Exactly one year ago we had a killing freeze. With that memory of ruined tomato plants that we had grown from seed in mind, we are being very cautious about putting out plants too early. Hopefully, by this weekend it will be safe. Today we are giving the plants a shot of sunshine and fresh air, but will move them back into the shop in case tonight is still cold.
Echinacea, cucumber and tomato plants.
The tomato plants are doing well…they are 12″ high!
Some of the echinacea plants are doing well. Who knew they would be so hard to get started! (The three large plants in the middle of the small ones came from the plant sale last weekend!) They will be planted along one end in the garden and hopefully come up each year.
The cucumbers that we planted just a few weeks ago to get a head start are huge. We’ll plant the rest of the seeds directly in the garden.
I went to the Plant Sale last Saturday and picked up most of the herb plants I wanted. It was a cold, damp day but the sale was busy.
I found Thyme, Rosemary, Lemon Balm, Regular Basil, Purple Basil and Spearmint.
The Spearmint will go into a big pot on the patio. The other herbs will be in the small raised garden with the Chamomile that is already perking up from last year. You can sort of see it at the far end of this garden.
This year we are trying out a new raised planter that Steve and Kathy have designed and built. It sits right outside the patio door so I can keep an eye on it. I planted two kinds of lettuce and radishes there a week ago and they have already popped! This planter is also easy to cover right now if it gets too cold.
Bert is rototilling the garden today and the sun is shining. Soon it will be time to get out there and really dig in the dirt!
Please comment or email me directly if you have questions: marykisner@comcast.net! Enjoy!
We’ve had over 1/2 inch of rain since we set up the rain barrels on April 27, 2021. That’s 10 days! The rain barrels were probably full after the first rainfall, but today was the day Bert got around to pump them up to the holding tank in the garden. I tried to document all the details of the equipment he used, but hopefully you’ll get the gist of the process.
First, Bert put one end of a long garden hose into the holding tank in the garden. Then he ran the hose down the hill to the little pump sitting behind the shop. He says it’s about 100 feet.
This is the first barrel he will pump. He removed the lid and screen. You can see how much pollen and junk the screen collected. The red hose on the side handles the overflow if the barrel is full
And the barrel is definitely full!
The first batch of water to go up to the holding tank gets about a cup of Clorox added to keep bacteria from growing in the tank.
This is the motor he uses. It’s a 1 HP Portable Lawn Pump. It pumps the water about 100 feet uphill at 70 psi.
Here are the various hoses and cords ready to assemble.
The garden hose (red) is in the foreground. Bert is holding a siphon hose. It is larger around than the garden hose and has a quick-attach adapter.
This is the other end of the siphon hose…called a foot valve.
He fills up the siphon hose with water.
Once the hose is full, he quickly attaches it to the motor. He also adds water to the connector on top of the pump which primes the pump housing.
Hard to see in this picture, but then he loosens the bleeder valve to release any air in the pump.
Next, he attaches the garden hose to the motor and tightens it. He also tightens the bleeder valve.
The other end of the siphon hose goes into the barrel. He tucks the hose between the barrel and the supporting wooden stake so it doesn’t come out while it’s working.
And then, he turns the motor on!
In 8 minutes or so, the barrel is almost empty. He quickly turns off the motor so it doesn’t suck air.
The lid and screen goes back on the barrel and it’s ready for more rain!
Bert picks up the motor and hoses and moves them to the other rain barrel to repeat the process.
When he’s done with that, he goes up to the garden and removes the garden hose. The holding tank is now about 1/3 full (about 120 gallons). It holds about 360 gallons.
Whew! I learned a lot today. We should have a full tank by the time we transplant our seedlings.
Thanks for following this story. If you have any questions leave a comment or email me directly at marykisner@comcast.net. Enjoy!
