daily yarns 'n more

lilacs and barn sale

Finally my lilacs are in bloom, and they smell so heavenly!  It's a gloomy day today!  But, the other day is when I took these shots.  The sun was shining and it was nice and warm.

The cute little plant marker I found at the Na-Da Farm sale, and I only bought 2 of them, wish I had bought more.

Here are a few shots from Anne Marie's Sale.

I absolutely loved that vintage trailer.  I wanted to take it home :)  I started taking photos and then I got so engrossed in looking for treasures I didn't take anymore :(

Hope Y'All have a wonderful day today!

 

the makings of the barn

I took off for a few days to Illinois to the Na-Da Farm Spring Sale, I got a few awesome items for my sewing room and I can't wait to show you, but first things first.  As I got home and I turned into the driveway, I could see Jim had already started to get the ground ready for the barn.

I had to laugh as I was walking out to help Jim and take some photos, Sadie is waiting there watching me.

Sadies not allowed to go into the gardens and I'm thinking with the freshly plowed up ground she's thinking it's going to be another garden.  Not really sure what she's looking at here ;)

Tomorrow our neighbor is coming to drill the holes for the posts.  I had posted before that we would be getting bees, but that will be put on hold now that we are building a barn.  Jim would have had to drive about an hour to where the man who would mentor him keeps his bees and that just won't work while trying to build the barn.

There are lots more photos to come as the progress of the barn moves on.

 

i'm throwing in the towel

I'm done, I just can't keep up anymore, the deer and weeds have beat me and I'm throwing in the towel.  Last year the deer wrecked havoc on our strawberry patch, and heading out there this spring thinking about the weeds was just more than I could handle.  So what am doing, I'm throwing in the towel on our strawberry patch, and I'm starting fresh with a raised patch near the house.

I put this one near the little herb garden I have going, I plan to put a few more raised strawberry beds around the yard, transplanting as many of the strawberry plants as I can.

Maybe now the deer won't come and eat them since they're so close to the house and maybe just maybe I can keep up with the weeds.

Now I'm off to have another cup of coffee.  Y'All have a wonderful day today.

 

and then the rains came

And we continue to be busy around here, finally getting the lawn mowed, the buckets put away from sugaring and into the shed, yard work almost done, only to have it cut short because of rain.

Which is totally fine, because my rain barrel filled up again, I use it to water my plants with.

The view from the side deck.

My side garden.  When we moved here this garden was here.  I've added a few things, like my favorite flower the coneflower.  I don't care for those cement thingies (is that even a word?) that are there tho.  Not sure how to cover them.  Any ideas?

I'm pretty excited my lilac bush looks pretty full this year compared to last year.  Can't wait until it's in full bloom.

It seems like not that long ago I was saying how nothing was green or coming out of the ground yet.  All you need is a little rain and sunshine and things start to happen.

All this and still trying to get all my things moved to my new sewing room.  It sure doesn't seem to be slowing down any either.

 

bzzzzzzz

Did I tell you we are getting bees?  Well we are.

We bought some honey from a guy selling honey on the roadside this past summer, and Jim ended up talking to him for awhile (which I'm used to).  The man offered at that time to mentor Jim with bees, but we weren't quite ready to get any yet.  Well, the man called Jim last week and asked him if he was still interested in doing bees, that he would still mentor him and show him what all he knows about raising bees.  What an opportunity, it is one we just couldn't pass up, tho we weren't quite ready to start yet, we are now :)

Don't you just love the cute bees and beehive?  My daughter-in-law made them.  They are hand rolled chocolate for the Pooh and Friends cake she made for our granddaughter who turned 2 on Saturday.

Kate had a hard time with Tigger's head, so she had him diving into the cake instead of sitting like the rest.

Isn't it cute?  Kate does such a great job, I keep saying she needs to open up her own business making cakes for all occasions.

