Vyxxan's Virtual Venture

Archive for the ‘Everyday stuff’ Category

All the photos I said I’d upload yesterday… mostly no comments on them, figure it out for yourself what it is. FORGOT to photo the cantaloupe garden, but I have barn swallow photo to make up for that. :)

Finally, for those who need to see a copperhead snake, dead or not…
just a link to the gallery:

http://vyxxan.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/deadsnake.jpg

Hugs,
Vyx

Had the day off today from my new job. A volunteer furlough, but I didn’t mind at all. Since I’d been working a 4 day week the past couple years I was almost starting to miss having Fridays off after starting at the new place. However, I am loving my new job a LOT. It’s just so nice to not have to get up at 4 AM and then not get home until after 5 PM. Everything seems to be working out just great at the new job and although it can be tedious, I still like it a lot better than the old job!

So, on to garden news and other stuffs… well, first of all BuddyMack almost killed Ron yesterday while Ron was mowing. Buddy is on a trolley and he went running back to his house while Ron was going by on the mower. Nearly took Ron OFF the mower when he got clotheslined by the chain. Ron’s face is cut up and he lost his glasses but found them again before they got stepped on or worse. I got home from work and Ron was in the house cleaning his ripped up face off. Poor Ron, his face is quite sore. BuddyMack on the other hand can probably be left off the trolley more often. He never goes running off any more… but we still live too close to that road, and I can’t be having my dog getting run over. The trolley is to keep BuddyMack safe. When Ron is mowing, though, might be a good time to let BuddyMack loose. (we let BuddyMack off when we are sitting out in the night and he’s perfectly fine, especially if we give him his own chair, lol)

Last week we had a copperhead snake in the garden, well, right up by the garden anyhow. Ron and I were walking down to look at things and nearly stepped on the snake, argh! I stopped Ron, as I saw it first, and then told him to head for his gun. He was sure it would be gone by the time he got back, but I stood there and watched the snake (and the snake watched me) and Ron was able to come back and shoot it. I don’t like killing snakes but venomous snakes in the yard are not cool at all, so they become dead. I’d rather have a dead snake than a snake bitten family member.

A few days after that I watched a mockingbird chase a nice sized black snake through the yard. I followed to see what was up, and then the snake got into a wood pile and coiled up safe from birds and nosey humans. :) Blacksnakes can climb trees and will eat baby birds, so I’m sure that’s why the mockingbird was after it, trying to keep it away from the nesting area. Those are the kind of snakes I like to see in the yard! (okay, well except for the baby birds thing)

Speaking of birds, so far all I have here at the feeders are male hummingbirds. I’m waiting for the main crowd when I’ll put up every available feeder (I have 6) and be filling them constantly. That’s when the big migration goes through… it only lasts a couple of weeks at the most, but when that’s going on I’ll have 30 to 50 birds hanging around drinking up the sugar water. Should be pretty soon.

I did take some photos to share, but I forgot to go in and resize them before starting this post, so it will have to wait. Probably no one wants to see a shot copperhead, but will want to see sunflowers that have started blooming. Oh, and I have volunteer petunias again… not a lot, but a few tough it out and come up every year. I got those seeds from Ron’s mother before she passed away… I wish I could make them thrive but my gardening is rather lazy. I’m happy if a few bloom every year. One year I had a big clump of them mixed in with weeds… and I sprayed them all with Roundup before I realized what they were.

As far as vegetables go this year, we’ve gotten to eat broccoli twice. I don’t think 4 plants was near enough. We planted twice that in cabbage, but no cabbage heads yet. What the heck I’m going to do with that much cabbage I dunno. Eat a lot of coleslaw, I guess! I’ve also been pulling up radishes. I got some German Giant radish seeds this year and boy, I love those. HUGE radishes, they go from seedling to golf ball sized in no time at all. I’ve had good crops of radishes before, but mostly NOT good. Radishes are really easy to grow, and quick, but the past couple years I haven’t gotten any to do well. Either I plant them too early, or too late, or don’t water them enough or something. I had a small crop that mostly didn’t do anything of ordinary radishes. Then I made a spot for the German Giants. I’m impressed. I’ll never grow another variety. Ron doesn’t like radishes, so I can’t plant too many, but me, I love em so I will plant a small row every spring.

I’m thinking I ought to have a farm stand this year. We did get a bit carried away with the veggie garden. Lots of potatoes didn’t come up, but what did… sheesh, that’s still more potatoes than we use in a year. Corn is always too much, but you gotta plant extra because of earworms and coons coming to steal it all away. I’ve got lots of green beans and cukes and squash, too. I forget how many tomato plants we have… too many, though. 14 I think. Even though I will freeze lots… it’s still too many. :) Along with all the grapes and blackberries… we’ll be filling the freezer up this year for sure.