Over a month ago, I bought a bag of nice small apples just to eat. The bag ended up in the garage temporarily while I was doing other things in the kitchen. I totally forgot to reach for them…out of sight, out of mind! Needless to say, they still looked OK but the they were getting soft. Before they were too soft to eat (that’s called rotten!) I thought I’d just dehydrate them. I know we’d eat them that way as snacks! Here are the 15 small apples:
First, I had to uncover the dehydrator. Most of the year I keep it covered and store it right outside the back door. It is already plugged in and ready to go. We keep a board on top to protect it from damage because that seems to be the place where we pile things…stuff to go out to the shop, packages delivered by UPS, etc. I went out to take a picture of it before I uncovered it…and sure enough, UPS had dropped off a package already this morning!
Then I pulled out the manual to check how long to dehydrate apples. They provide a color-coded map to help determine how long to dehydrate foods, based on location and season. Fruit should have 10 to 20% moisture content to store well.
For May in Pennsylvania, it said a range of 51 to 70% (indicated by yellow) or 71 to 80% (indicated by green) in the instructions. Then I look up Apples and find the yellow means 11 hours, and green means 13 hours. This is very important if I want to store them without refrigerating them.
So, curious challenge for today. It was already 2:00 p.m. when I finished peeling and I don’t like to leave the dehydrator running after I go to bed. At 9:00 p.m. I turned the dehydrator off and put the apples in a zip lock bag and put them in the refrigerator. They are still a little moist inside. In the morning I can always lay them out on the trays again and finish drying them for another 5-6 hours. I think we’ll just eat them!
Here’s the process to dehydrate apples:
After washing the apples, I made a bowl of lemon water to put the sliced apples into as I peel them. That will keep them from discoloring.
Then I laid the apples on the trays.
And put the trays in the dehydrator.
I set the temperature to 135 degrees.
After 7 hours, the apples were dry on the outside but still a little moist inside. They would need another 5 hours or so to be dry enough to store on the shelf.
Those 15 apples made a small pile of dried apples.
Next time I want to dehydrate apples, I think I’ll get larger apples and use the apple peeler/slicer attachment on my mixer…much easier! At least I didn’t waste this bag of apples and we have snacks for a few days!
One of the things I treasure from my parent’s generation was their foresight to save many written stories of their lives. Sometimes it was an envelope of letters from a loved one overseas, or stories they wrote for historical societies documenting life “back in the day” like my Grandfather did.
Sometimes, they specifically wrote “Autobiographies” with photographs, assembled in their later years. My mother had even saved a handwritten autobiography she wrote in high school (around 1926) that shared her life up to age 12 or so.
As I get older, I feel like I’ve let the next generation down. Somehow, I was never able to document my life adventures as it happened with daily journals. In 2013, I had written several letters to my grandchildren which summarized my early life. The first story, which I posted here on April 14, 2021, titled “Born in the middle of the story,” shared some of my earliest memories. This account of my visit to the pyramids in 1956, when I was just 9 years old, was the second story I wrote for them. After this, I’ll try to continue with more memories from years ago and build my “Book of memories from Grandma Mary.”
***
In 1956, when I was 9 years old, my family was visiting Cairo, Eqypt for a few days as we traveled from the Philippines to London. We had spent a year in the Philippines while my Dad worked at the University of the Philippines.
One of the places we visited was the pyramids and the Sphinx on the edge of the city of Cairo. I thought we were going to make a long drive out into the desert because in all the pictures I saw, the pyramids were way out in the desert. But the city had grown and was quite close by.
It was hot, noisy and unfamiliar. There were camels everywhere with colorful tassels, bells and blankets on them. When they walked the bells would jingle. The men leading the camels around offered to take us for a ride…for a price, I’m sure! My brother, Mark, wanted to take a camel ride. My sister, Jean, said she would sit on a camel. I wasn’t sure about it at all.
We went to some camels that were lying down on the ground. They didn’t look so big. First my brother got on the back of the camel. He didn’t seem scared at all. Then my sister tucked her skirt to look like pants (remember, in 1956 girls and women wore dresses not shorts in public) and got on another camel. Then I was lifted up to sit right in front of her. Much higher than I expected!
