I'm Still Here

I am very disappointed in myself for not keeping up on my blog this year.  It has been a crazy year so far with not feeling the best for several months and with having my Etsy store and selling on eBay I have been busy.  These are just excuses I keep telling myself.
My grandson Brandon who inspired me to start this blog sent me an email early this morning:

So I was just wondering why you haven't posted anything on your blog in 3 weeks exact. I'm just saying your blog is like my nightly newspaper, and I haven't gotten a paper in 3 weeks so I decided to contact the company (you). 
So could you please start posting funny and interesting stuff again? Please.  

So here I am, June has been a nice warm and wet month.  I harvested my beets last weekend and canned 11 pints of pickled beets.  We've had creamed peas with new potatoes twice and buttered peas once.  I have one more picking of peas then they will be pulled up and green beans will be planted.  I put in 2 rows of green beans early this summer but the rabbits ate them.  Hopefully the rabbits have found something different to eat and I will get some this time.  Yesterday I put in the second planting of beets and hopefully I'll get a third planting in.
My tomatoes are going wild, my daughter Renee said they look like they are on drugs.  No ripe ones yet but it is still early.  Cucumbers are loaded with baby cucumbers so I should have cucumbers soon.  I have a couple green peppers and the egg plants are blooming.  We've had plenty of rain this year and I love that.

Chickens: 33 laying hens, 6 new pullets and about 30 adolescent chickens.  Several of the hens, several adolescents and the 6 pullets came from Renee and Brandon.  I sent for some leg bands for the birds and am going to band this years layers so I know for sure what ones to cull next year.  I will be culling several of the ones I have now and replacing them with some I hatched this year.  By winter I want to be down to 30 layers.  The older chickens will be canned for soup, noodles and casseroles while the ones hatched this year will be ground and the breasts frozen for meals.  Of course I will not waste the bones and will can plenty of chicken broth.
Turkeys:  I am planning on culling Ted and Thelma after I get some questions answered on them.  I am new to raising turkeys and need to know if they will be good to roast.  Thelma is 4 and Ted is 6.  If you have an answer for this please let me know.  I have 5 adolescent turkeys and will keep some of them for next years breeding stock.  I want to end up with one male and 2 or 3 females.  I keep trying to hatch Thelma's eggs but am not having any luck.  I have only one turkey from them.  I've lost 6 or 7 when they were just a couple of days old and most of the eggs have not been fertile.

I will be more diligent in posting and hopefully won't bore you.

Went on a ride yesterday and saw this old house.  A good strong wind and she will be no more.

Turkey Coop and Yard Work

We had finally had a small window of dry weather yesterday and when Ron got home from work we started staining the turkey coop.  We picked up a sprayer at an auction and thought this was the answer to the the hard work.  Well for us we just couldn't get it to work smoothly and gave up trying to use it after doing just one side.  Ron had about as much stain on him as he had on the coop.  We both worked on it and then got to a point where he was doing it by himself.
I decided to start the yard work and got out the rider and worked on the front yard.  Our front yard has a slope towards our lane and when one of the neighbors was coming home I slowed down to let them down the lane. I noticed that the mower's brakes didn't seem to work real well but just blew it off.   On the other side of our lane is a strip of land that is the right-of-way then a ditch.  The village did some work on the ditch last week and added some huge white rock to keep the lane from washing into the ditch.  When I was mowing by the ditch I put on the brake and it did not work at all and down over the rocks and into the bottom of the ditch and the mower started up the other side and then the back wheels got stuck into the mud and water.  By the time the mower stopped I thought for sure I was going to loose it.  It scared me half to death.  Ron was out back working on the coop and knew nothing of what had just happened.  I called him and he came out to see if I was OK.  We then had to get the truck, chain and pull the mower out.  I just wanted to get it done before someone came by and saw the predicament.   Well that didn't happen.  A couple of young girls from the end of the lane came by in their truck and offered to help.  Ron thanked them and said we've done this before and thanks anyway.  Total embarrassment.  I was so happy that when we got the mower out and Ron drove it he said you are right the brakes are not working.
Let's see, front ditch last year; garbage truck came by and helped me and Ian get it out.  Side ditch earlier this year; Ron came home from work on his lunch break to get me out.  Then last night front ditch again.   When I think about it I have gone in the front ditch every year.  Sometimes I've gone down backwards when I got to close when backing up and sometimes I've gone down front first.  The only difference is sometimes you can see what your headed for and sometimes you don't.

Published Article

Several weeks ago I was contacted and asked if I would be interested in sending in any articles for a retirement blog.  They read some articles on my blog and liked what they saw and that is why they contacted me.   I finally submitted one yesterday and it was published today on their site.  Stop by and give read it and also some of the other interesting articles they have.  Enjoy.

http://retirementandgoodliving.com/gardening-chickens-and-turkeys/

Derek's Birthday Party in Pictures

Brandon, Reagan and Blossem.

Ali and Kartal arm wrestling and Ali won both times they did it. 

Derek

Blossem

Derek playing with a remote controlled car.

Reagan and Hannah modeling some Amish dresses.

They were so happy to do this for me.  NOT

Reagan going in to get out of the hot dress.

Kartal

Brandon

Gina, Ali
Hannah, Kartal
Caleb, Ian

Gina and Ali

Hannah trying to be Miss Cool, Gina
Caleb, Ian

Reagan in her favorite place.  Only Hannah, Reagan and Derek were brave enough to get in the pool.  The water is still a little cold.

