Restoration of the Peace

Recently, the lovely Peace and Tranquility of HeartSong Farm was violently disturbed by the savage and murderous attack on my sweet young llama, Jagger, followed by an attack on me the very next day by the same dogs as I walked to my mailbox.  First shock, then anger, then a constant state of anger/shock took over my whole being until the following Sunday afternoon when I realized I could not let these feelings hijack me and erase everything I had worked so hard to create here in my own little piece of the World.

RESOLVED:  I will not allow the Evil That This Was to take control of my Joyful Existence here on HeartSong Farm. If I do, then the irresponsible neighbors win, and I lose.  I lose not only my Joy, Peace, Tranquility and Way of Life, but I will have allowed myself to be victimized one more time, and I will have lost my True Self. I feel like this has been a test by the Universe to see if I really have learned to stand up for myself, and my Self.  To see if I have really grown past the mental and emotional abuse that was my marriage, as I claim to have done.  A karmic reality test, mayhap?

Those first five days after Jagger's tormented death were spent in sleepless shock.  Thankfully, a week from the attack on me I woke up almost completely restored to my feeling of peace and tranquility after days of reaching out toward the strength and truth that would make that feeling happen.  Emails and phone calls from friends during the traumatic week helped me so much in regaining the wonderful atmosphere of my beloved HeartSong Farm.  Friends are definitely a Necessity of Life, aren't they?!

During that initial week following the attacks, I tried to find joy in my garden and with my remaining llamas.  I found I couldn't sit still long enough to find it.  Restless and unfocused at that point, weeding and cultivating and watering my garden was a chore instead of a pleasure.  And so the weeds had somewhat of a reprieve. Fortunately, we had quite a few nice rains, so that my lack of watering did not cause any harm to my vegetable plants.  I also had to keep my wounds clean and free from dust and dirt, so shearing the final two llamas was out of the question, as was mowing the yard.  Hanging my clothes on the line did little to lift my spirits, and I didn't even notice the heat and humidity coming through my open windows.

At this time, however, I can share that I have finally and successfully put all those negative feelings behind me, and I am once again at peace .... or at least 98% at peace .... I still have a twinge of fear several times a day, but the anger is gone and the fear that is left will just keep me on my toes, and will fade in time.

My longtime friend, Debbie, ordered Ben and me some pepper spray canisters from Amazon.com, and they arrived on the 19th with a message to "carry these and use them".  Yes, ma'am, I responded!  She said she likes my attitude!

My very own pepper spray, ready to use!

And for the time being, all is quiet on the Western Front, where the dogs and their owners live with their children. I was notified by animal control that the male dog had been released to the owners on the tenth day after the attack, with no evidence of rabies.  Nice to know!  I received my copy of the attorney's letter to the neighbors and it is eloquently written.  It states the facts succinctly, and is in no way combative or antagonistic. It states that they should not have contact with me about the situation, that I want to be reimbursed for my bills, and the pain and suffering of my young llama, and requires that the two dogs responsible be removed from the premises since nothing had been done to remedy the situation of the dogs getting out when I had originally requested it several times and several months ago. 

We have not seen either of the pit bulls in almost a week now, but I have heard dogs whining and yelping from inside the neighbors' home several times at night.  The people have mowed their lawn three times since returning from vacation (we haven't finished once!) but, since early this week, Ben and I have seen absolutely no outside activity over there at all.  We are grateful for the peace and quiet!

SO ..... are you ready for what is happening otherwise around here?!  I sure am ready to change the subject!

First harvest of 2014 Summer Season!  Two zucchinis, two patty pan
squash and one long bean.

Amidst all the drama around here with the pit bulls and their owners, that first week I was out in the garden only long enough to harvest the first veggies of the season.  At first I thought that I had left this zucchini on the vine a bit too long, but this variety of zucchini naturally grows much larger than the little skinny ones we see in the grocery.  I sliced these up and sauteed them with some purple onion and olive oil, then garnished it with grated Parmesan cheese and some slivered Greek basil from my garden. Talk about yummy! I later roasted the other squashes with a garlic, sea salt and olive oil drizzle in my little toaster oven and they were quite tasty, too.  Bring on the veggies, I say!  I am ready to enjoy!

The second harvest, last weekend:  beans, basil,
tomatoes, patty pan squashes, and the first yellow

squash of the season.