THEN the men had the camels STAND UP!
We were VERY high off the ground! The men holding the camels led us around a little. I held on tight but it felt like I was going to slide down the camel’s neck.
Finally, it was time to get off the camels. First, the men had to make the camels kneel down. The men took their canes and hit the camels in the back of their front knees to make them bend down. Of course, the camels didn’t like that! They made a terrible noise! It sounded like they had been hurt but the men didn’t seem to be worried.
Once their front legs were bent, they lowered their back legs to rest on the ground. Finally, I was lifted off the camel. What a ride!
Twenty years later I was teaching 5th grade in Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. That year we had a unit on Eqypt where we learned about the people who lived there long ago and built the pyramids. Most of the students had never seen a camel. In 1974 there was no zoo nearby. The students researched how big camels were and we built an almost-life-sized camel in our classroom. Bert helped by building a wooden frame. It was so big he had to build it in the classroom! Then we padded it with newspaper and covered it with paper mache’.
The students painted it brown and it was part of our class while we studied Eqypt. (I couldn’t find a picture of the finished camel.) We didn’t want to tear down our camel friend at the end of our studies of Eqypt so the floor under his belly became a cozy place to read. He kept us company the rest of the year!
***
Watch for more adventures from my past…posted under Around the Kisner Homestead: Memories from Grandma Mary.
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Today was a beautiful day to set up the rain barrels. Each rain barrel holds about 60 gallons of water. They collect most of the runoff from both sides of the shop roof so we put one on each far corner.
Bert stores the barrels in the shop in the winter. If water froze in the barrels they would crack so we don’t use them during the winter months.
Below you can see Bert has removed the bottom section of the spouting that runs out into the yard. The concrete slab is the base for the barrel. The post just behind it will be used to tie the barrel down…if the barrel is empty the wind can just blow it away!
The he adds a shorter extension up high that will funnel the water into the barrel. He said he had to add a little piece on the end to slow down the runoff so it goes into the barrel. Otherwise, it zooms straight past the lid of the barrel!
Here’s a close up of the extension. The small piece on the bottom edge is a flap that seems to do the job of slowing down the water.
Then there is a piece of screen that came with the barrel that is held down by the lid. This filters out big stuff like pine needles and bugs.
Then the lid (with holes in it) is screwed on to the barrel.
Finally, Bert ties a rope around the barrel and to the stake so it doesn’t blow away when empty.
He stores the spouting until fall.
This barrel is ready for rain!
On the other corner of the shop the steps are the same. Here’s the logo printed on the barrels.
Finally, when the barrels are full, he will attach a hose and use this little pump to get the water up the hill to the larger storage barrel. It holds about 360 gallons of water. Then we use that to water the garden.
Seems complicated, but we’re not hauling water to the garden and the plants seem to like the natural rainwater!
I’ll share more about the process of pumping the water when we do that. First…it has to RAIN!
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Today was a beautiful day…gives us hope for more days like this in the near future! I wanted to share a few pictures.
The garden plants that Bert started several weeks ago are coming along. The tomato plants will soon need to be repotted into larger pots. We still have a month to go before we risk planting them in the garden. Soon he’ll set them outside when it isn’t too windy.
The echinacea plants are struggling. We planted four different varieties and many did not even sprout. We’ll see what we get a month from now.
I wandered the yard and wanted to share that the redbud trees are finally in flower. They are especially pretty with the yellow goldfinches for contrast…but of course they fly away when I get too close.
Across the street the wild redbud trees are one of the first to blossom in the spring. They really show up when everything else is still brown.
The dogwood trees…in the foreground…are still waiting. That’s a good thing. We’ve had two nights of freezing temperatures, so for now their pretty white blossoms are safe.