Hannah, Me, Ron
Gina, Ali
Ian, Caleb, Kartal

Gina

Amish Area Trip, Garage Sales, Produce Auction , Apostolic Auction and Grocery Shopping

Friday morning we were up and on the road by 5:30 to go to Arthur, IL to some some shopping.  We started out for 1 1/2 hours doing garage sales and then went to the produce auction.  Not much to bid on as it is early in the season.  I did try to get some broccoli but it went way to high for me.  We then did some more garage sales and then went out to the bulk food store to get a whoopie pie for my breakfast/lunch.  I got a oatmeal whoopie pie and Ron got a blueberry fried pie.  We also checked to see what time they were closing so we could make it one of our last trips of the day.  Did a lot more garage sales and saw where they were having an auction at 4 PM for an estate of an Apostolic "Old Maid".  We checked it out and decided we would go to it.   So off to the bulk food store and Salvage store to do our shopping as both closed at 5 PM.  We took a cooler with us so we could put the cold stuff and bought some ice.  I didn't get a huge amount of stuff but did get several different kinds of cheese.
Then off to the auction where I picked up some stuff to sell on Etsy and Ebay.  We would have liked to stay longer at the auction as there were a lot  of linens I was interested in but with a little over a 2 hour drive home and need some supper we left there and start home about 5:45 PM.  We stopped and got some fast food and ate on the road, not what I wanted to do but Ron is the driver so I have to respect that he was getting tired and just wanted to get home at a decent time.  We still had eggs to collect and food to be given to the poultry when we got home.

Some of the items I picked up to sell are:
Amish women's items:  dresses with the collars and aprons, and a nice coat
Amish men's items: 2 pair of nice blue jeans and a nice coat
Amish girl's items: lots of dresses, some with pinafores and some without and a couple little hats
Amish boy's items: pants, shirts, coat with matching hat and several baby hats
About 75 vintage women's hankies
A few vintage linens

Items I'm keeping are some new towels, wash rags, dish towels and for the new one due in September; way to many clothes.

Now I need a model to model the Amish ladies dresses.  At Derek's B'day party today I'm going to see if my 17 year old granddaughter would model for me sometime soon.

Small pony and cart at the produce auction.

Wagon at the produce auction, the seat is from a van/SUV.

Spraying fertilizer on the field, when we rolled down the window to get the picture you could tell it was "natural made fertilizer" most likely some of it was from the horse pulling the wagon.

Farmer between 2 fields.

Amish Area Day Trip

This Friday we will be taking a trip down to the Arthur/Arcola Illinois area for a full day of shopping.  We will leave home about 6 AM for our 2 1/2 hour drive.  The town of Arthur is having a town wide garage sale day.  We will start out with garage sales then go to the produce auction at 10 that we went to last year.  After the auction we will do more garage sales and then before the 2 Amish bulk stores close we will go to them and stock up on items we need.  The end of our day will be spent at an Amish style restaurant and then home which will be pretty late I'm sure.  I'm hoping that a lot of the Amish and Mennonite residents participate in the sales so I can pick up some Amish and Mennonite clothing items to sell on Etsy and Ebay.  The clothing items I got in April at the Amish auction in Cuba Ill went real fast.  I also need to find some vintage canning jars and linens.  I have less than 10 vintage jars in stock and my linens have been going real fast.

If nothing else just going down to the area is good for me and I'm sure we will see the Amish out working out in their fields and many other beautiful sites.

I almost forgot I "for sure" will be looking for baby girl things.  :)

My Big Helper

Brandon and Derek stayed last night and Brandon left early this morning to go with his uncle for the day.  Derek who is 6 stayed and spent the rest of the day with me.  I had a lot of cleaning I was going to do and he LOVES to help.  We took a lot of my Etsy/Ebay stock out of the room I keep it in, went through the stuff and reorganized the stuff, added another shelving unit and it looks 100% better in there.  We then burnt some boxes and garbage, had a lunch break and then back to work.  We folded clothes then he vacuumed the whole house and vacuumed the furniture.  I was sweeping the kitchen with a broom and he wanted to know why I was doing it the old fashion way.  I asked how they swept their kitchen and he said they turn off the rug beaters on their Dyson and vacuum it.  I didn't know using a broom was considered "old fashion".  Ron didn't do the dishes yesterday and he made me do them for him.  I was running the water and went to see how he was doing with vacuuming the bedrooms and forgot I left the water running and came back to the water running and luckily was overflowing into the other side of the sink.  Of course he had to tell grandpa and cousin Ian about it at the supper table.
When Ron got home he went out and helped him put another window in the turkey coop.  He was the boss, a working boss.  He helped cut with the jig saw, caulked, screwed the window in and helped with the trim.  After supper he just started cleaning the table and told Ron we need to get this done so we can get the chickens and turkeys some water.  When he starts a job he finishes it completely.  He is not like most 6 year old's.  He has a great attention span when it comes to doing things, better than some adults and a whole lot better than his 15 year old brother.
I noticed he is always saying we need to "just get r done".  He works with his dad all the time in the garage.  He would drive his dad nuts about getting out to the garage ever since he was just a couple years old.  When he was about 4 he kept asking to go out to the garage to do some work and Tony just wanted a day off of doing things so he told Derek it was the "Garage's" day off.  Derek was upset but finally got over it.

Derek relaxing after his hard day of work.