March 17th, 2013 The storms nature has brought to my world – my Indiana farmhouse – have thankfully not been as intense or as damaging as they potentially could have been. A couple of years ago, intense winds, possibly a small tornado, passed by the house, wrecking havoc with the barn doors and large tree limbs. I made it through that, too, and felt I learned a valuable lesson from it.
March 5th, 2013 There is a snow storm raging outside as I post this. The storm probably sounds worse than it actually is. The wind is roaring and occasionally rattling the windows, but most of all, it is blowing the snow into smooth curved drifts around the yard. I’ll enjoy listening to the wind just before I fall […]
November 29th, 2011 Of all the vegetables that we grow, my favorite to harvest is the potato. It’s like digging for treasure. Each plant is a mystery – the size and location of the plant above ground does not always match the bounty of potatoes underground. No matter how I try to mark the plants, I still find potatoes in all sorts of unexpected places. I’ve finally decided that the best way to approach my potato beds is to pick one corner and start digging methodically until I’ve turned over every bit of soil in the bed.
August 18th, 2011 Most likely, we’ll have a dozen or more tomatoes ripening at a time as all those green tomatoes start turning red in earnest – and all at once. Perhaps the best method I have found for storing these tomatoes for using at a later date is to freeze them. The method I use is quick, easy, and the tomatoes stay bright red, tasty, and ready for cooking for up to a year.
June 29th, 2011 Freshly picked mulberries in a bowlLast night, as Chris and I were walking in the back meadow, near the woods, we discovered a mulberry tree. We had been looking at a wild blackberry bush and talking about when the blackberries might be ripe when Chris looked up and saw a nearby tree covered with what appeared to be blackberries. Chris ate a couple and declared them to be good. I was praying that they weren’t poisonous.
Once home, a little research revealed that the berries were not blackberries, but mulberries. More research showed that they are quite rich in resveratol, a natural anti-oxidant, along with an abundant amount of vitamins.
June 7th, 2011 The first strawberry of the season; it was magnificent and unexpected. I looked at it for a moment, feeling such a quiet, reverent joy from seeing it that I hesitated to pluck it from the plant.
May 19th, 2011 The last few days, the weather has been cold, grey, rainy, with a fierce and unrelenting wind. From the window, the lawn seems mysterious and darkly romantic, much like a Daphne du Maurier novel.
June 30th, 2010 I called my oldest son, Sam, as I was going down the steps, just to be sure he knew about the tornado warning. He did. “We were in Walmart and they made us get in the middle of the store, ” his girlfriend told me.
June 9th, 2010 Maybe it’s a feminine thing – the deep, inspired love for creating beauty.
May 20th, 2010 post by Patti Tokar This spring I picked up a pair of ladies gardening gloves from our local farm supply store, Kruse Farm Supply. It was an impulse purchase. They were hanging on display on the pleasantly dirty greenhouse check-out counter. I noticed them while I was waiting to pay for my flats of flowers. […]
