Blueberries on the Ground

I mean they are finally planted on the side of our walk path. The elderberry was not looking very well because something was eating its leaves before they all fell down. My insect repellant did not work because we have so much rain. It kept getting wash every time I sprayed it.

And have you heard my very first snow in October. My PIL didn't have any power for a week because their trees still have a lot of leaves. They stayed with us while waiting for the power people to get the line all situated.

MIL never touch anything I cooked, and criticized my pizza because I used flour with the dough. I felt like telling her off, and to make me a pizza with no dough if she can. But my FIL is a very nice man and that is not fair for him that I speak to his wife in such manner. If its not for him, she was dealt with properly....:))

I don't mind criticized if you have a solution for me, give it a go. However, if you cannot give me a solution shut up and accept it.

Anyway enough of that, I wish I can move somewhere in the south of this country for this season...brrrrrrrr and don't get me started with the electric consumption.

First Snow Fall

Yes, the title is right and it's only Autumn where I am (10/29/11). I have a feeling that we are in for a very long winter months. Our fruit trees still have leaves and we already been outside twice to shake some snow off the branches. The branches are bending too much. This is also the very first winter for these fruit trees. I hope they survive.

We are supposed to go camping with this snow. However, DH have to work and I will not go and spend a night in the woods by myself and our children alone. Not to mention with the snow falling. I hate driving on the snow, and the place we always use to go camping is dirt road and I don't think they even plow it in the middle of snow fall. It is in a high elevation and we don't have a four-wheel drive vehicle. We are all enjoying the comfort of our warm home...today.

More Water

We never get a rest from rain this year. BY the time the ground dried-up a little, then rain comes down again. Hopefully we can mix the soil when it freezes. Not the way we wanted it but it maybe the only way we will be able to do it.

I will have to cover-up part of our lawn on the side for our herb garden, which by the way gets a lot of sun. DH might say not to do it because people in our road will see the ugliness when they pass our house. I would say, "I don't care, and I really wanted to dry some of these herbs I bought. I am sick and tired of buying herb that are not even good for me because they radiate them. At least my own harvest is not radiated. I just have to think of something with what they actually put in our clouds and make sure they don't drain where my herbs are supposed to go. I know that's a lot to work on, but hopefully some prayers suffice.

If I can get out of spring and fall schooling, now that is something. Spring because planting time, I need all the help I can get and fall the same way for harvesting, canning and freezing vegetables and fruits.

Whoever invented schools, is not thinking about the farmers in the old days. Now a days, if you keep your children to help in the farm, social services will be knocking on your door, take them away and put you in jail for not letting them go to school. Nice job, government...NOT. Then feed them all the non-consumable process food in the grocery stores. No, if the FDA allow it to be eaten, get very scared, because there is something behind why they allow it.

Anyway, it's raining again here.

Harvested Five Peaches

My peaches always started with many young peaches and always end up with only a few to harvest except last year. Last year we had so many but DH insisted not to picked them because the bible said to wait four years before eating fruits trees. Then took his words back because other knew it all said that only applies during Jesus time. However, it was too late then because all of them fell on the ground and eaten with deers.

The five I harvested this year had plenty of worms in them. They are all crack and ants are sucking the juices from the broken parts. I did try them ans as usual very sweet unlike the ones you can buy from the grocery store.

The tiny garden is done for the season. I got a few bean seeds to plant in spring. Hopefully we'll be able to till the ground before winter and when spring come. I can't stand not having fresh vegetables (mostly from our garden) at home.

And lastly, none of our new fruit trees fruited this year. I'm hoping they will next year, if they will survive the cold winter.

Knee High

My garden's weeds are knee high. Those weeds are really growing. I was able to collect a few dandelion to dry up to future use as medicinal herb. I will be digging some milkweed too before they all disappear and I may not remember where they used to stand tall.

We also started looking for boondocks property that we can afford. There are many of them with large land, however, we are not really sure if we can afford to live there because we are sure there are no job around it.