Yesterday's harvest:  crisp corn salad greens, a
tomato, and a couple of the patty pan squash.

Today's harvest was a few more beans, some Thai and purple basil,
a mess of chard.  This became my supper alongside some new

potatoes from my friend Judy's garden, and a small batch of the shelled

asparagus beans.

Shelled asparagus beans.  They seem to go through several color
stages as they grow in the pod.  The smallest looking much like a

black-eyed pea, then turning red, and finally black at the largest.

The asparagus beans are really growing fast now, and each measures about 26 inches in length.  I have discovered that you can either harvest them to eat as green beans, or wait a day or two and harvest them as shelling beans. I have already shared with you that one of my favorite things to do is hang clothes on the line to dry.  Well, another one of those favorite things is to shell peas and beans!

I do not know exactly why these activities bring me such joy, but they do.  I feel the same way when I am spinning, weaving and working with fibers and fabrics, as well as chopping and cooking in the kitchen.  They seem to cause me to stop and breathe slowly and experience what is going on around me, and to appreciate the little things that I love so much. The hectic pace of the world seems to slow down, and I am in a world of my own.

Blossom of the asparagus bean. They bloom early morning, and by
noon they have closed up.  The bees love them!

I harvested my garlic and was pleased enough with the results considering that I planted cloves from garlic bought at the grocery store just to see what would happen.  They are drying out on my back porch for a week or so in order for them to cure before using them.  I knew that the possibility of getting a large harvest was far less using the grocery store garlic due to the probability that they were a hybrid that would not reproduce well, if at all.  This is something that can be avoided by purchasing "sets" from a seed supply company.  

First ever garlic harvest on HeartSong Farm

In the fall, I will order and plant garlic sets, and that way I will be sure of what I will harvest come this time next year.  I can then save some of the smaller buds or cloves from that harvest to continue my year to year plantings. I must say, though, that the garlic I planted last fall was very easy to grow and if you have just a little bit of space for growing anything, and don't want to invest in purchased sets, it is well worth having fun growing some garlic from the grocery for yourself!  You can grow them in pots as well as the ground.

A new and quite interesting friend came visiting two Saturday afternoons ago to pick up some of my "rogue" chaste trees that the bees and butterflies love on my farm.  When Ellen arrived she said she would "just be here for 30 minutes, tops."  But two hours later, we were still having a wonderful time on the back porch sipping iced tea, swatting flies, and sharing stories before she left with 8 little trees to take home and plant for the bees!  We met through a mutual friend on Facebook.  Thanks, "Gracie Lou!"  And thanks, Ellen, for planting more trees for the bees! 

Crepe myrtles and the original chaste tree, quite large now.  You cannot see, but all of the above are just covered with honey bees, bumble bees, and several other varieties of bees.

One of the "rogue" chaste trees that pop up in my yard near the original tree.

Readers, are you doing your part for the bees?  They need us!  They really do.  On HeartSong Farm, two of the current bee attractions are the chaste tree and the crepe myrtles.  Butterflies are also attracted to these popular trees. Why not plant some in your yard to help attract and sustain our winged visitors?!   A list of bee-loving plants is forthcoming here on my blog, but for the time being you can "google" and discover them for yourself.  Be careful, however, where you purchase your plants!  I suggest to get them from a friend, neighbor, farmers market or a plant nursery because the major retailers such as Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe's (yes, my dear sweet Lowe's!) have plants that are treated with a substance that kills bees along with the actual pests the substance is touted to keep out of your garden!  Be wary!  Without bees there would be no pollination, and with no pollination, no good veggies to enjoy!

Chaste trees can be kept small and bush-like, or allowed to grow as tall as they can, which you can see is quite tall. It is best to trim them during the fall if you wish to keep them small.  They grow very quickly, and they have a second, smaller bloom in August.  I got my original one at the end of the season in 2001 at Sutherlands for $1.19 with no tag and no one knew what it was!  What a deal, huh?!

Butterfly on one of the small chaste trees in the pasture.  I should know the name of this winged lovely, but I can't think of it right now!

Tried to capture a photo of a Giant Swallowtail but it kept moving away from me, a bit wary of the human with her camera!

During this past week, I also spotted a kingfisher on an overhead line next to a large pond near the highway. Folks, I was overjoyed at the sight!  These interesting birds are solitary, and when I first moved here in 1998, I regularly saw one on my way to and from town.  After Hurricane Rita blew through here in 2005, I no longer saw it, and I was so sad.   So, this sighting has brought me immense joy to know that they have returned to my environment.    



