10 Things I Love About Summer

No sunflowers yet.

This morning after I got my attitude adjusted. I realized how happy I am that its summer. Ron has to get up at 4:00 A.M. now to get ready for work. For some odd reason, I wake up every hour until he gets up. By then I am awake. I get out of bed then and go fix his lunch, pour coffee, and start laundry. I feed Sasha her breakfast and her doggie vitamins and minerals. Ron will come in by then and cook his breakfast. I know since I am in the kitchen I should make his breakfast too, but he likes how he cooks his eggs better than how I would cook them. (I don't do over easy.) He leaves for work, and the sun isn't up, and I suppose I could go back to bed, but I never do. Because I love mornings. Especially summer mornings. All of that above so I could give you my list.

1. The smell of toasty air and grass and the first cutting of Alfalfa hay. Nothing better than that smell of that first cutting of hay.

2.    School is out. I love when school is out. I love seeing the moms at the store buying popsicles and how happy everyone is to be doing summer things, like trips to the library, swimming lessons.

3.  I love having coffee and sitting on the patio in the mornings.

4.  Spraying off the porches in my bare feet.

5  Watching the garden grow.

6. Putting my feet in the swimming pool in the evenings and talking with the boys and Ron as the sun goes down and watching the deepening twilight. 

  7. Cutting fresh flowers and making bouquets in my blue antique canning jars.

8.  Getting rid of clutter and cleaning my shed and getting my hen house cleaned.

9. Walking in the early morning and feeling the pasture begin to wake up. 

10. Sitting outside watching my chickens. I love watching chickens. 

Adorable Freddy. He saves bugs for me. 

Thank you for stopping by this morning. I could have added more to this list. Like sewing and reading and swimming. There seems to be just so many things to do that the day isn't long enough. I hope your day is wonderful and full of all of the summer delights.

~Kim~

As long as you have a window, Life is exciting---Gladys Taber

***All photos are from gardens past.*** except for Freddy and the tomato. Those are from this year.

A June Morning

 

What can be prettier than waking up on a June morning. The breeze moves gently through the trees. The grass sparkles with thousands of rainbows while the golden light of the sun warms the morning. The mockingbird sings in the top of the pine tree and every so often does a black flip for the joy of being alive.  June is a place full of promises, of dreams. Summer is just waiting in the wings. Its so nice to wake up early and see the light change into morning so much faster than in the winter. At night, the dark blue of twilight is just as thrilling as it is to see the stars twinkle like opals, diamonds and rubies.

I turned these apricots into sunshine in a jar.

This

This

And This

I made apricot-pineapple jam. I haven't made that kind in gosh, lets see, can it really be 34 years? The first time I made jam with my Mom officially to take home for my household. Kessie was a baby. My Mom was a bee keeper and she would take her bees to farmers and they would pay her in fruit. She had boxes of apricots. I spent the day and we made hundreds of jars of jam.

When the farmers would let us go into their fields to cut the grapes so we could make raisins we could fill up boxes and boxes in about 10 minutes. Then we would have tables covered with butcher paper and we would sit on her porch and pull the grapes off the stems and we would then lay out the grapes in one layer and put screens over the top of the grapes and watch as the summer sun turned them into raisins. I think of summer still as one of my greatest joys in life is filling my pantry full of the produce and fruit we grow and sharing with others.

 

  Can you see the little tiny bits of green?  I finally planted my bag of zinnias seeds. Remember when I bought this?

I have carried them with me all over the yard and garden. I couldn't seem to find a place to plant them. On Saturday, I found a place I thought would be a great place to plant them. So Ron and I worked in one of the flowerbeds that gets full sun. I sprinkled them and then covered them with the mulch we made in the winter. I can't believe that they are already coming up. We started another mulch pile last night. I think my garden is doing so well this year because of it. I don't think I have ever had seeds come up so fast. Nor grow by leaps and bounds.

I finished my chicken rug last week. I keep forgetting to show you a picture. As you can tell it is one of my own designs.

I am going to stop hooking for a bit. I really want to work on my His Eye is on The Sparrow. I don't have enough time it seems to do both. I thought I would try and take turns and make some good progress on that counted cross stitch. Not to mention working outside so much, my hands will get too stiff to hold a needle. I get clumsy with my fingers so I have to stop  hooking and do hand sewing for awhile.

Last week we had a rainy morning. The sunrise was so pretty. I took some pictures. I meant to show you, but alas even on my blog I am scatter minded.

I thought they were so pretty. Very rare for here in the last week of May. Just like the rain that came down that day.

I watched our grandsons one weekend so Mom and Dad could get away. I have to tell you this little story that I am still laughing at every time I think of it. Munchie is five. The boys were riding scooters up and down the patio. Ron and I were sitting there and a moth flew towards us as it had been disturbed by the boys. Munchie rode up to me on his scooter. He said, " Oh did you see that Mop?" I questioned, "Mop" because I had seen the moth flying. He said, " Oh you know Grandma, Aka Moth!"  I just love having kids around to make me laugh about things like that, so now every time I see a moth, its an aka moth.

