Already Hot & Dry

What a difference this Spring already is as compared to last Spring! Last spring we had rain ..... after rain ...... after rain. Yes, we usually do get a lot of rain in the Spring, but last year was a record breaker. If you set aside all the damaging flooding, it was great for many gardens. You ran out, planted a few things (especially for people like me that had been using the no-till method of gardening), then it rained and watered it in.  What didn't flood or wash away (I think my okra ended up in the next county), grew like crazy! It was such a great year for those crops that need lots of water and it is usually too dry for them.

All that rain also greatly interfered with getting my farm (Granny Annie's Farm) moved. My driveway (and the road going to my house) stayed so wet and muddy that there was one long stretch after another (sometimes weeks) that we could not get a vehicle/trailer in to move my stuff out with. Although all that rain was great for growing stuff, it really cost us in personal possessions.

Now I am here at David's, we are starting our first garden totally together but ..... where is the rain? Even today it was supposed to rain but has now been pulled out of the forecast. The lack of rain is great in the sense that we still have mountains of my belongings outside, covered over with plastic and tarps (which the wind keeps blowing off) until we can get enough storage space to organize it all, but the garden and fruiting trees and bushes badly needs rain to produce food for us. A good balance would be fantastic right now!

I think this has been the most yo-yo weather I have seen this early in the season. Our last possible freeze date has always been about April 1st, but we had a really hard freeze just a couple of nights ago, followed by another light freeze the next night, then hot during the day. As I type this post, it is in the mid 80s! Yet another problem all of this creates is that, although some of the trees are beginning to leaf out, not all of them are and the ones that are are just starting to leaf out. This means that in the hot, dry sunshine, there is no shade for anything to escape the heat in the middle of the day! So I am finding myself dragging out every old sheet (and some not so old) and large pieces of lightweight cloth I can find to try and create some shade for all of our critters (and us). I have to wonder how much of this odd weather is created by Mother Nature going through changes . . . . and how much of it is created by man's stupidity.  I have read that, even though El Nino is pretty much through, it is supposed to get worse in our area before it gets better, but then I also have to wonder how much is blamed on that to shift the blame away from man's stupidity. We may never know. I think we need to just make sure, now, that we are always prepared for ANY kind of weather, any time of the year.

Thanks for stopping by and reading our post. Have a FANTASTIC day!

PHARMACY FRIDAY - Gotta Do Some Checking

 Howdy, Everybody! As you have seen this week, we are back and trying extra hard to get back on track with our blog. I absolutely love doing this Pharmacy Friday segment, but lots of things can change and happen when you are away for even a short time, not to mention a long time.

There seems to be a lot of crack downs all over the net and in person (here in the USA) as to what we can and can't say .... talk about .... claim .... etc, when it comes to discussing anything in the way of natural and/or self healing. Personally, I think that is a HUGE violation of our Freedom of Speech, but there just aren't enough people fighting it, so until then, they are getting away with it.

It angers us (to put it mildly) that this is happening, yet at the same time, we do not want to end up in jail, lose what farm we have, etc, so before we continue this segment of our blog, we need to research and catch up with how we can/can't word our posts on this subject (grrrrr.....!!!!), what we can and can't discuss, etc. UNBELIEVABLE!

Basically, it looks like it is all in how you word it. (yep, another freedom lost) But I will continue this segment of our blog .... continue to bring you great posts filled with ideas and information that you can use for yourself. For crying out loud .... last week I was told by a friend that I can't even reference sites that have done scientific studies on an item and say that it was scientifically proven to have "the following" benefits. Anyone know more about that?  I am not liking all of this. It is just wrong!

Thanks for reading and have a fantastic weekend!

WW - Flowering Peach

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I am linking with Wordless Wednesday.

TIGHTWAD TUESDAY - ReUsable Tissues

Once Upon a Time, people called them Handkerchiefs. Now people call them the Un-tissue, or the Reusable tissue, or the Washable tissue...... you get the idea.  However you want to look at it, or whatever you want to call it, it is a tissue that will save you money, not to mention it probably contains much less chemicals than the paper type, which is much more gentle on our skin.

I found an old, white sheet at the flea market. It had some wear and a small hole on one end so it was only 50 cents! It was soft and perfect for making the homemade tissues I had been wanting to make.

I laid a purchased, paper tissue down on a large piece of paper and traced it off, adding about a half inch seam allowance on each side (all four sides - how much you add depends on how large or small you like to make your rolled hems). I then used this pattern to cut out many tissues from the old white flannel sheet. I can't remember how many I got from this one little sheet, but it was at least a couple of dozen!

With needle and thread in hand and a good crime show episode pulled up on my computer, I sat and hand stitched a rolled hem on all four sides of each tissue. (I packed my electric sewing machine away when I moved and I am going to try just hand sewing for a year).  The one on the left is the paper tissue.... the one on the right is the cloth tissue.

That's it! It is finished and ready for a good, old-fashioned tear jerker movie.  And oh, so soft! These cloth tissues (especially from old, softly worn sheets) don't make my nose nearly so sore as the paper ones do, like when you have a cold and are constantly wiping and blowing your nose. They also don't contain the irritating chemicals and perfumes that the paper ones do.

What about washing them?  The flannel seems to wash very well. I have never had a problem with them coming clean, but I have had a little problem, now and then, with getting other types of cotton fabric completely clean, but very rarely and if you stick to light fabrics, they bleach out nicely.

These handmade, reusable tissues also fold nicely and can be put into the same dispensers as their paper look-alikes. They even fit into the travel packs just like the paper travel ones do. It is simply all in how you fold them.

   May your tissues turn out beautifully, but may you also seldom need them. Happy sewing and thanks for reading this post!

Aaaaannnnddd We are BACK! ! ! ! ! . . . . again.

Howdy, everybody! ! ! ! It has been a very long time since we have been able to make posts on this blog and interact with everyone here in Blogger land. We have missed you all soooooo much!

For a long time my computers were down..... and/or I was packing, moving ... or just in a deep depression because I was illegally losing my house and property and everyone involved were total, hateful, spiteful idiots. I also had some long periods of sick spells and exhaustion.

Dave, too, had some seriously long sick spells, has been exhausted from trying to keep up with work, his farm, moving my farm, and helping me fight all the stupid battles that came with it. Then along the way, part of his computer died, also, which made being on here more than a few minutes pretty much impossible.

We finally have one good running computer, now ... AND .... I am finally HERE! I am FINALLY, permanently, here at Dave's Farm, with most of my farm (Granny Annie's Farm) so we are finally, FINALLY, officially ... Two Farms One!

Things are pretty crazy here as we begin to sort through everything that was moved in such a hurry and build new housing/pens for any animals that may still be in temporary pens and/or have outgrown theirs, along with planting the garden, planting fruit trees and bushes, adding new varieties of livestock, and trying to get to building our little house (we are in a tent until then but it hasn't been bad at all) but we have so many things we want to share with you .... SO MANY blog posts dancing around in our heads .... that we will absolutely have to make some time to get back to posting on this blog and catching up on many of yours, now that this computer and Internet are finally working.

Again .... we are sooooo glad and excited to be back! And we truly look forward to catching up with everyone!
Have a FANTASTIC DAY! ! ! ! ! !