OK So I don't have any pictures yet....It's taking longer than I thought to get this new computer all dialed in and my programs straightened out....plus fighting the guys for it ( new toy, they must play) and let's not EVEN begin to talk about how Vista won't let you play ANY of your old CD games..ACK! City Boy now mad that we ever got the darn thing cause he can't play any of his shoot 'em up games.
So until I get some pictures going I'll leave you with this story.........
Blackberries.....City Boy LOVES them. I mean L-O-V-E loves them. And he loves for me to make blackberry cobbler. And because I love City Boy, I make it for him. Simple enough right?
We just happen to live in a place that blackberries grow wild. So in my mind that's a win-win thing.
Now I have a love-hate relationship with blackberries. And it swings back and forth depending on what I'm doing. I love making cobbler for City Boy and seeing him smile....I hate the stains left behind cause... it.... is ....messy.
But seeing as how they're practically FREE around here and Me being into the whole farming -living off the land-mentality ( key word there is MENTAL) I thought I take the kids with me out blackberry pickin'.
I had mentioned to one of our friends about wanting some blackberries. They offered to let us pick some from some patches they knew about growing on their property.
Now, these are WILD blackberries mind you. Not some greenhouse nursery THORN LESS variety with berries the size of golf balls....Nope, just wild falling bramble with thorn ready to suck your blood and rip your clothes and claim you for their prey.
No, really. They ARE.
But I digress,
So with the plan all set up, the kids and I were going to meet our friend early one morning and she would take us to all the patches she knew about. So the kids and I prepared.
Jeans. check.
Boots ( there might be snakes) check.
Long sleeved shirts ( ugh it's August) check.
Gloves. Check.
Bags. check.
Bucket. check.
Bug spray ( ticks) check.
All set and we're off.
We have just finished with a hot spell and this was one of the first "cool-er" mornings and with long sleeve shirts we were thankful.
When we got to the first blackberry patch we found that the heat spell hadn't been very kind to the blackberries. Most of the vines were dried out and brown with loads of dried blackberries still on them, BUT towards the MIDDLE of the patch it was still green and there were blackberries to be had.
So Big Dog, Barbie girl and I put on our protective gear, grabbed a bag and in a last minute thought applied bug spray to our ankles and waist lines to keep the tick from crawling in our clothes.
The bramble was waist high and Big Dog and I ventured our way as far into the middle as we could while I had Barbie girl pick in an area closer to the outside. I didn't want her to get stuck in the bramble and not be able to get out and those thorns HURT.
We picked all that we could reach. I had taken the glove off of my pickin' hand for dexterity reasons and by now my thumb and first few fingers we a lovely shade of fuchsia.
Having picked all we could, we moved on over to another location and met with the same scene. Dried out patches and very little blackberries.
Not to be discouraged we picked and moved to another location and picked all that we could and finally called it quits.
The kids and I went home, changed clothes and started washing and sorting our bounty. We managed to bring home a total of five cups of blackberries. Meager by any stretch of the imagination but just enough to bake ONE blackberry cobbler for City Boy. Washed, dried, flash frozen and waiting for that special time the black berries were finished and we could see the prize of our hard work. But Our REAL surprise came later. About midnight that night.
After such a morning and all the work after, not to mention summer, with two kids at home all day, by the time evening rolled about I was tired, so I flopped into bed and promptly went to sleep.
Around midnight.....I woke up from an itch. Nothing new here. Mosquito capital of the world. But this was different. My belly, groin area ( I mean ALL of it), thighs, legs..were all on fire from itching. I got up and walked to the bathroom. Dropped my pajama pants and gasped.
From my waist down to my toes I was covered in red bumps that itched like there was no tomorrow. I did the best mental evaluation I possibly could at midnight and concluded that NO, I did not have the chicken pox, mumps and measles were ruled out , poison ivy was eliminated too. Then it struck me as I heard the other bathroom door open and close. Dear God, I'm not the only one itching. It can mean only one thing.
CHIGGERS.