I hope you have a lovely week.

~Kim~

Hold fast your dreams!
Within your heart
Keep one still, secret spot
Where dreams may go,
And sheltered so,
May Thrive and grow---
Where doubt and fear are not.
Oh, keep a place apart
Within your heart,
For little dreams to go.

Hold Fast Your Dreams
Louise Driscoll

Chickens and Gardening

I have to write fast as today is a clean the chicken coop morning. My chicks have officially made it to chicken status. Would you like to see my bantams?You would? Good. They are lovely but the relationship is changing. They have become not sweet little roosters, but abusive and my arms have bruises now where they peck.

Blue Old English Bantam

First, this is who I started out calling Buddy. Now his name is Freddy aka Kruger. He is having a very hard time being nice and the evil nature just plain wins out. At night, when I go to the coop to lock the chickens in, I have to brush away the sawdust so I can shut the door. As soon as he hears the latch on the outside door and my feet come in the coop, I hear his tiny Ninja yell. I walk very carefully, hoping against hope he won't attack.
So far its Freddy 10 Me-0. He gets me every time. Sometimes he waits, while I am bending down, utters this scream and attacks, pecking the fire out of my hands and arms. Other times he just pecks once and coos this sweet sound he made in the beginning of his chick years. He is tiny but he has the heart of a lion.

BirchenCochin Bantam

This is my favorite rooster, though he is turning into a grumpy kind of guy. His name from the beginning has been Hercule Poirot. When he was a chick he was just black and white. Now he looks like this. I think he is so pretty and classy.

Light Brahma Bantam

That little white hen in front, I call The Princess. She is very aloof and just a bit different from the other hens.
I think she is so pretty. I love her feather covered feet.

Barred Cochin

I couldn't get a very good picture of this guy. I was really hoping he would be a hen, but with bantams because you only get straight run I ended up with three roosters. He is adorable. He has a really deep, bok-bok voice. He is also feather footed. When I thought he was a hen, I named him Dot. As in Polka-Dot.
I am sticking with Dot. It just fits him. I think he will end up being the dominant rooster just because watching him maneuver through hen house, he would be a good politician. He is friends with all the hens old and new and he shares all of his food already with everyone. My little hens of course are sweetie pies and I am thrilled with them all. They still think I am their Momma hen which feels nice. Pecks and all.

Since chicken stories kind of took up most of my blog and the title of the post has gardening in it I thought I would show you my herbs. I have peppermint, spearmint and lemon balm and rosemary. I am going to make tea out of these.

Echinacea

Scented Geranium

Comfrey

The new chicks really liked my comfrey. It will come back. Most amazing herb for cuts and bruises. At my other house I had so many different scented Geraniums. Its been slower for me to find the kind I had there.
This one is lemon. This is my second year of Echinacea. I still plan on planting some Camomile as it is my favorite tea of all. I did plant dill yesterday out in the garden. When I make dill pickles I always have the hardest time finding as much dill as I need.

This was my morning picking. There is just something about early on a June morning picking apricots. I feel like each one is distilled sunshine.

I hope you have a lovely Saturday. I am turning these apricots into jam as my next project. Then of course some might have to be a cobbler.

Thank you so much for stopping by today,

~Kim~

“Self-pity is the hens' besetting sin," remarked Mr. Payton. "Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.”
― Elizabeth Enright, Gone-Away Lake

Dreaming of Summer

 

There I have said it! I am dreaming of summer. We worked in the garden this weekend. It was lovely. The air was perfect and cool and we had a nice ocean breeze. I wanted to stay outside all day. June will be on the calendar. I do love turning the page to a new month. April and May were so jam packed. I hope June slows down just a bit. Before I show you pictures of my garden I have to show you some pictures we got on the game cam the other night.

 

It is either a fox or a coyote. Where we have the camera set up now, its a freeway at night. We have also been picking up shapes that could be maybe owls or night hawks. So many really interesting things to see at night.

Okay now for my garden pictures.

 

Here is the long view of the garden. I have planted sunflowers between the trees and here at the end of the garden. So I can have the feeling of a secret garden.

 

I had to show you my zinnias! We planted them on Saturday. These were seeds I meant to plant last year, so I really didn't know if they would grow, and when we went out last night they were already up.

 

This is my whole zinnia bed.  I thought it might be nice to break up the green from cucumbers and pumpkins.

My tomatoes are growing like crazy.

The one good thing about hot weather is that tomatoes just love it.

The plums and apricots are just so pretty this time of year.

This is Ron's pepper garden. This next weekend, Ron is going to have two dump truck loads of mulch/bark
delivered so we can put it between the plants and hopefully it will keep the moisture in as well as deter weeds. I am going to put in one more bed of zinnias, and plant some more sunflowers and plant some dill.
I keep thinking of more things to plant. My back flowerbed is pretty much turning into a herb bed.

I will show those next post.

I love spending my days working in the garden.
 Have a wonderful Wednesday.

~Kim~

 Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.