White and Red Farms

This week as we've travelled through the Lancaster, PA countryside, my pocket-size digital camera has always been along too. Like fellow blogger Sandra, MadSnapper, I've been shooting lots of photos, just because . . . 

This area is surrounded by numerous working farms, and I tried to capture as many as possible while Grenville drove.

Nearly every farm had a herd of dairy cows and other livestock.

Most of the farm buildings were white, so a challenge was to look for another color, like red.

Back from the Battle

What battle you ask???? The Battle of the WEEDS of course. Last year they really got away from me so this year i started early. No mulch this year, just a weekly run through the beds with my ‘Hula Hoe’.

The Early Girls are living up to their name. Today was a pruning day so all the tomatoes look great.

 

Our neighbor traded us a Cherokee Purple for some Rutgers. We have never tried this tomato so  stand by.

 

 

Amazingly we are getting carrots this year. We have never been successful with them, so this is another ‘stand-by’. We have been eating lettuce, spinach, and scallions so far. With luck the little bit of corn i planted will be ready for 4th of July. That’s it behind the squash and cucumbers that are learning to climb the fence i gave them. In the fore ground is zucchini, yellow squash, and then the cuc’s. Behind the corn is butternut squash. As soon as the corn is done pumpkins will go in where they are.

Our day lilies are starting to pick up, especially in the front where the colors are purple (Beatrice’s favorite) and yellow.

We bought more this year and they are out in the new meadow. Some are blooming already this year, but we expect most to wait till next year to bloom. Even so, the meadow is really taking shape this year. I realize that it looks like a bunch of weeds, BUT if you look hard you can see some of the pink and red cosmos. Latest barn project is an extension on the side of the barn to get some equipment under cover before winter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will be a pole-barn style lean-to on what was a small patio, so the cement blocks are already there. I’m hoping to finish this next week before the hot weather returns. This past week has been in the 80’s and today only made it to 78F. It’s 65F as i type, so i’m happy to say the A/C is off (no pun intended AC) and the windows are open. So if you don’t hear from me for a while, just check near the barn, or out in the back. I hope everyone is having a good gardening season like we are.

Grenville

GSMNP Mountain Farm Museum

The Mountain Farm Museum is a collection of 10 historic log buildings located at the Oconaluftee Visitor Center at the entrance to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) on U.S. Hwy 441 near Cherokee, NC. The park assembled buildings from throughout the Great Smoky Mountains to create the farmstead which has a house, barn, apple house, spring house, chicken house, corn crib, blacksmith shop, and meat house. Other buildings include a hog pen, sorghum press, ash hopper, woodshed, and out house.The museum is based on a typical 1880s mountain farm in pioneer Appalachia. It’s open year-round and admission is free. In season, park staff and volunteers demonstrate how families may have lived 100 years ago. Gardens are planted during the spring and summer, and barn fowl roam the premises.

Most of the structures were built in the late 19th century and moved to the park in the 1950s. Because most of them were not moved from their original locations intact, they are ineligible for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places.

The John Davis Cabin was built in 1900 and originally located on Indian Creek several miles to the west above Bryson City. John Davis moved to the area in 1885 to free-range his livestock. The cabin was constructed with matched chestnut logs joined with dove-tail notches. The house is a rare chance to view a log house built from chestnut wood before the chestnut blight decimated the American Chestnut during the 1930s and early 1940s.

The Enloe Barn was built around 1880 by Joseph Enloe, grandson of Abraham Enloe who owned the land where the museum is now found. This large barn housed livestock in its lower stalls and grain and fodder in its lofts. The roof consists of over 16,000 hand-split shingles.This is the only structure that was originally located in Oconaluftee and moved only 200 yards from its native spot.

The Messer Apple House,was built by Will Messer of Cataloochee, a valley located in the park on the other side of Cataloochee Mountain to the east. At its original location, the apple house was partially underground to help insulate it from summer heat and winter cold.

The meat house (not shown) was moved from Cataloochee. To cure meat (usually pork) and give it flavor, a small fire was built just inside the meat house, exposing the meat to several hours of smoke.

The Baxter/Jenkins Chicken house was built by Willis Baxter in the late 19th century and originally located in Tennessee. Chicken houses were used to protect chickens from carnivorous animals.

The blacksmith shop was built around 1900.

The springhouse was used by farmers for refrigeration.

This is one of two corn cribs, built around 1900, that were moved from north of Bryson City. Corn crib roofs were raised to place the recently-cut corn crop inside protecting it until it was ready to be taken to the mill.

It’s been a quiet week in Lake Onleybegone!!!