In my city girl wisdom, and LACK of country girl knowledge, I recalled that before berry picking the kids and I only sprayed our waist line and ankles for TICKS. It did not even cross my mind to be concerned with CHIGGERS and so unknowing exposed our vulnerable and evidently tasty bodies to the lunch menu of the most vile bugs on earth, chiggers. They must have see us coming and true lunch buffet for all.
Now, chiggers for any of you who are unfamiliar with them, as I used to be, never having had to deal with them in So CA, are a mite. The adults are called red bugs ( real original) and the infants are chiggers. Chiggers get on you, through your clothes or whatever , nothing stops these little buggers and they bite you. They leave an itching bump that will bother the dead. And it lasts and lasts and lasts for MONTHS. As the days go on they do itch less and less, but not enough and certainly not soon enough.
Mind you this was early August, It's now early Sept and I STILL have them and they STILL itch.
Worse yet, both of the kids were suffering too. So now here we are, Suffering, horribly and to make matters worse, after we counted, we came home with more chigger bites than blackberries!
City Boy still hasn't gotten his blackberry cobbler yet. I can't go to the freezer and look at them with out itching.
The kids are healing faster than I am, but that's OK. they whine more.
Blackberries and I still have a Love - hate relationship and right now the pendulum is stuck at HATE.
I'm sure and the itching and memories fade I'll love 'em again, and City Boy will get his cobbler, maybe.
Lesson learned? Check.
V.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
M.I.A.
Wow! have I been MIA
Things have gotten so busy and top that with two...count them TWO complete computer crashes the last one finally managing to get me a new computer and hence back online to write again. Of course school having started last week does help ALOT!
FREEDOM AT LAST!
So...November, huh? I left you hangin' since November. Man, am I a slacker.
So let's see. December netted us Snow, more snow and ice.
So kids were out of school for winter fun. Christmas came and went and Barbie girl did surprisingly well with getting only homemade gifts...good thing too it'll be the same this year also.
Had another birthday in January *sigh* Barbie girl is starting to wonder why I have birthdays but every year we tell her I still 25. Wonder what she'll think when she can finally do the math. She had a birthday too, by the way. She's now 9.
In March we started having problems with our neighbors. BIG Problems. Let's just say the cops were called out, I no longer watch the L kids and we don't wave to anyone on this road anymore. Since then the L Family has moved out. I pray daily that the other will leave as well.
In the midst of all the discord, Big Dog came to live with us!
Boy, was that a stressful thing, Trying to get the paperwork filed in So Ca from HERE, when he's was still in Tenn. UGH! Lots of prayer and determination. And God pulled it off. I drove to Arkansas to meet him while the rest of his family were moving from Tenn. back to So Ca.
I was actually worried abut being able to get to him because of all the rains we have had, but that particular day it held off raining until after we had gotten back home. We have had the wettest year on record so far and all the flooding we saw sure convinced me of that. It's rained so much that it flooded under our house. We only found out about it when it shorted out the water well controls that are under the house. I sent City Boy under there to see what was up cause we had no water he came back reporting that there was about a foot of water under the house. So we had to go buy a sump pump to pump it out. After that, anytime it rains I have to go check if it flooded or not. You see, there is an underground river, under the bedrock, under our house. Our house was built during severe drought years, so no one knew it was there. But this year the rains were so high that the underground river filled until it seeped up through the ground, right under our house. Ahhh, the joys of living in the country!
We registered Big Dog in high school asap and he was able to complete the last quarter of the school year here. We really are thankful that we have such a small community here. Most of the people, that work at the school ,go to our church and the high school Principal is also in my Sunday school class. It's nice to know that we have extra eyes looking out for him and Barbie girl.