Our son-in-law has provided us with a nifty planter to try. He’s experimenting with making them to sell to a local nursery. They are great for older folks that don’t (or can’t) get down to garden down low. I’ll use this right by the patio door for lettuce and radishes. They are not in the ground for very long and don’t have deep root systems.
We enjoy having our wind sock in the back yard. It’s pretty and Bert likes to know which way the wind is blowing before he burns wood in the shop.
Unfortunately, the weather is pretty hard on it and we’ve had to replace it more than once a year. This year he finally decided to go with a REAL wind sock like they use at the airport. Hopefully it will survive better this year. The neighbors must wonder if we anticipate low flying planes!
Bert has also recorded daily rainfall for 20 years! Imagine that! He reads the gauge every morning from March 1 to November 30. It has been helpful to know when to water plants because even though the weather folks might say we’ve had substantial rain, sometimes our specific location has had more or less.
It was time today to empty the compost pail. I notice when I buy a lot of vegetables like cauliflower and broccoli, I have a lot of vegetable scraps. I think we avoid an extra bag of garbage each week by composting.
The composter is made by the YIMBY Company (Yes In My Back Yard…cute name, right!). We have two of them. When one is full, we let it sit and start on the other one. Bert will rotate them both every week or two.
You can tell by the color of the grass in these pictures we have a beautiful lawn this year. Bert is cutting it today for the second time this spring.
We got a postcard in the mail yesterday advertising a plant sale at the Centre Furnace Mansion, sponsored by the Centre County Historical Society. Just the right time to see what’s available for the garden!
I hope all of you are having a great April day too. We may not have the earliest spring around here, but we certainly appreciate it when it gets here!
I spent the weekend with my daughter and family. When I visit, I try to bring along appropriate crafts for them to try. This time I loaded up my air dry clay and all the supplies to make air fresheners. I also wanted to try painting flat rocks like a Mandala. I assumed (never assume!) that they wouldn’t have any problem with those projects. Of course, my grandkids are almost 14 and almost 9 so I wasn’t sure if they would be interested either. I did discover that they loved working with clay and painting rocks, but didn’t necessarily make what I had in mind! Such fun!
Air Dry Clay
Anna faced with many choices!
We started with the air dry clay. I provided the clay and brought all my items to make impressions in the clay, round cookie cutters, and straws to make the holes for ribbon. I showed my granddaughter how to roll out the clay, make an impression and use the cookie cutter to make the finished circle cut out. Then I got out of the way. The hardest part for her was rolling the clay too thin. If the finished piece is too thin it will curl as it dries. So, I encouraged her to roll it thicker. She made some really cute items!
My grandson joined our project a little later and had his own ideas. He made two small pieces with impressions (one his own thumbprint) and then began working on his own idea…a skull, or head, with quite detailed facial features and hair. Quite the budding artist!
My daughter joined the party and enjoyed making some pieces also! She chose to leave two items without holes for hanging, suggesting she might put essential oil on them and slip them into a drawer.
Several things I learned, which will be added to my future instructions for the air dry clay…
…thicker pieces work better. The ones that were cut 3/8 inches to 1/2 inch thick dried fine and stayed pretty flat.
…as an alternative to hanging an essential oil freshener, you could slip a small disc with essential oil into a drawer.
…air dry clay can be fun for all ages no matter what they make!
Mandala Rock Art
The second project was to try to paint designs on some flat rocks. I purchased two kits at Barnes & Noble that had some rocks, some paint and an instruction booklet.
I thought the Mandala’s would be a good project for any age group. The rocks in the kits were not especially flat or smooth so I stopped at Michael’s and found a container of flat rocks for sale. I can’t believe I bought them…about 10 rocks ro $4.00! However, they were perfect!
I also picked up two sets of acrylic paint pens. This is what the pens looked like:
Before we started, I painted the rocks with some outdoor acrylic paint, thinking their designs would show up better on a white or dark background. I also wanted them painted ahead of time…waiting for paint to dry is tough!