Tuesday was a big step forward at the “Historic Onley Station”. We started constructing the first model train table for our new kid’s program “Play With Trains”. This is a version of a program which started in Danville Pa. http://aaahgraphics.webs.com/wcengineerhome.htm. Ours will be open to all kids, regardless of age (even older kids like me). Wednesday evening, thanks to Chief Engineer Dennis, the board was finished, the track was layed, and the first test run was accomplished.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thursday the ‘Historic Onley Station’ got a new sign designed like a main  line Pennsylvania Railroad station signs. The original sign was ‘lost’ many years ago, so our group, Society for the Preservation of the Onley Tran Station, Inc. (SPOTS) had a new one made. For more info click here http://onley-spots.blogspot.com/

Planting season is always a busy time here. The  tilling was finally finished Thursday and Friday a large lump in a neighbors yard was ‘tilled off’. The babies in the green house are all doing well and are getting anxious to make their debut.

  

 

 

                 With luck they will get planted Monday. That gives them a week to get watered in before having to survive a week on their own.

You might remember the story of the Maple tree we took down in front of the house, who’s chips are now part of the new “Butterfly & Hummingbird Meadow”. The spot where the tree was finally got spruced up and seeded with wild flowers (what else).  It will be a while before we see any results.

Friday started out with the simple job (not) of giving our hedges along our property line their annual trim. We are not ones who have the perfectly trimmed hedge row let alone a sculptured ‘Topiary’. While this may sound like a simple task you must understand that trimming 9 foot hedges are anything but simple, especially if you missed trimming last year (don’t know how that happened). To do ours our 8ft farm trailer has to be hitched to the tractor, Beatrice drives really really close to the hedges, I stand in the trailer with the electric trimmers with a long cord trailing me, and off we go. The project went very smooth. Beatrice even took a turn with the trimmer (and didn’t cut the cord). Unfortunately Saturday Beatrice went back and lopped off the last tall ones that we missed, then said “Could we take out that crape myrtle tree in the middle?”. Well out came the chain saw and down came the offending tree. This left a gaping hole in the hedges, luckily at the end of the row. THEN Beatrice said “Maybe we should just get rid of the stumps and last hedge”. Well out came the John Deere and removed the offending stumps. For some pics of this operation see her post. 

Saturday was a great day for planting anything according to the Farmers Almanac. So 8 rows of corn, 1 hill each of cucumbers, yellow squash, and zucchini went in (forgot the Butter Nuts) Lettuce, spinach, beets, beans, carrots, and leaks, were next to get planted. Next week the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant should be hardened off enough to plant. And what are tomatoes without some fresh Basil and a little mozzarella. So now it’s just a matter of waiting. Till then  there is asparagus and strawberries to hold us over.

Till next week, be kind to someone in need. Grenville.

Tilling Times

A couple folks asked about my dear friend John Deere.Well he is a 23 hp diesel with a 54” bucket, mid and rear PTO,  sometimes a 62” mowing deck, sometimes a 5’ pine rake, or a 200lb spreader, middle buster, or 4’ box grader. But for the past few weeks he has had a 4’ tiller attached. Spring and fall are big ‘tilling times’. This is a really mean combination. A friend of ours laughed when i told him about buying the tiller. Now you should know that he farms 1500 acres and has toys like 8 bottom plows, 12’ disc’s that have to fold up to go on the road. 12 row corn planters, and of course combines to harvest it all. When he stopped by one day and saw what i could do with the tiller on my little .75 acres (yes just 3/4 of an acre) he agreed that it was just what i needed.

So what have we been tilling? Well I'll till ya….

 

 

 

You remember earlier this week the new Butterfly Meadow. Today was tilling the bed for the Blue Berries we bought over the weekend. Besides removing the weeds i also had to till in 3 lbs. of pelleted sulfur to acidify the soil so the pH would drop from 6.5 to 5.5.

Somehow i got a little carried away and over tilled about twice what i needed. So after planting the three Blueberry plants we have, we now need to go back up to Tractor Supply again for 3 more (and maybe a bunny if Beatrice doesn’t notice :-) ] There was this pile of pavers left from when i expanded the asparagus bed and they were just begging to go somewhere pleasant and shady. Now these were magic pavers because they could sing. The problem was that they only knew one song, “Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me”. So there was just one spot for them, the orchard. Here is the picture tale.

 

 

 

 

 

Somehow i forgot the picture of the park bench that is now sitting on them between the apple trees. I wonder if Beatrice will share it with me??????

Last but not least was a quick planting of the Red Onion sets we got last weekend. This year i was smart and put  them at the end of a plot so they won’t be disturbed during the crop rotation later in the season. I’m always amazed how these almost dead looking things turn into such wonderful tasting delights. Now it is time for ICE CREAM. I’m not sure whether to eat it or put it on my sore back????