We got our estimate!

This was our collection basket yesterday -- our first beet, still more peas, and our first meal-sized batch of bush beans! The tomatoes are pretty close to being picked too. :)




I [Mick] clipped the maple tree by the flagpole a little bit, it looks a lot better this way. We think you can see the flag from 41 as you're driving into McGraw, which is kind of exciting.



Also, we got an estimate back from Coventry about our cabin design. This is before the discount...it's 1550 dollars less than the Northwood stock plan. The discount should be awful close, if not the same as the stock kit discount (4,150 dollars).


Hey, this might work out after all!

Potting and Putting Up

It was a cool Sunday afternoon, and Mick has been busy all day planting and repotting -- herbs, holly that we found half-price at Country Max, and lemon balm and mint that he dug up at his folks' this weekend. We decided to go with a short window box to overwinter some of our herbs in this year...the strawberry pot was too tall and a funny shape to fit in under the lights last winter.


As well as the lemon balm that Mick dug up at his parents, he found one hiding in a seedling flat that we had started tomatoes in! It had volunteered along with a pigweed, the pigweed went in the compost, the balm went into a larger pot.


We had also found some stevia at country max for a dollar apiece. They say they root easily provided the day is long enough, so we're giving it a go. We're drying the leaves we stripped off to make the cuttings, and stevia is no scam, they are intensely, intensely sweet!


He has also been busy in the kitchen, putting up. I didn't think there would be a cool enough day for him to want to can for a couple more months yet, but yesterday has worked out to be lovely. He made a batch of applesauce, with some apples we bought on discount at Wade's and a large bag of Empires, which were lunch leftovers that he rescued from the trash at drill.


The apple cores and peels that did not become part of the applesauce, he boiled down to make apple jelly. It looks beautiful! The peels now taste like water, so all of their flavor definitely went into the jelly. What color!


In between canning the applesauce and apple peel jelly, he processed several jars of tomato sauce, which he made by combining tomato puree we bought with a great coupon and vegetables that his folks had dehydrated last summer and gave to us. Those two cans of tomato puree started at a volume of 3.2-ish pints, we added dried patty pan squash, zucchini, peppers, eggplant, water, and herbs until we wound up with eight pints! We are excited to have more tomato sauce in the house without having to wait for our tomatoes to come in this summer. (We really like pizza.)


Our rose of sharon is beginning to bloom now.


After knocking a beetle from it, Mick got a picture of a flower close up.

Vegetables and Rainbows

The garden is really beginning to pop! We came back after a couple days away, and tomatoes are turning red, corn is beginning to tassel, and squash and cucumbers are flowering. We have a four-inch zucchini, lots of bush beans, and many small runner beans.


Even the cabbage, much-loved by the slugs, is finally beginning to look like an actual cabbage!


The comfrey has really taken off too. We are planning to plant it underneath and among fruit trees and shrubs. It will keep weeds down and bring nutrients up. We will cut it down several times a season, since the leaves provide a nutritious green manure. Our comfrey plants had a slow start in their nursery but soon exploded.


We also have many visitors to our garden. Last week we arrived and saw six turkeys walking through the orchard! Hopefully they will stick around until they're in season. In the meantime, we have collected lots of feathers.


And last week when Mick was moving mulch around, I discovered a very large toad that had traveled by Kubota from the wood pile to a garden plot. We built him a house.


Walking through the woods, I thought I spotted some litter. But it turned out to be Indian pipes.


The hill is a beautiful place to watch the weather. We were able to watch the clouds rolling in last week.


And then the rains came.


As we were driving back to the trailer I spotted a double rainbow, and we chased it up Ridge Road (which runs to the south of McGraw parallel to 41). From here, the rainbow ends just about at our flagpole.


There were some lovely views of our neighborhood too.



We are thankful for so much beauty and life!