Today we planted cantaloupe down in the spot below the blackberries… a triangular shaped yard between the berries and the barn. We got some 16 ft wide black plastic and laid that down about 2 weeks ago. Moved it and mowed again, and then today Ron dug up 4 spots in the middle. Then he ran some hoses and rings of soaker hose around those 4 spots and we put the plastic back over. I cut out plastic in the middles of the rings of soaker hose and planted seeds. The plastic will keep the weeds down and warm the soil up while also conserving moisture. I’d =like= to get the whole regular garden done like that, but we will see… :) Last time I grew cantaloupes there I got lots, right up until the coons found them.

Well, tomorrow I will add to this with some photos. I need to take a picture of the cantaloupe garden, anyhow, and the other stuff. Plus the new hanging basket I bought myself for Mothers Day. :)

Hugs,
Vyx

I’ve been working at the same place for about 5 years now. I got fired from there at one point, had hurt my neck falling on the ice during one of those ice storms. So, too much pain and not enough sleep made me miss work. They let me go without any warning. I was actually happy, I hated working there at that point in time. And because of no warnings I filed for unemployment and got it.

But I didn’t work hard enough at finding a different job while on unemployment, and after 5 months I got a letter from the owner calling me back to work. I dreaded it, I really did. But it wasn’t so bad when I went back as it had been when I’d left. It was still plenty bad, just in different ways. The end of July this year I’ll have been back for 3 years. I still have a lot of problems at that job, so every once in a while I look at job ads and such.

Anyhow, recently and just by chance (more on that later)… I saw an ad on Craigslist for an SMT inspector. Well, I run an SMT machine and inspect all my own work, so I’m well qualified for that. I called them up and drove over and applied. The gal who took my application said it might be a couple weeks before I heard anything. It wasn’t that long. I got a couple voice mails last Friday asking me to contact them. Had an interview today.

This place is a small company just like the one I’m at, but the differences are huge. Clean, well organized, new equipment. They are serious about stuff: I wasn’t allowed into the plant area without safety glasses and an antistatic smock. I like serious. The owner himself took the time to interview me and talk a little bit about what they’d expect from me and what I could expect from them. I was impressed with them, and I guess they were impressed with me, too.

Because yeah… I have the job. I’ll start on the Monday after my birthday. They didn’t insult me by offering me very little money and while it’s not as much as I’m making now… the commute is less than half the distance and NO towns to drive through. No traffic to speak of, in other words. Less driving is always good. That’ll probably make up the difference in pay if gas prices keep going up like they say.

The chance that let me to seeing that ad? Well, it’s that cute little kitten who turned up. She’s some little girls pet, I just know it. So I was searching the lost and found ads. Thought, well, as long as I’m here… I’ll look at the job ads, too. We can’t change her name, but if we did I’m thinking we would have to change it to Lucky. :) Lucky for me, and Lucky for her. Heh, maybe I should have let her pick out the lottery numbers when that MegaMillions was so high. :)

So, I think spring is a good time for new beginnings, whether it’s a job, a garden or something else. Life is too short to be doing stuff you dislike. I’m looking forward to starting something new.

Hugs,
Vyx

Rather early for warm weather, but the past few days have been very warm. It’s really nice to go outside and not need a jacket in the daytime, but on the other hand I’m worried that we’ll get one of those late winter/early spring freezes that kills a lot of stuff.

Walked around the yard this evening with my camera. I’ve got tulips blooming! When I saw that they had buds I thought, oh, a couple weeks yet. Normally tulips don’t bloom this early. Nothing is normal this year.

There is another row/clump right in front of those, but they are taking their time. That’s good… I’ll have flowers for longer there.

Next up, Ron running the rototiller in my sunflower strip. We measured it, it’s 81 feet long! About 5 feet wide. I’ve got lots of different sunflower seeds to plant, but I’m also going to take a scoop of birdseed sunflowers and sprinkle them out there. It ought to be absolutely gorgeous, a giant mass planting of sunflowers.

Now, to the three piles of rocks that came out just from the rototiller. This isn’t counting the rocks that he dug up with the plow. This is why the previous owners of the property never had a garden… too many rocks.

I tried to take a photo of a grape vine budding out, but the idiot camera wouldn’t focus. On the other hand, you can see how green the field looks.

Next, on to the new extra large garden. It’s not very wide, only about 25 feet. But the length, egads, is 67 feet.

And again, from the end…

Then I walked down to the pond. I feed the fish that live in the pond. We have bass, perch and catfish. Dry dog or cat food and bread is what I give them. The perch go nuts when I feed them bread. They know when I’m walking on the pond bank. So, first picture is before I’m on the pond bank… water looks pretty smooth and mirror-like.