We've had a few new additions here on the farm and a few losses. Spring time brought us a few young roosters, which promptly entered freezer camp shortly after learning how to crow and a couple of new hens. In April we lost one of our girl ducks, Super Duck. In sorrow and anguish to that loss I immediately put 3 duck eggs under the first broody chicken I found. Later we were blessed with two new baby ducklings . As cute as it was I really should have known better. I happened to stumble upon a hidden duck nest in one of our burn piles and it had about 13 duck eggs in it, ( it's hard to make a living selling eggs if your employees are hiding all the inventory!) but in a moment of sheer stupidity I put all 13 of those duck eggs under a broody chicken. The good Lord blessed us again 22 days later and we now have 10 ducklings running around long with the original ducks and the 2 rebound ducks. Having lost yet another female duck just the other day to a coyote ( RIP Notch) and City Boy having sent one to the freezer camp ( it couldn't get it through his head he was a duck, NOT a rooster and my chicken hens hated him) I believe we now have a total of ...da da tada..... 15 ducks! I lost a few chickens here and there, one to a hawk and one to the rooster/duck, yea..don't ask but all in ll things are good. Our biggest (and will be bigger) addition is our new PUPPY.
"Gabby" is only a couple of months old now, but she will be HUGE. She's a Great Pyrenees. We got her for the sole purpose of guarding the chickens, but so far she's just been a house dog. Damn, my soft heart.
As for the rest of us, well City Boy and I have started becoming very active in our church and I am the Church Librarian ( no snickering please) and I help out in the kitchen during our bi monthly church dinners, City Boy helps out with odd jobs and helps with the serving at the dinners, Big Dog works with the youth group and helps out the with media equipment during Sunday services and weds. night youth group. Barbie Girl just has fun.
She's just started the 3rd grade and I believe that this will be a good year for her also. Big Dog is now a Junior. We looked at class rings for him this week. And at the moment he's thinking real serious about joining the Navy when he graduates. I pray he does. I feel it will be the very best choice he ever made. City Boy is working hard as ever, which is great considering the housing crunch, he works around here breaking his tractor and trying to fix it and helping out our friends who live on the NEXT road.
City Boy and I had a great time helping our friends with their cattle. We helped to sort, tag, vaccinate, and castrate about 18 calves. Good times, good times. It was dirty, smelly, sweaty, hard work and I'd do it again in a heart beat. We've offered to help them with their miles and miles of fence mending that needs to be done because of the Great Ice Storm of 2007 and as a thank you they've given us a cow, that we had butchered. City Boy named the cow "Barbie" short for Bar-B-Q. So now every night the family asks... " Are we eating Barbie for dinner?" or "is this meat Barbie?" To an outside this has gotta sound strange if not wrong on many levels, but for us it's just funny.
Well, Fall is right around the corner, and the garden is just about done. The chores are still plentiful and there are lots of projects to start and lots left to finish. the Almanac is predicting a very cold and snowy winter for us this year so I think I had better start my winter preps sooner than planned.
I guess that's it for right now. I promise, promise PROMISE to write more....and soon. I've got to reload some programs on this new computer so I can get my pictures back, when I have it up and running I've got some great pictures to show you.
TTFN
V.
Things have gotten so busy and top that with two...count them TWO complete computer crashes the last one finally managing to get me a new computer and hence back online to write again. Of course school having started last week does help ALOT!
FREEDOM AT LAST!
So...November, huh? I left you hangin' since November. Man, am I a slacker.
So let's see. December netted us Snow, more snow and ice.
So kids were out of school for winter fun. Christmas came and went and Barbie girl did surprisingly well with getting only homemade gifts...good thing too it'll be the same this year also.
Had another birthday in January *sigh* Barbie girl is starting to wonder why I have birthdays but every year we tell her I still 25. Wonder what she'll think when she can finally do the math. She had a birthday too, by the way. She's now 9.
In March we started having problems with our neighbors. BIG Problems. Let's just say the cops were called out, I no longer watch the L kids and we don't wave to anyone on this road anymore. Since then the L Family has moved out. I pray daily that the other will leave as well.
In the midst of all the discord, Big Dog came to live with us!
Boy, was that a stressful thing, Trying to get the paperwork filed in So Ca from HERE, when he's was still in Tenn. UGH! Lots of prayer and determination. And God pulled it off. I drove to Arkansas to meet him while the rest of his family were moving from Tenn. back to So Ca.