If we farm, that will take a long time to perfect and have enough to support the whole family. Not to mention supporting the government too if we are able to sell part of the harvest for cash. They are sure come after us for their share.

DH friend is also looking for some property, and we actually found two property that are two mountains away from each other. Like half hour drive. That would be very nice to have. Not only we can farm, DH can take a friend with him too and become neighbors. We just need to find him a wife and we are good to go...ha ha ha.

Anyway, I will be able to save a few seeds from my beans. I am drying them right now and put away until spring. That's all I have this year, I'm not able to eat any fresh ones. I can but I rather save the beans.

Cooler temperature is here, we are having 50's and up since last week. Swimming pool is still open, I added more salt in it because two weeks ago it rained too much, added a lot of water in it and started to turn green. Not even 24 hours the water was clear as before. I wonder how salt we need to put in it to close it for the winter and not turn green in spring? I have to research it.

That's it for this week. Have a great one. And I apologize on taking so long approving Entrecard. My Firefox is version 6 and entrecard is only 4. The bar is not compatible and it is very hard for me to check the website often.

Growing Weeds

That is what I have in the garden right now. Weeds towering my small count vegetables that are growing slowly. We have the temperature in the sixties last night. Fall somehow is coming very fast this year. I saw a very small bean trying grow. And might be the only one I'll be getting this year.

The swimming will be close sometime next week because we don't have time to do it this weekend. Many things going on. We still have to give away the kittens. People are emailing or texting us, but we simply told them to call. What is wrong with people? When we say call, please call, we don't bite on the phone.

Anyway, gotta go, getting ready for this weekend. Have a great one everyone.

A Few Words

Not much lately.DH zero turn lawn mower broke. Our yard is never the same. He only stop at home for less than 10 minute to cut between customers (he does cut lawn for a living). So, no pretty striping in our yard now.

The scorching heat killed most of DH tadpole in the bucket. I think they cannot take that much heat for a period of days. Plus we didn't even bother changing the water those time. Well, lesson learned. We save them from our pool to let loose around the yard for bugs. Not much left now.

My dozen vegetables are thriving. I'm not sure if we are ever get any from it this year. Our children is enjoying the swimming pool. They soak in it twice a day. We had to clean the element (salt water to chlorinated water) a twice a week just to keep it going. Yes, we have saltwater swimming pool. The filter changes the salt to chlorine.

I think it is much healthier than plain chlorine that you can buy from the store. Yes, you can smell the chlorine and the water taste salty also.

That's all for now. Time to relax and trying not to do too much...I wish...

Milkweed

I don't have much to report about our vegetables garden this year. And I don't want this blog to go doormat. I will be posting weeds around my house that have great benefit to our health. You don't need to buy any organic herb for personal use. If you are familiar with your weeds, that alone can be beneficial. Below is a video of what Milkweed looks like. This is my backyard, and I told DH to not to trim all of the weeds around our property.


I hope you have some idea of what Milkweed look. There are a lot of health benefit from Milkweed. If you have warts and like me (refuses to use any kind of drugs), you can use the white sap from the fresh leaves to remove you warts. You don't need to pick a whole leaf. Just tear a piece and transfer/drop/wipe the white sap onto your wart. Yes, you need to repeat the process until your warts dry, turns black and falls-off.


I took this picture today and the flowers smells pretty good. At the video above you can see a bunch of honey bees around it. The health benefits of milkweed in treating lung related disorders are phenomenal. It is an exceptional herbal treatment for coughs and colds and also for bronchitis, pleurisy, asthma and tuberculosis.

Health benefits are attributed to the rhizomes of the common milkweed and are quite similar to that of butterfly weed. The stems are unearthed after the common milkweed plant die. You can distinguish its characteristic pods and its single stalk. After cleaning the rhizomes up, the rhizomes are desiccated and preserved for future use in tea or the fresh root can be kept tinctured in alcohol.

If you need more information about this weed, the best thing to is search online. I only posted what I knew so far. I have plenty of reading to do before I can post all the benefit of this weed.