Time is starting to wind down for us here :(  I still have a bit more to share with you on our San Antonio trip yet.

Hope Y'All are doing fine today!

 

 

hello 2013

Well, you all know we are on our way down to Texas.  I hope you all had a safe and wonderful New Year celebration.  I have to admit we didn't stay up to see the New Year come in, after our company left we got busy and packed the van and got things closed up so that we could just wake up the next morning and jump in and go.  Did I tell you we left at 4:00 a.m.?  Well we did and made it over the Texas state line and that is where we are at. 

I thought I would show you the fun our grand kids had in the snow.  But first some candid shots of the grand kids, playing Nintendo DS, showing what they can do, being goofy and flashing those beautiful smiles.

The grand kids had lots of fun sledding down the hill into our woods.  Jim made a couple of banks along the path so they wouldn't hit any trees.  The more they went down the better the hill became, and by the time they left our house, the sledding hill was pretty slick and they could go pretty fast down it.

Jim lit the sauna so that they could go in there to warm up and our daughter made some hot chocolate for them to have outside on the picnic table.

We had a wonderful visit with them and I wish it could have been just a bit longer. 

This is how we ended 2012.  How did you end yours?

 

how we spent our christmas

We had a very quiet but wonderful Christmas.  We had our son and daughter-in-law here, they are expecting their first child in March.  I totally didn't take any photos and when I thought of it Dan and Kelli were already in their relaxing clothes.  I think we spent most of our time relaxing and eating.  Dan and Kelli left very early Christmas morning, they just bought a new home in Michigan where they live and were anxious to get moved in.  We had an early meal on Christmas Eve, a friend had stopped by to visit and bring a gift, so he stayed and shared our meal with us.

Jim and I try to live a simple life.  We are debt free, we have a garden, we heat with wood that is harvested from our land, we make maple syrup for our personal use also harvested from our land, and now we hunt for food to fill our freezer.  This is the second deer that Jim has gotten, that deer is in our freezer and Jim is in the process of tanning the deer hide.  I will make a pair of chopper mittens for him.

I snowshoed out to not only take photos, but to help drag the deer out of the woods.  This guy was very heavy.  With the first deer we brought it to the butchers in town to be processed, but being Christmas day they were closed.  One of our sons encouraged Jim to do it himself, so he did.  But I won't show you any of those photos, I don't think you would like them (lol).

This is how we spent our Christmas holiday, which was wonderful!  How was yours?

 

job well done

Well they did it, the rent a goats did a great job.  We can see into the woods where at one time was so thick you couldn't.

While trying to load the goats into the trailer one got away.  She was quite content to be on the other side of the fence.  It was quite hilarious watching us trying to round up the stray one.

Finally they're all rounded up and in the trailer they go.

See ya later girls, you'll be back as we have more land that needs to be cleared out.

forty::three

 

****WARNING****

Photo overload!

A lot of our woods has been overtaken by invasive species plants that will choke out all the other good plants and trees that we want to keep.  In the local paper there was an article that showed how someone had taken care of this problem on their property.  So, Jim called the guy up and he came over to check things out.  He left, then was back with some fencing to put around the thick area we want cleaned up.

Look at how thick it is, you can't even see through it.

So what's the fencing for you ask...Goats!  43 of them to be exact.

They know the routine.

We will check them everyday to make sure they haven't knocked down any of the fencing (which by the way is electric, tho it has a very low voltage but they don't go anywhere near it) and water them.

It's never a dull moment here at Gentle Hearth Farm.

 

coming to an end

Getting into the van this morning on my way to do some errands I spied this butterfly on the coneflower that is by our front sidewalk.  I quietly got back out of the van hoping the whole time that the butterfly won't get scared and fly off.  After getting back in the van, I sat there thinking that is the last flower in bloom on that plant, and pretty soon, we won't be seeing butterflies for awhile.

Fall is my favorite time of year, but I do hate to see my coneflowers dry up.