https://www.petwantsclt.com/petwants-charlotte-ingredients/ Patty arrived mid-afternoon and proceeded to harvest the remaining vegetables under the threat of a hard frost tonight.  I really didn’t think there was much left, boy was I wrong.  I was up at the house when Patty rolled in with the ATV chock full of peppers, tomatoes, lemon balm, and fennel.  Later on Patty sautéed the fennel which I thought tasted wonderful, although she had some misgivings that it was well past it’s prime.

http://economiacircularverde.com/que-es-la-economia-circular/ I can confirm that the hot peppers are REALLY hot!

We originally planned and designed our raised bed garden to accommodate nine 4’x12′ raised planters.  We decided to only purchase three to start out just in case we came to the conclusion that gardening wasn’t our thing.  By July after our first harvests were coming in and we excitedly shared some of the bounty with family we both decided to go ahead and order the other six beds.  Life overtook us for the next two months; vacations, start of college, etc.  Well we’re finally getting around to it.  My Dad helped me with the forklift attachment and tractor to get the pallet from the barn down to the garden and I spent the day assembling the sides of four beds.  Next steps are to put on the trim, fill with garden soil and setup the irrigation system.  Excited to finish this and to see what the garden will be like next year.

Yes, you read that right, our ‘farm’ cats typically follow us when we go for walks.  

We love going on walks around the property, definitely one of our favorite activities whenever we can do it.  This particular morning we were able to go about 3.5 miles on the various paths, and hit less than half of the available trails.

Turnips are really coming up, not so sure about rye and clover.  Still a long time til rifle season, we’ll see…

After 2+ weeks of rain/mist/clouds today was the perfect day to light up the brush pile we’ve been accumulating for the past year.  Not the biggest one I’ve torched, but a decent size.  After calling Orange County EMS center and the neighbors to notify them about my plans I proceeded to douse the pile in diesel and light it up!  Took a while to really get it going as it was really wet, but once it got going it burned  until late in the night and was smoking all the next day.

FINALLY found time to plow/disc/fertilize and plant some food plots on the property.  I bought a really nice single bottom plow off Craigs List and after some adjustments worked really well.  Unfortunately there was a buried tree stump half-way through the area I was going to plant which immediately broke the shear pin and put an abrupt halt to my plowing activities.  I ended up only discing the other half, so this will be a good test of how much soil prep is necessary.

I planted turnips, and a mixture of rye/clover/brassica.  Lots of rain this week so I’m hoping to see a good crop coming up soon.

Took us two days, me providing labor and my lovely wife doing the organizing.  This was LONG overdue, stuff has slowly but surely accumulated over the past 7 years with little thought going into organization and whether it even belonged in the garage in the first place. The workbench was the worst part!  Now look at it, you can actually find things. Patty bought clear storage bins, organized and labeled, just outstanding. I’ve been able to find things I forgot I even had! We also hired dumpsters to throw out things that were just cluttering the garage. Most of the times, we have to let go of our stuff and other belongings. Then, the biggest project of all was the garage door. Since the winter, it wasn’t closing as smoothly as it did. We had it checked by a garage door technician and they determined that it needed a garage door repair. So we looked for a reliable garage door service and took care of that.

After this, we also spent a good part of spring break cleaning up the place and also opening the pool. Me and Patty worked pretty well as a team pulling out bushes, trimming hedges and generally getting the place squared away. Now, the garage looks much better and we find ourselves getting the things we need much easier.

Had almost everyone down for Patty’s birthday which coincided with labor day.  Had the pool temperature cranked up for the birthday girl, 94f!  Had a huge bonfire Friday evening to kick off the weekend.

The evening of the birthday celebration turned rainy, which I thought was going to be disappointing, but it turned out completely different.   We all sat on the porch talking, sharing stories, and later did the same around the kitchen table.  I liked that, and Patty said the same, a very nice weekend.