In Place

I finally placed the small amount of seedling left from a long wait being put in the ground. I'm not really sure if I ever see it fruit before the cold weather comes. The dirt in my garden is not till. I just lossen-up a little of it where I planted the seedlings. In my opinion, it's not worth renting a tiller for too little vegetables.

We may go ahead with the raise bed next year. However, the weather changes every year, it depends on how much HAARP play god for that year, and how much disaster they wanted people to get.

Sad, stress about the whole no vegetable garden for us this year.

It's Official

I am not getting a garden this year. Seems that H.A.A.R.P. is watching my area closely and those who live in valleys can never have garden this year. So, goodbye to fresh vegetables this summer.

My local farmers market is not even open either (well the one I like). I love their red baby potatoes there. The best I have since I started using red potatoes for almost anything, except for french fries for my children. Too little to make from it.

I hope nothing happens this winter, because my family will starve if ever. Crossing my fingers.

Somewhat Started

Yes, a little part of my garden is clean and turned. You should see my children helping me with it. DH tiller will not start over the weekend, and I started turning the soil myself with a shovel.

A very hard way to do it, but I need a place to plant my seedlings. Even my seed did not come out. One third of it made it. I wanted some fresh vegetables this year, and that was the reason for me turning the soil with a shovel. My children was breaking the chunks into smaller pieces while DH trying to figure out what went wrong to his tiller. One of the people he knew used it last year, and he was the last person that used it. It would be nice if he said that it stopped working after something, so that we knew what happened to it. But nothing was said.

We will be renting a tiller for this weekend. I think what I will plant in it worth more than the renting price. We are just hoping that there is no major storm/rain coming our way this weekend. I miss going to my garden and pull weeds whenever I feel stress. And right now I am stress and nothing to do outside...argh!

Is the Ground Ready Yet?

After teaching my children yesterday (we got done before lunch because we don't have much to do) I went outside checking the ground and my seedlings. I saw that the puddle in the low part of our property was dry. Right away, my mind told me that maybe I should start turning the soil, well at loosen it up for the rototiller. Can you tell I am very anxious to start?

Well, I went inside and started cooking lunch for everyone, and next thing I noticed that it's getting dark out. The weather bug on my computer was chirping telling me that there is a storm coming. What the heck? Nature knows that I wanted to start my garden and ruined it for me...ha ha ha. Geezzz! I can't win.

Yup, the puddle is back and I am hoping the rest of the week will be very dry. I don't think I will be able to harvest any seeds to the next season the way this weather is going. I wanted to move out of the valley..ugh!

A SIDE NOTE: I added some good blogs to read on the side bar. I hope people who owns those blogs don't mind me putting their links here. I was looking for some little farms around my area but came out empty handed. Others are close enough but nothing compare to my acre lot. They are full of information. I like to learn about wild plants or most call it weeds. I am still waiting for the goldenrod to show up in my yard. I got a book about herbs and the pictures are unrecognizable and one blog got plenty of information about wild herbs or wild plants/weeds and I wanted to compare the images.

Thinking About Chickens

I am looking at different breed of chickens for our backyard over the weekend. Every time I see something that is very different than others it makes me cringed. I notice one looking like a roadrunner (like the cartoon) and also one with a feather like a kindergarten student might draw. And what's up with the silkies ones? I don't think I will be able to eat them.

Anyway, here are the list of most winter hardy and docile ones I found. The Sussex, Chantecler (it reminds me of one story in my child LIT lesson), Dominique, New Hampshire-red, Orpington, Plymouth Rock, and Rhode Island. I am familiar with Dominique because my parents used to have some, and some brownish red ones. I'm not really sure which they are with the above lists.

We are planning about putting their coop behind the fruit trees, away from neighbor lookers. We are not really sure if we will be able to have a rooster, being early riser and noisy in all. Maybe we can borrow one from our friend and keep it for a few days to breed the hens. We need to figure it out when the time comes.