I was actually worried abut being able to get to him because of all the rains we have had, but that particular day it held off raining until after we had gotten back home. We have had the wettest year on record so far and all the flooding we saw sure convinced me of that. It's rained so much that it flooded under our house. We only found out about it when it shorted out the water well controls that are under the house. I sent City Boy under there to see what was up cause we had no water he came back reporting that there was about a foot of water under the house. So we had to go buy a sump pump to pump it out. After that, anytime it rains I have to go check if it flooded or not. You see, there is an underground river, under the bedrock, under our house. Our house was built during severe drought years, so no one knew it was there. But this year the rains were so high that the underground river filled until it seeped up through the ground, right under our house. Ahhh, the joys of living in the country!
We registered Big Dog in high school asap and he was able to complete the last quarter of the school year here. We really are thankful that we have such a small community here. Most of the people, that work at the school ,go to our church and the high school Principal is also in my Sunday school class. It's nice to know that we have extra eyes looking out for him and Barbie girl.
We've had a few new additions here on the farm and a few losses. Spring time brought us a few young roosters, which promptly entered freezer camp shortly after learning how to crow and a couple of new hens. In April we lost one of our girl ducks, Super Duck. In sorrow and anguish to that loss I immediately put 3 duck eggs under the first broody chicken I found. Later we were blessed with two new baby ducklings . As cute as it was I really should have known better. I happened to stumble upon a hidden duck nest in one of our burn piles and it had about 13 duck eggs in it, ( it's hard to make a living selling eggs if your employees are hiding all the inventory!) but in a moment of sheer stupidity I put all 13 of those duck eggs under a broody chicken. The good Lord blessed us again 22 days later and we now have 10 ducklings running around long with the original ducks and the 2 rebound ducks. Having lost yet another female duck just the other day to a coyote ( RIP Notch) and City Boy having sent one to the freezer camp ( it couldn't get it through his head he was a duck, NOT a rooster and my chicken hens hated him) I believe we now have a total of ...da da tada..... 15 ducks! I lost a few chickens here and there, one to a hawk and one to the rooster/duck, yea..don't ask but all in ll things are good. Our biggest (and will be bigger) addition is our new PUPPY.
"Gabby" is only a couple of months old now, but she will be HUGE. She's a Great Pyrenees. We got her for the sole purpose of guarding the chickens, but so far she's just been a house dog. Damn, my soft heart.
As for the rest of us, well City Boy and I have started becoming very active in our church and I am the Church Librarian ( no snickering please) and I help out in the kitchen during our bi monthly church dinners, City Boy helps out with odd jobs and helps with the serving at the dinners, Big Dog works with the youth group and helps out the with media equipment during Sunday services and weds. night youth group. Barbie Girl just has fun.
She's just started the 3rd grade and I believe that this will be a good year for her also. Big Dog is now a Junior. We looked at class rings for him this week. And at the moment he's thinking real serious about joining the Navy when he graduates. I pray he does. I feel it will be the very best choice he ever made. City Boy is working hard as ever, which is great considering the housing crunch, he works around here breaking his tractor and trying to fix it and helping out our friends who live on the NEXT road.
City Boy and I had a great time helping our friends with their cattle. We helped to sort, tag, vaccinate, and castrate about 18 calves. Good times, good times. It was dirty, smelly, sweaty, hard work and I'd do it again in a heart beat. We've offered to help them with their miles and miles of fence mending that needs to be done because of the Great Ice Storm of 2007 and as a thank you they've given us a cow, that we had butchered. City Boy named the cow "Barbie" short for Bar-B-Q. So now every night the family asks... " Are we eating Barbie for dinner?" or "is this meat Barbie?" To an outside this has gotta sound strange if not wrong on many levels, but for us it's just funny.
Well, Fall is right around the corner, and the garden is just about done. The chores are still plentiful and there are lots of projects to start and lots left to finish. the Almanac is predicting a very cold and snowy winter for us this year so I think I had better start my winter preps sooner than planned.
I guess that's it for right now. I promise, promise PROMISE to write more....and soon. I've got to reload some programs on this new computer so I can get my pictures back, when I have it up and running I've got some great pictures to show you.
TTFN
V.
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