Merry Christmas!!

Last week, we had snow, but I couldn't get my photos loaded up
here, so a little late, but here is what it looked like in our corner of
the Garden State.

Princess had a blast playing in the snow and ice.

It was even more fun when Farmer Dad joined in.

We hope you and yours had a wonderful holiday season, regardless

of what or how you celebrate! May 2009 bring us enough rainfall

to grow what we want, and enough sunshine to enjoy it all!

Many Reasons not to post...

Sorry it has been so long between posts here.
It was very cold, then it warmed up, then it snowed again.
Now it is cold. My camera is not hooked up to the last remaining
machine running in this house, and our energy has been on getting
some stuff done around inside the house, as well as baking,baking,baking.
We spent Monday loading up many small boulders and a small wall
of slate from my Grandparents property to ours. Luckily it
was 65 degrees outside when we did it. Tuesday it snowed.
There was also freezing rain and hail, but there is still a bit of white outside.
I took some lovely photos, but I cannot load them up as of yet.
Hopefully Farmer Dad (aka Computer Game Geek) will make up
his mind on a new machine (we really need at least two to keep peace)
and we can get back on track. A big problem is finding a new(at least to us) desk
as our current one only accommodates one user/computer system, and we need
at least two. Have I mentioned how much my daughter loves playing computer games alongside her Dad?
When he's at work it is doable, but if he wants to play a game, so does she. Mucho tension ensues.
I tried to convince him to get two cheapish machines for them and a lap top for me, but he's really not buying it. ;-)
Literally. I will post photos as soon as I can figure out where the camera cord can be connected to this machine.
I have many plans for next years garden, and dreams for our backyard to share with you all.

Thanksgiving

We spent a quiet Thanksgiving here at home in our little corner of the Garden State.

We hope your was wonderful too!

Being Thankful...

I know many of you are busy, as I am ,preparing for the
Thanksgiving Day feast. Just a reminder to keep
it as local as possible, by checking those new Country of Origin
consumer-labels.
Need help finding local food? Try this link .

As we get ready to gather together and give thanks for
the harvest, how about making a donation so the good food keeps coming...



Farm Aid
is one of my favorite groups helping to keep family farms in
the hands of well, family farmers.
I also really appreciate the work of
the American Farmland Trust.
Remember, NO FARMS,NO FOOD.


I am thankful for all of those fellow bloggers I have "met" through the blogosphere,
you all add something special to my world.
I wish all of you a Happy and Healthy Thanksgiving!

Weird growings on...

Under the cherry tree in the back of our yard, we have a lot of
mushrooms...some look like this...

near these, we also had this....

Now it looks like this...



Any ideas?

I have received word this is an Elegant Stinkhorn.
Thank you Grace and Forte for the link, and Zilla too!!
You Gals Rock!!

Can you hear the leaves falling?

Farmer Dad has been spending a lot of time sucking up leaves.
We watch others rake, but he likes to suck them up with the lawn mower
and mulch them into the bag and compost them.
The pretty red maple leaves look prettiest under the trees in the back of the yard.
Our town picks up the leaves to be composted as well, and many of our neighbors put their
leaves into the street for pick up. Many of those end up in our yard when the wind blows.
The two house across the street, make a big "leaf bin" every year that they share.You can't see it in this picture, because it is wire, but it runs from the maple tree branch on the left
to the telephone pole just to the right of the maple tree.
They add the leaves, and when the leaf collection truck comes, the guy just gets out and "opens the bin"
and sucks up all the leaves. Keeps them out of the road, which is important, because we live on a very busy road.
We just keep mulching ours here.Because the trees just keep dropping them.
There are quite a lot sitting on the garden right now as well.

What do you do with your leaves?
I got a shot where you can see the bin..sort of. Remember the other day I said our maple
would be one of the last to have leaves..well, forget I said it..this year it will not be true.
The rain took out quite a few of them.

Do the leaves change color where you are?

Trees*by Joyce Kilmer

I THINK that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the sweet earth's flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

The best part of Autumn is for me, the changing
colors all around me.These are two views from my kitchen windows...


On the kitchen table right now...


These are the tomatoes I just brought in over the weekend.
They are ripening as you can see. ;-)
Princess and Farmer Dad enjoying the Autumn weather, and providing me
with yet another lovely view from the house. ;-)

A close up of that back corner of the yard.


To the left of them are a couple of Cranberries, which really come into their own this time of year.


Similar in color right now, a small azalea at the back of the house.



Farmer Dad especially enjoys his 1st pear tree's(we have 3 now) color...
it's the light orange in the background..



If you look up...Out my front window..a lovely Japanese Maple...

It will be the last tree in the neighborhood to lose all it's leaves most years.In the front yard, we also have a coneflower still blooming.

*We are not far from the birthplace of Joyce Kilmer,
(1886–1918, American poet, b. New Brunswick, N.J., educated at Rutgers College and Columbia (B.A., 1908). He is known chiefly for his poem “Trees,” in Trees and Other Poems (1914).),
and this has always been one of my favorite poems.

Autumn's last tomato

We picked our last tomato from the garden
this weekend.










I actually picked about 6 of them.This one is the last.

We cleaned that bit of the garden up and
still have the row of peppers to do. Farmer Dad and Princess began the process,
but got into a game of frisbee and then some horse shoes, and then there was football and
projects waiting inside. I'm not complaining, she will only be 6 once, and one day much too
soon, we will have all the time in the world to get our chores done.
I still have lettuce to start, and some other "winter" crops I'd like to get moving on.
I will keep you all posted on the progress. Meanwhile, Farmer Dad was "mowing" the lawn
for leaves and such, and all I could smell was this...
Ahhhh......the scent of cedar.

Tuesday Afternoon....

Princess looked outside and yelled out "Mama, it's snowing!"
I saw this....

a few minutes later, I looked up and saw this....



My trees (including our beloved fig tree) were almost to the ground with heavy wet snow.


By bed time almost all of the snow was gone due to the freezing rain.
Baby, it's cold outside.

I'm glad we got that little hoop house built last week. The wind blew the "doorway"
of it open today, but it was still much warmer than outside.