Except for the three rocks painted with dots that my daughter and I tried, painting ahead of time was unnecessary. They ended up making animals or bugs, which involved painting the whole rock another color anyway.
So, what did I learn about painting on rocks?
…finding flat rocks that make good bases for paintings is tougher than I thought. Maybe I should find a better source if I’m going to do very much of this!
…the pens with acrylic paint worked very well but sometimes painting an all-over base coat works well. When the paint dried it was shiny.
…it works better to show lots of pictures of possibilities and let each person make their own design.
…I still think Mandala designs are fun. I’ll need to make more myself!
My weekend with the grandkids was fun. I wonder what I’ll try the next time?
One of the things I treasure from my parent’s generation was their foresight to save many written stories of their lives. Sometimes it was an envelope of letters from a loved one overseas, or stories they wrote for historical societies documenting life “back in the day” like my Grandfather did.
Sometimes, they specifically wrote “Autobiographies” with photographs, assembled in their later years. My mother had even saved a handwritten autobiography she wrote in high school (around 1926) that shared her life up to age 12 or so.
Ruth at Eleven.
As I get older, I feel like I’ve let the next generation down. Somehow, I was never able to document my life adventures as it happened with daily journals. I did discover I had saved about 12 years of Christmas letters I had written over the years. What a treasure! And this week, while sorting through photographs and computer files, I found my first attempt at my own autobiography. In 2013, I had written several letters to my grandchildren which summarized my early life. I needed the focus of who was going to read the letters and since my grandchildren were just learning to read, I thought about them as I wrote.
I started with an assortment of photographs, hoping to show how as the youngest, I was joining a “family” that already had had many experiences. For a long time that was confusing to me. My sister would say, “Don’t you remember when…?” and it turned out it was before I was born!
I’d like to share that first letter I wrote to my grandchildren. It might encourage you to write your own letters!
April 17, 2013
Dear Aislinn, Annika, Ben and Anna,
My life story started when I was born in 1946 in New Jersey. Since I don’t remember those early years, thank goodness I have a few pictures of me when I was very small. I was born into a family that had been around for quite a few years already. My parents had been married for 11 years and had two children. They had already lived in Minnesota and New Jersey and apparently (from the picture) had a cat!
Bixby family of four.
Before I was a year old, we moved to State College, Pennsylvania. I don’t remember anything my family did before I was born. I had seen pictures of my sister and brother with grandparents, uncles and aunts that I had never met.
Mark, Grandma Cora, Jean.
Here is a picture of my sister and brother with our Grandma Cora Bixby. She was my Father’s Mother. This Grandmother died before I was born.
All this is to remind you that your family had adventures long before you born. Have them tell you stories about some of those adventures! It took me a long time to realize that I had joined the family somewhere in the middle of the story.
Here are some other pictures that show my sister feeding me and my brother playing with me on my new tricycle. Even today…both of us over 65 years old…my sister sometimes calls me her “baby sister.” That used to make me so mad because I’m all grown up now. She remembers me as a tiny baby and thought I was cute. So, I guess that’s OK.
Mark, Jean and Mary.Mary and Mark.Mary at 8 months.Mary on third birthday.Mark and Mary.Bixby family of five.
So…do you remember any early events in your life? Sometimes you can remember a feeling but sometimes you only remember seeing the picture. Don’t feel bad if you don’t remember things like your parents do. As them what they remember from being a baby. And then ask your Grandma or Grandpa to tell you a story about that time and see if your Mom or Dad remembers that story.
Sometimes all they remember is seeing the picture and hearing the story! Your parents were born in the middle of a story too!
Here is a picture of Ted and Kathy playing with a laundry basket. Kathy was 1 year old and Ted was 2 1/2. Ask them if they remember doing this, or if they just remember seeing the picture.
Ted and Kathy.
Never forget, your life story started when you were born. You might not remember the first few years, but pictures can reassure you that you were part of the family from the beginning!
Love, Grandma K.