Then I walked on the pond bank, and the perch knew I was there so they come swimming to see me. Ripples! The fish will actually follow me around the pond hoping for food.

I walked around the path a bit, on the hunt for some tiny tiny wildflowers. They are a sweet color of blue, and I’ve seen them in massive clumps that look like a bit of sky on the ground. We don’t have them that thick here anywhere, just little patches of them. They are very low growing.

Back up at the house, I tried to take a photo of my newest shrub, a forsythia. Camera blurred again, of course. I planted it in a fence row, and then Ron took the fence down today. Shucks… but now it will be easier to dig to plant MORE stuff in that row. :)

And a photo of the empty of barbed wire fence row. Ron has been busy taking down a lot of barbed wire… serves no purpose since we don’t keep any animals that need it.

Finally, a photo of the newest addition to our family. This little girl just showed up in our yard this week. Very friendly to people, not so much with all the grown up cats. She’s still pretty bossy, won’t let anyone eat in the same dish as her. Staked out a claim on top of the tool box, but she has been seen snuggling with other cats. She is so scrawny and small compared to all our big cats that Ron named her SkinnyMini. She was easier to integrate into our family here than kittens born here, sheesh. Just a little sweetie, but I wish she’d get over the making muffins thing… she’s clawing me to pieces every time I hold her.

And that is all for this week… :)

Hugs,
Vyx

I made it up myself. :)

Recently I found out that I still had 3 gallon bags of blackberries in the freezer. They really needed to be used up… so I took them out to thaw on Friday.

Yesterday I got out my new food mill and washed all the bits. It puts together a little differently than the one I borrowed from my mother, but it’s basically the same. The screen is better made, though.

I put the thawed berries through it without cooking… they were completely thawed so I knew it would be okay. Lot of squirting going on, I was happy that I’d put newspaper down all around, including the floor. Dang good thing, actually… the food mill started dripping from the handle! Right onto my feet and the newspaper underneath.

After I’d run the berries through, I got the waste… and ran that through again. I like to squeeze out every bit of pulp and juice. Then I stirred the bowl to redistribute the pulp and ladled it into some freezer containers. 12 cups of juice/pulp, but there was still some in the bowl.

So, I’m all done processing the berries and I think… all those apples that I know we aren’t going to eat… I should cook those up and mill those, too. So I did. Squeezed out applesauce right into the last couple cups of blackberry juice. Between the last bit of juice and the apples, I had a bit over 6 cups, too much for most jam recipes.

Well, I’m not going to let that stop me. Apples set up really well without adding pectin… most apple jelly recipes from fresh apples use a lot more juice than another fruit recipe would. Twice as much, actually. I figured it would be fine. Looking at the recipes I decided that 2 cups more sugar than fruit would work just fine, too.

So, I sprinkled the powdered pectin into the fruit mix and started cooking. Sugar gets measured out into a separate container. Didn’t add any lemon juice or anything… it wouldn’t need it with all those apples.

After I boiled, added sugar and boiled again, I started filling jars. I wash em in the dishwasher and leave em in there until I need them. That’s the way I learned to do it, and it works for me. First I filled a quart jar. Then three pint jars and finally poured the last bit into a clean half pint jar that was handy. Didn’t fill that last jar all the way, so that one just got a plastic cap and went into the fridge.

They tell you these days to process jam and jelly in a boiling water bath. I don’t. I pour boiling jam into hot jars, wipe and cap them… and turn them upside down. Boiling sugar is freaking hot, there aren’t going to be any germs left in there. I let them sit upside down for 5 min, then turn them right side up. I’ve never had a seal failure, and that’s good enough for me. Heck, they also tell you to use up jars once opened within 3 weeks. That’s not happening around here, and the jam in the fridge doesn’t go bad, either. That only applies to jam made with sugar, though. The stuff made with sugar substitute WILL get moldy in the fridge. Gross.

Anyhow. Blackberry Apple Jam tastes faintly of apples and a lot like blackberries. The applesauce really enhanced the blackberry flavor in my opinion. Ron hasn’t tasted it yet… we’ll have to see if he likes it.

The big quart jar is earmarked for a friend of my son. Amos raved about my jam, but said the little jars didn’t last very long. I figure he’ll love getting a whole quart jar, lol!

Oh, also… I got new jars at Walmart on Friday. Better Homes and Gardens brand, they were on clearance for $5 a case. They are a completely different shape than most jars, but the lids seem to be standard. I got 3 cases of them… you can never have too many jars in my opinion. :) Of course as soon as I get them home Ron tells me that there are probably =hundreds= of canning jars in the shed at his Mom’s place. Oh well…

…and this is all for now….

hugs,
Vyx