I can't wait for the fruit trees to grow bigger, because that's the time to put up the chicken fence, the chickens, and coop. I like the feeling that I don't need to buy eggs and chickens to consume anymore. Crossing my fingers! I should probably start planting grains for their feed, don't you think?

No New Property

Yes, we didn't get the property across the street. They were selling it for $79,900 before it went to auction, and the winner on the auction paid $60,000 for it. That is only $20,000 off the original price.

The only thing I can think of, is the winner did not know what they are asking for it to begin with. The highest we are going to give them for it was $27,000, because that is how much an acre lot goes for in our area. I think the buyer paid way too much for it. Unless the buyer is looking for a return (after fixing it) of something in the 200K.

With the economy, I don't think they sell it for that amount. Or maybe there are a couple who does know any better. Then yes, they will be able to sell it for that much. The dryer area I hope for is gone...

Auction Today

Today is the auction for the property across the street. I/we are hoping, well actually wishing to win the highest bid. We are not really sure how many people will show up or even try to bid on this property.

Hopefully the amount we save for it will be enough. DH friends told him if he needed to go a little higher, he can provide a few thousand to cover it. What a nice friend he is.

Wish us good luck and lots of it.

First Cut of the Season

This is our front yard, after DH cut it today. You can see across the street a sign for an auction. Yes, the house across the street from mine could be ours, with a little luck. I am hoping we win it at the auction sometime on the third week of May. You can see three fruit trees in our front yard. And yes, the mulch is not in place yet. Maybe I should have said, "the mulch did not made it to our house yet."...:))

The image below was taken last Wednesday from out backyard. DH was able to cut it once today. He ran out of fuel and he don't want me to go to the gas station to buy some more. He knew I hate driving his truck. I can't see very well in it, being small as I am...:))

Anyway, let's get back to the house across the street from mine. The house is a wreck. The people who own it, really made a mess before they left it to the bank where they got the mortgage from. The inside was much better layout than ours, but it looks like the design of a trailer. The walls and ceiling is as of a trailer, but it has two car garage, garage opener, four bedrooms, 2 and 1/2 bath. However, whatever we are willing to pay for it, is just the price of the land. We are thinking the house will cost thousands to repair. Furthermore, I bet the septic and well work just fine.

If we can win it, we will move our garden there, because the ground is higher in that side of the street. I don't have to worry about not having a garden at all. Power lines are in place and water just in case I need to water the vegetables have an easy access. I wish for luck here...send me some good vibes my readers. It would be nice to own two lots in the neighborhood. Have a great week.

My Hair Smells Like Smoke Maple

He he he, that's right. I smoked myself yesterday while helping DH with the trees. He was very surprise how I got the fire going with all the dead branches I was chopping. Well, my parents taught me well about burning woods...lol. We cook on it (dry ones) back home when I was little.

I loppered the tiny brushes and put it straight at the bottom of the bonfire (huge). We dragged all the branches from around the house and put them on top of it. DH cut down 4 trees, to give way for the sun around the house. By the time I got inside the house I was ready to pass out. I didn't even take a shower because my feet are killing me. I don't think I will be able to stand in the shower the whole time. I was dirty and muddy, I never saw myself that dirty...well my clothes that is.

My hair smell like Maple flavor smoke hair...yea, I know good enough to eat...lol. I am still in pain. DH kept laughing at me, he said, "that's how I feel when I get home from work." I could not imagine feeling like this every day. I just have enough time to change clothes and fall sleep. Which he always do when he gets home.

Next post, fruit trees in place. We will need a lot of mulch for these trees. DH truck is not big enough to hold one load of it. I wonder if he can take it home in halves. However, the landscape place will have a hard time scooping it with backhoe by half. I don't know, we have to think of better way to take mulch home.

Some of the Fruit Trees

This ones are my dwarf blueberries. Not really, they get up to 6 feet tall. We are planning on putting it as ornamental plant at the front of the house where is always sunny. We also bought one elderberry for medical purpose. The flowers can be use as tea.