So, don’t worry if you haven’t kept a daily journal! You can begin documenting your life story now. Start with some pictures and create a story around them. Your children and grandchildren will treasure them forever!
Nothing like a few sunny days in March to get us in the mood to do SOMETHING in the yard. Bert was compelled to dig in the dirt, so it was time to take care of the sad lilac bushes. They have been there for over 40 years and hardly flowered anymore. In the tour of the grounds I posted on March 1, I had a photo of those poor bushes.
After digging and chopping some of the roots, Bert pulled out the bushes one at a time with the help of the truck and some chains. This gave us quite a view of the John Deere business up the road! The rototiller dug up more roots until Bert thought he could dig the holes for six Arborvitae bushes. It looks so much nicer! Of course, we may be long gone by the time they actually block the view up the road!
Check out the John Deere business up the road!I think Bert got these bushes at Lowe’s for about $40 each.
I like to check on the buds of the Dogwood trees along the front of the property. They still look pretty dormant, but the buds give me hope!
Dogwood buds are thinking about Spring…I hope!
Rain is expected today and temperatures are still too cool to do much more outside for a few weeks. Bert couldn’t help himself and found the seeds for the garden. He tries to start some of them around this time so by mid-May things are ready to go in the garden. In the past we have pushed the start date to early March, and that’s just too early. The risk of a late spring frost is pretty high until the third week of May around here. Last year we put our tomatoes in the ground around mid-May and of course, we had one final frost that killed them all in one night! Very frustrating! So hopefully the extra week delay will help.
Bert started our Super Sauce Tomatoes and the four different Echinacea seeds. We’re hoping that section of the garden will just reseed itself each year and we’ll have nice flowers for the bees!
We start the seeds in the shop under grow lights and that works well. The cucumber seeds will not get started for another month and the beans, carrots and beets will be planted directly in the garden about mid-May. I’ll add some herb plants from a local greenhouse as we get closer to May.
New seeds under grow lights in the shop.Echinacea seeds.Tomato seeds.
More later as Mother Nature wakes up. After the last year we’ve had, Spring is such a hopeful time!
I was craving some fresh greens in a salad over the weekend and decided to start some sprouts. While I like sprouts, I really wanted microgreens, which are just the tops of small plants without the roots. I was trying to avoid setting up the grow light and the proper trays…which forces me to rearrange my shelving by the patio windows. Soooo, I thought I’d start with the seeds I use to sprout to get them started.
Then I found my quart jar with the strainer lid that I use to start the seeds.
First, I measured out 1 1/2 tablespoons of seeds and put them in the jar. I added filtered water and let them soak overnight.
By morning the seeds were about twice their dried size.
I rolled the jar up in a tea towel and left it by the kitchen sink.
Each evening and morning I filled the jar with water about half way and swished the seeds around. Then I drained out the water, wrapping it up again with the tea towel. By the second morning the seeds had started to sprout.
By Day 3 the seeds were doing well. More swishing and draining.
By Day 4 it was time to green up the sprouts. I could have just set the jar in the light and by the Day 5 I would have green sprouts to eat. Since I wanted microgreens, I gently spooned the sprouts into a flat sprouting box. I thought the roots would attach to the mesh and the plants would grow up toward the light. I was planning to spritz the sprouts with water as they grew. It sounded like a great idea!
However, by Day 5 the sprouts were struggling to do what I had in mind. The plants did not anchor well and because of the holes in the sprouting box, they also did not maintain the right moisture.
With microgreens, they should be watered from the bottom, not sprayed on the top. Now, I had a pretty sickly (and slimy) batch of sprouts/microgreens. YUK!
So, I guess I’ll do it the right way. First, I need to find my books about microgreens and unpack the grow light.
More on that in another post…soon!
Be willing to take a risk and try something new! All I lost was 1 1/2 tablespoonful of seeds and 5 days. Oh well, they will add to the compost pile just fine!
As always, feel free to leave a comment or email me at marykisner@comcast.net. Take a risk!
