Cool season crops

Hat, gloves, mud-boots, seeds, well tuned tiller, basic garden plan, hoe, rake, shovels, garden hose, string, marker, stakes, watering can, straw, bone meal, compost,...and "we'rrrrre off!" Spring gardening has begun. yeh!

" Inch by Inch row by row we're going to make this garden grow" and enjoy a day together outside. Tonight it will be aspirin for aching muscles. As the garden shapes up so does the body...I hope...LOL.

I do believe gardening is good exercise for the brain, body and soul. Gardening seemed to work well in all of these aspects for Thomas Jefferson, maybe it will do well by us too.

We are taking a different path this year with house garden.

"Busy Bees"

The Honey Bees are finding every little blossom at Hickory Green Farm. All of the boxwood were humming on Saturday and when we took a closer look we could hardly "beelieve" how many bees were on each boxwood bush.

"Highland Pearl of Hickory Green Farm"
explores the pasture for moles, squirrels, rabbits, deer....
Her job is to announce any intruders (human or critter) by barking loudly and
to protect plant material from other creatures (deer & moles)
Ohhhh there are just so many great smells for Pearl to hunt now that the earth is warming up!



Sharing the joy of spring.

Signs of the time...

Through the brown blanket of leaf mulch ...

From earth and log new life is rising up.

Golden crowns are radiant in the glorious sunshine.

and the woodlands are carpeted in blue.

The Lenten Rose is swaying in the breeze.

Quince brightly beckons

the honeybees to collect pollen and nectar.

All of these beautiful signs

indicate that seed planting at Hickory Green Farm is immanent.

Yes! These are the signs I have been waiting to read all month.

Old Man Winter

Old Man Winter says, "One more for the Road" Friday morning.

The calender and seed packs we have indicate this weekend is perfect to start planting cool crop seeds. Yes!....no not quite yet according to the wet & cold reality. So, off to the farm store on Sunday to get more chicken feed, bird seed, a new rain gage, 2 cycle oil...more preparations in anticipation of planting days. I know in my heart that spring is on it's way under this blanket of snow thanks to the determined daffodils, blooming swamp maples, winter Jasmin, and swelling peach buds. In observation there are many signs of good things emerging this season.

Weather Ballon Extraction

The weather balloon was successfully removed by the wonderful Powhatan county fire dept. at the request of the National Weather Service. Thursday while at work I received several phone calls from the National Weather Service and Powhatan county dispatch letting me know the status of the weather equipment extraction from the Trees at Hickory Green Farm. All of the service people involved worked as a team with the best dispositions and professionalism. The weather is so important to many professions, but especially to farmers. We really appreciate the scientist that try to help us understand and be good stewards of this beautiful earth.

*Wish I had a video of Pearl "greeting" the fire dept. (barking her tail off) through the dinning room window on her bench. LOL She had a perfect view of the extraction from her window.

Ross and I intend on accepting the invitation to visit the weather station and watch some balloons being launched. This has been a fascinating experience for us both. Thanks to Steve & Bill at the Weather Service and to the Powhatan Sheriff's Dept., and the Powhatan County Fire Dept. there are a lot of good things happening in our community.

hummmmmmmmm ... What...is...that...

Randi, "goodness that must be a new honey bee contraption of Dad's...what is next for these honey bees?"

Halsey, "Oh my I think we should call the sheriff...it has a box attached to 100' of rope 80' up into another tree and a test tube attached to a huge balloon...whats in the box....get the binoculars....Ross what do you think...?"

Ross, "Yea call the sheriff...look at that yellow stuff in the test tube...how are we going to get that stuff down...call the national weather service too....my binoculars are not strong enough to read the letters on the box...lets see what the sheriff says..."

Conclusion: after the sheriff came out he said, "hum... this is a first for me....but I'm going to call someone I know who works for a weather station .... Yea this fits the profile for weather balloons coming out of Blacksburg. We may have to help get it down with the fire dept. give the National Weather service a call and have them call the county if they need help getting this out of your trees." He left us with the NOAA number.

Of coarse we called NOAA and talked to several people and Stephen from the Blacksburg office had us e-mail a few pictures to NOAA for ID . They are working on a plan for retrieval so that the equipment can be returned to Kansas where they recondition the equipment connected to the balloon to use again. Stephen invited us the visit the weather station for a tour and observation of a weather balloon launch for our efforts.

Oh by the way the yellow stuff in a the test tube it holds a antenna in place for the balloon tracking equipment.

This is so ironic as much as Ross watches the weather.
Stay tuned to the weather balloon retrieval experience.

"Goes to show ya:" If you are observant sometimes really interesting experiences come from out of the BLUE when you least expect it.

Beauty & the Beast...Snow Storm

A beautiful beast.

Crystal clear blue sky reflecting on the snow

The orchard in a vale of glitter.

Turkey Tracks.......beast

Honey bee hives....."beauties"

A new dawn.

Now come on Spring!!!

Have your Cake & Pie and eat them too.

Cooking is so fun when there is no time element and because there is plenty of physical work when it snows you can eat with out guilt. You can have your cake and pie and enjoy every bite. Before we lost power I made "Ahh-ha cake" and healthy chicken pot pie from scratch. The best is cake for breakfast when there is no power. It makes no power much easier. Coffee brewed over the open fire is a little strong but perfect with cake.

Savory Chicken pot pie has the protien to carry us through all of the wood "tote-n" (Ross's slang) and snow "shovel-n". See you really need all of these calories in snowy weather to survive.

Intertaining with out electricity

After enjoying the views of the beautiful snow covered forest and fields we loaded the fireplace with wood, then we needed to entertain our brains and distract our brains (AKA - attitude improvement mission) from a lack of electrical power so..... Ross had given me a hand crank sewing machine for Valentines a few years ago and we set it up on the coffee table near the fireplace and began to sew some little rectangles together. Yes I said we.....

We set up a system of me sewing and Ross clipping threads and Pearl supervising. This was my initial plan to distract us from the cold that was slowly but surely going to become hard to bear. Who new we would have a record breaking cold weather without heat in our home? I was determined to take this challenge with the best and most constructive attitude I could in honor of prior generations who had lived life in more primitive conditions than I had ever had.

Conclusion: My ancestors where better prepared than we are and I'm physically not in good enough shape to handle no power for 48 hrs+ when it is 4 degrees outside even with my best intentions.

Fooled by Mother Nature

4:00 pm It is still snowing. I guess Old Man Winter is really back for a visit. I may make some snow cream tomorrow, but I will miss sharing it with Randi.

2:30 Pm March 1, 2009 Looks like a real snow for Central Virginia.

I'm going to quilt after checking on the bees with Ross and Pearl.

1:00 pm March 1, 2009

Laugh out loud! Mother Nature fooled me. We are making some "Comfort food." Home-made Chicken Pot Pie & "A-ha cake", for a big mid day dinner in case we loose power later on our bellies will be full. First we will stack wood on the back porch, build a fire in the fire place, fill all tea pitchers with water, start some laundry and check on the bees. Of coarse Pearl will assist with all of our snow preparations.

Feb. 16th feels like Spring. The Pussy Willow bush is nearly in full bloom. Ross and I have been pruning dead limbs and planting little saplings. Being outside is so refreshing. Bulbs are begining to emerge from the leaf mulched earth.


The pasture is greening up with clover and you can feel and smell the soil warming up today. I've noticed a few swamp maples in thier garnet vale of Spring blossoms. Good food for the honey bees initial flights this spring.

We are anticipating our first planting and looking for signs of previously planted perrenials. Spring is near. Deep sigh.