Below are some of the fruit trees. DH still need to trim some of the branches out back. Since our yard don't have much trees, the ones on the property line is leaning towards the empty spot. Those branches need to come down for the fruit trees to get enough sun.


When we bought the fruit trees, the people who works there told us that we are planting an orchard. Orchard for a family of six. I will be doing a lot jamming and canning with the fruits.

List of what we have:
3 peaches trees
3 apples trees
3 pear trees
3 plum trees
5 blueberry bushes
1 elderberry

Yes, you can say we are planting an orchard. I also have one branch of peach inside the house I am trying to root. Experimenting to have more around the house. I think we will have enough to feed the whole street...lol.

Can You Believe It (More Snow)

Yes, you hear it right, more snow starting tonight. My backyard is not getting a break at all. It was almost dry about two weeks ago, now wet again and getting wetter...ugh. I will be starting my seeds inside the house this weekend. At least they will be bigger, by the time we get the ground till and ready. I'm hoping they don't grow too fast, because I don't know where am I going to put them all.

We are also getting some fruit trees, finally. My peach will not be the only fruit tree in the backyard. We will go out this weekend to get them. They will be taller than me or DH because we don't want to wait too long for them to fruit. We have four children to feed and scared what will happen with the government. DH may not have any job soon, at least with fruit trees and vegetables, we can get by.

DH friend who lives about 10 minutes away from us will be helping with the seedlings too. We are mostly going to plant been seeds. I'm hoping we have enough days to harvest them dry. They are far better than canned beans or frozen ones. We are looking at them as long term storage. We can have fruits, jams and boiled beans if ever US belly up. Scary, I never had any time in my life where I can't buy food. Even when I was still little, my parents made sure we have something to eat. However, northeast US is not even close weather wise, to where I came from.

Six months growing and harvesting will not feed six mouths. Back home, my parents plant vegetables all year round and they also have chickens, pigs, or my father goes to the ocean to fish. Here, you need to have licensed to fish, and we are far away from any body of water. We can't have chickens because we know that our jerk neighbor will not stop until we get rid of it. I wonder how good is the power of prayer...hmm.

More Snow

Another late start for my garden again. And to think today is the first day of spring here. I was thinking last week that the ground will get dry soon, but no. More snow will get melted within the few days, adding more water to my garden...ugh.

Snows Are Melted

Wohoo, I can finally see my yard with the brown grass. I was in central & south NJ for the last two weekends and boy, they are having such a warm temperature over there.

I can't still do some soil mixing because my backyard ground is very soft. They are good for mud pies right now.

DH will be going back to work tomorrow for 2011 season. I will sure going to miss him being around during learning hours for our children. Plus I am more at ease when he is around during the day.

Oh well, someone has to make a living. And I can't help him much either. Tending with our children and my soon 2011 vegetable garden makes him happy. I already started planting seeds inside the house. Hopefully my timing is just right.

Nothing Yet

After having about 5 inches of snow on Monday evening to Tuesday morning, some rain today I don't have much to say. However, I found a three feet long icicles hanging at the two corners of our house.


The water spout are clog, and the gutters are filled with snow and frozen rain. I was thinking about connecting those gutters with a few volts of electricity to melt whatever are in there. Do they make gutters with electric plugs in them? Hmmm, that's an idea...:))

The verdict on my garden; snow and iced covered as of late December. (the image can be seen in my other blog too)

More White Stuff

So far, the southern states are getting more snow than where I am at the north. You can see at my side bar where I am. Now, everyone knows where I live...yikes.

Anyway, we got about 5 inches overnight yesterday. My children are very happy playing on them. However, I can't wait for a warmer temperature. My bedroom is out of propane and I slept last night breathing cold air. My children left the back door wide open when they went outside and I think my propane fire place was in full blast and ran out of juice (propane). I found out when I was ready to go to bed.

I am not getting it filled until the next winter. I might have to sleep upstairs in the spare bedroom until the weather warm up in spring.