How to build a cucumber trellis

Summer is here in the rolling hills of the Southern North and you can smell it in the air, hear it as the bumblebees are busy at  work, and see it in the peonies that have bloomed by the walkway. 

We are enjoying the longer evenings and early sunshine in the mornings.  Makes for getting up for those farmhouse devotions a little easier.

We’ve been visiting with Antionette and her family this week helping them get ready for their summer camp experience.

My rooster has been in the barn installing new horse stalls while and Antionette and I have been muckin’ around in the garden.

What is it about gettin’ our hands dirty that we get such satisfaction? And I mean dirty! We were dirty from head to toe….looked like we rolled in the chicken coop!

There is something sureal about gettin’ down in the dirt, planting those little seeds or small plants, packing them in just right, mulching them, and then standing back to look at our hard work while we water them.

Every day we go out to see how much they’ve grown, pick off that nasty little bug that thinks he can make lunch out of our newest seedling, and stand in amazement at how God works.

We planted a lot of different plants and one of them was cucumber.  I shared with Antionette that we could trellis the cucs and they would take up less room.

“Really”, she said. “Well, yes, really”, I cackled!

So, off to trellis land we go like two cackling hens!

We bought an 8ft piece of lattice, brought it home and had one of my young roosters cut it in 1/2.

Then we dug a trench, about 5 inches down by 4ft wide, with a flat blade.

Then we cut down some small posts the same height as the lattice and pounded those in the ground at each end and in the middle.

We then placed the lattice, long end up, into the trench and stapled to each post as you see here.

We filled in the soil tightly around the bottom, planted the cucs in two mounds and watered.

Voila, one cucumber trellis!

All for about 8 buckeroos!

Can’t beat that!

Gardening

We have spent the last week at a sweet  family’s home here in the Southern North.

Rolling hills

White horse fences

Halflinger Horses

Red Barns

 

Peonies and lavender

5 acre pond

Missionary quarters

and lots of room to roam.

We met this family on Home-school Blogger. You can visit them here.

Antionette and her family are the epitome of farmhouse chicks and a couple roosters.

They have 8 Haflinger horses, a dozen chickens, some barn cats, a few dogs, fresh eggs, and a lot of great chicks!

We  have been here for one week helping them put the finishing touches on their horse barn.  My rooster is doing the finish trim on the inside for a very rich and beautiful horse barn. Ha! Us chicks should be so fortunate!

The main Hens and I have been tilling up the ground for the gardens, planting corn, tomatoes, and peppers.  They already had other plants in the ground. 

We cleaned up the lines, mowed around the areas, pulled weeds and it is looking mighty fine!

Today is the day we get the ground ready for watermelons.  Off to buy a tarp to kill the grassy ground.

Technorati Tags: gardening,tomatoes,peppers,watermelons,horses,white fences,chickens

As the Rooster Crows

Flying over the suburbia countryside and I see one of my sweetest farmhouse chick friends is having her 50th hen party!

Woo-hoo! Happy 50th Lori Chick!

This is a tribute to my long time Henny Penny. 

Henny Penny, you and I met about 20 years ago.  WOW! How time flies…(no pun intended :))

We have really covered some ground! 

These are some of my favorite memories:

Lake Shore

Toe gear and cod fish

Trips galore

Late night talks

Tent dresses

Foot rubs

Camping surprise visits…..where is she!?

Fancy dinners

Talking about clouds hitting us on the head

Chicken breast as big as our infants

Our annual garage sale tradition

Prayer marathons

Wisdom sessions

 

Henny Penny, you have been a wonderful friend.  One that I could always count on to call me faithfully, to remind me to be true to who God made me, to help me pick out colors in my house, to garage sale with, to shop with (ya know ya don’t find anything w/o me!), to cry with, to laugh with, to remember to put our golf balls in the bucket with, to dream with.

I will miss you this 50th birthday.  May it be a day for you to remember.

A new season of stretchin’ those wings and flying. 

Just don’t forget to fly over my coop and smile.

Love you,

Mucky Clucky

Technorati Tags: happy birthday,50th party,chickens,henny penny,flying,shopping,memories,God,garage sales,coop

Farmhouse Chicks

This Farmhouse Chicks blog will hopefully entertain and educate you about us 4 farmhouse chicks and our 3 roosters. We live in a rural part of the country, down a paved road, next to a small country store.



My rooster said...."honey, if ya gotta live in the country it aint gonna be on a dirt road." He's kinda partial to a clean ride.



He found this property one very rushed day. He had come to the area to seek out a country plot for us. We lived in another state at the time and felt called back to his homeroost.

As he was driving down the "paved country road". He spotted a rickety ole' sign, half laying on it's side, swinging in the breeze just whispering on the wind...."stop, and look, I have treasures for you."



Well, that rickety ole' sign managed to accomplish it's task. He stopped. Got out. And stood in amazement.

Nothing but weeds and trees as far as he could see. Now, do weeds and trees sound very appealing to you?

Me neither!

But, my rooster is an incredible visionary. He could see past the 2 foot tall weeds and picture our roost.





So, off the roost he goes, flying back to me. Landing, he says, "chicky babe...I found our roost. You gotta see it. He pulls out the camera and there before me stood weeds and trees.

WOW! roostie.....that looks....scary....great! When do we fly?

The rest is history, as they say.

Enjoy our romance with and in the country. :)