Jarvis the Goose, Eh?

Meet Jarvis. He likes to protect his Mrs. who is hidden off to the right sitting on a nest of eggs. I sort of cannot wait to see the wee baby goslings…

Yes, this is my life.

Henri LOVES the pond…

Henri the Old Doggie LOVES the pond…

Not quite like the song…

The June Bugs have invaded our porch! Time to turn off the lights.

Funny, I don’t feel groovy like this song at all while smooshing bugs by the dozen.

Anyone have an extra ton of killer toads available for country living?

Things I Never Would Have Said Before Moving To The Country

“I can’t believe we missed the ham party at the fire hall because we were sick.”

Note to self: plan HAM party. Incorporate Hot Ham Water from Arrested Development and Rum Ham from Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Clothesline

I’ve lived out in the country for a year now and yesterday was the first day I hung the sheets out on the line. Bad Jen.

Homemade Bread

I stumbled upon this *easy* bread recipe the other day and figured…why not?

Inexpensive, easy homemade baked bread

So easy! I just let it sit for a day…added more flour, waited for it to rise…threw it in the dutch oven and…

Thankfully, I was smart enough to double the recipe ahead of time. Two loaves of delicious, simple, easy bread! I can’t wait to experiment with adding herbs/spices and as HWMMS said cheese and bacon.

It makes a nice thick slice. So something like this tomato mozzarella toast will be amazing with this bread. If only we can keep from eating it fresh from the oven next time.

This recipe for pita bread looks pretty easy too. Has anyone ever made homemade pita bread before?

Sunflowers in the Garden

Why yes, those are olive trees!

One time long ago, HWMMS and I were talking with our neighbor, who HWMMS bought the house from…and was told that back in the day, olive trees grew in our backyard. Yes, our neighbors parents (from Italy) grew olives in Niagara County.

So we* figured, why not try?

*We as in HWMMS, who has grand plans of building a new crop for Niagara County and reaping the rewards when we* prove to be successful.

Mmm. Corn.

Buffalo might smell like Cheerios but my small town smells like Sweet Corn!

See all the fields of corn in the background? Oh yeah and that’s just an electric truck working on restoring power from a freak 5 minute thunderstorm this afternoon.

And speaking of corn, if you haven’t tried Lloyd’s crazy corn, you aren’t living life the way it’s meant to be lived. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Corn.

THIS is why I couldn’t sleep last night…

All I could think about was planting. Planting, planting, planting. All this space and so many things I can’t wait to plant! The thing is…my entire planting/garden self is heavily completely influenced on how I grew up as a kid at Ye Old Homestead on Route 39 in Sheridan, NY.

My grandparents raised rabbits for mostly meat and some furry pets. Clearview Rabbitry had a little bit of everything on the farm – cows, pigs, chickens, a horse…but by the time dad took over we only had a few dozen rabbits and lots of barn cats.

Dad farmed of several acres of grapes that we sold to local markets for juice – mostly Concord, some Niagara and a few rows of Catawba. (Which is why these three are always my favorite choice for a sweet wine. The taste of childhood and warm fuzzy feelings in a bottle. Yum.) In addition, we leased additional acres of land to other farmers for corn and hay mostly, but sometime cabbage, cauliflower and beans. AND we of course had a ton of space of our very own to have a large vegetable garden  in addition to the separate patches reserved for Lil Brother and I to tend on our own.

On the farm we had several cherry trees (which you had to get QUICKLY because of the birds but we had other orchards just a quick bike ride away to sample) along with apple, hazelnut and walnut trees. Our neighbors next door had pear trees and red and blackberries grew in the back woods along with wild strawberries. I could go outdoors at any time and find something delicious and homegrown to eat, right from our own land.

And my favorite…the flowers! Back in the woods around the trunks of trees there were early spring crocuses, pastel colored hyacinths, red and yellow tulips and SO MANY daffodils. In our own yard, we planted pansies and petunias. Year after year after year. We also had pussy willows, cattails, and wild daisies in the swamps out back.

It’s funny, daffodils and tulips are still to this day my favorite flowers, HOWEVER pansies and petunias make my DO NOT LIKE AT ALL LIST. No petunias on the Weber Homestead.

ALL OF THE ABOVE IS WHAT I WANT MY FAMILY TO EXPERIENCE SOMEDAY.

So last night, I spent a lot of time planning exactly what I wanted to plant. Well, I’ve been planning for months. But I actually ordered bulbs and trees to be delivered for Fall.

My vision starts in the front lawn where I plan on planting yellow daffodils and red tulips around the trees. Only the pure yellow daffodils and only the pure red tulips. I may decide to add white daffodils and tulips, but I didn’t place that order yet. I’m thinking about a dozen around each tree. I ordered 50 of each to start.

The ambitious person inside me wants to put daffodils and tulips around ALL these trees that line the side of our house into the back of the yard and the tree grove area on the left of the barn too but maybe not all at once. $$$!

I still have to figure out where I want to put crocuses and hyacinths so I MIGHT wait on those until the following season. Right now my idea is a spot along the ditch from the side lawn starting at the willow tree to across the driveway along the other side of the yard. That’s a lot of bulb planting! But oh how pretty will it be in the Spring! I would worry that our future kiddos will want to get too close to the road to pick all the pretty flowers to give to their mama, but the road we live on is nothing like the road I grew up on. Pretty sure the only people driving down our road, live here.

The daisies and blueberries I bought a week ago still need to find a permanent home. (Bad mama!) I’m thinking daisies in front of the barn and berries behind the barn (full sun and room to expand and buy raspberries next year!) Finally, I’m thinking lilac bushes along the right side of the barn.

On the far right side of the barn is a very swampy, wet area. Right now we have a huge burn pile of old bushes/brush/branches and our compost pile back there by the two trees but we will be clearing that to make room for a few witch hazel and pussy willow bushes. And maybe a willow tree or two since I hear they suck up water.

And now the fun part: FRUIT TREES!

WHERE ON EARTH WILL WE PUT ALL THE FRUIT TREES?

I sort of want a few of each: pear, peach, hazelnut, apple, cherry and CHRISTMAS TREES. No space in the yard for such trees…so eventually the field between the woods in the back and behind the barn will be our fruit and nut orchard. Maybe 4-6 of each tree?  With room to expand? (And time to make sure they actually don’t die first.)

We will probably plant about a dozen Christmas Trees every year to make sure there are lots and lots for the future. If you join the Arbor Day Foundation for a $10 membership, they send you 10 free trees. I chose Douglasfirs this time.

The idea of all those trees AND flowers scares me a little. In a good way, but I don’t want to do too much too soon. I likely will stick to the flower plan and perhaps work on the fruit trees next year? Who knows. All I know is LIFE IS GOOD. And I can’t get enough of this stuff…