sliced off about 3 rings and tossed into the pitcher…just to make if pretty! 
For LIMEADE… just use LIMES!
****edited to say for Lime-ade you only need 3 large limes instead of the 6 as previously stated.



Chill and serve.
Here is a TIP for Lemon Rind uses:  place rinds in a freezer bag and freeze …until you google: lemon rind uses  AND COME UP WITH WAYS TO USE THEM! {wink}
You can toss them down your garbage disposal to freshen it up, rub your cutting board down to disinfect and clean it, you can create blonde highlights by spraying juice on your hair, get pit stains out of clothes… ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES!
FOR MORE TIPS you can click here—31 uses for Lemons and Lemon juice

The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Phil 4:23

Spring Cleaning the Coop-

This post is linked to the 2nd Annual Hen House Hop.

The Saturday before Easter  I spent most of the day cleaning out the coop-

 

That week we had had a chicken snake make it’s way into the hen house …and The Honey ‘took him out’ I’ve got a few pictures you can see the damage and the end results This is the splintered wood after the shot gun blast inside the hen house… no chickens were harmed in the shooting of the snake. No EGGS were harmed in the shooting of the snake either. You can see the wood missing from the nest box…and the LAST EGG laid in that box. Still in tact!  Alas! No chicken will lay there now. Easter Saturday (the Saturday before Easter) I let the chickens out into the yard and got to cleaning! You can plainly see they enjoyed their time in the yard. 

While they were out playing in the yard… I cleared out all the layers of dirt and hay. Man! was it stinky. As soon as I got in there with the hay fork and started turning the dirt… I knew it was definitely time to get the dirt out!  I was able to fill the bed liner almost all the way up with good rich dirt for the yards and planting areas.

I used ‘lemon soap’ and bleach water and an old scrub brush with an extension wand on it, and scrubbed the dickens out of that coop.  I opened it all up;  let it air out and get really good and dry. I also sprinkled ‘food grade’ DE on the floor of the coop. (that is what the white powder is in the above photo) In the mean time  While I played in the dirt and cleaned up the coop, The Honey cut some wood and placed some dividers in the laying boxes. That is something we never put into the coop when we originally built it. After it dried out—I replaced the old shavings with new dry shavings. I sprinkled DE here,too.

Now they have a nice clean bed in which to lay. I love this view looking through the coop.The only problem is…they want to sleep outside the hen house now. They won’t go in except to lay eggs.

After the snake was shot—they wouldn’t lay eggs in there. They were laying them in the yard. We left them in the coop for about 3 days after finding the nest of eggs near the back porch…and now they’re back to laying in the laying boxes. However, they don’t lay in the one that was shot up—now they lay all the way to the opposite end.

Funny little birds!

You can see Our Coop Beginnings Here at last years entry to the Hen House Hop—it’s a video. Enjoy!

 

The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Phil 4:23