AND, 

I have finally finished getting everything sorted out, filled out, applied for, and received, and I am now 100% ready to be on Medicare come July 1st.  It is a Rite of Passage, don't you know, and I am excited.  And, only 24 months to Retirement, Glorious Retirement!


And so, thankfully, Life is getting back to normal here on HeartSong Farm....

In and out of my garden

I hope that you and/or the mothers in your life have celebrated a wonderful day today, as I have.  Gifts and long phone calls, less humid weather with a nice breeze, clothes freshly washed and hung on the line, and several hours spent puttering in my new garden.

The last three weekends I have been quite busy outside in my vegetable garden, and I believe I have finally finished getting it in shape and completely planted, except for some of the white cotton seeds that will go in large pots out front away from the dark green that I planted in with the veggies.  After all this hard work, I can say that I am tired, but very happy about the results!

IN THE GARDEN

The patty pan (button) squash planted in one of the raised
bed containers after the black mulch cover was removed.

I must give an update on my findings with the use of the Patio Pickers Raised Garden Kit system that I reviewed a couple of posts ago (click here to view).  I kept noticing that quite a few of the squash plants in each of the three containers were wilting and looking quite sad.  Eventually, some had to be pulled.  Then yesterday I decided that maybe it had something to do with the black plastic mulch cover, because the potting soil around the plants seemed to be wet, not moist.  Maybe it was holding too much moisture in and causing the plants to literally "drown?!"  So, yesterday I removed the covers on each, and this morning and throughout the day as I checked on them, the little squash plants seemed to be recovering their strength.  In fact, I noticed several blooms on the zucchini this afternoon on my last jaunt through my garden.  I am encouraged.

I turned this old, unused Rubbermaid water trough into a raised 

bed for the muskmelons.

One of quite a few eggplants I am growing in containers this year.

Icicle radishes looking good in an old plastic window box, 

complete with a lizard!

And the "corn salad" is also doing well in a matching window box.

Tomatoes, marigolds and basil all in rows!  Okra and cucumbers are 

sprouting in the rows beyond, and soon the green cotton I planted today. 

One of my two old raised beds.

The other old raised bed.  This one has the winter crop of chard, garlic,

the Brussels sprout, rosemary and oregano .... with the new plantings of

marigold, cilantro, basil, frying peppers, pimento, lemon cucumbers, 

parsnips, and salsify.  

The parsnips are on the left and the salsify on the left.  I plan to plant

 more in mid to late summer.

Common Basil

Purple Leaf Basil, very similar to the common variety only with

lovely purple leaves.

Greek Basil, leaves a bit firmer and pointed.

Thai Basil, which has tiny pointed leaves and purple

flower spikes that remind me of salvia.  The fragrance 

is deliciously peppery!

Here is the "front garden" which consists of the original two raised beds and the bed with the fava beans of 

the winter garden.

And here is the new "back garden" which, up until two weeks ago, was Jagger's pasture.  Now it contains one raised bed up against the fence for the asparagus beans and new crop of chard, as well as a number of containers planted with the melons, more squash, and the eggplants.  Today, I planted some of the seeds for the dark bluish green cotton seeds at the left end of the raised bed.

OUT OF THE GARDEN
During the week, I noticed a new hawk on the telephone poles along the highway I travel regularly, to and from town.  I have come to believe that it is a broad winged hawk.  My first sighting was one afternoon, as I drove up to my mailbox on the south side of the highway, and a hawk was across the road and down just a bit.  I carefully walked step by step along the paved shoulder until I was directly across from it and took mental notes of the markings.  It was not one of my red-shouldered hawks as I had first thought!  It's head and beak were different (I'd say smaller), and there was no red on the shoulders, just shades of brown and golden brown.

It let me observe it for about 10 minutes, then one of those gargantuan chicken trucks passed by and the hawk flew to another pole down the road.  In flight, I could see the tail feathers, black and white banded, and once I was inside, I grabbed my Peterson's Field Guide and decided it was a broad winged hawk that I had seen. For a hawk lover like me, this was quite an exciting event! I have since seen it one other time, in the morning on a pole not far from its position on my first sighting.  

As I have reported before, there are two red shouldered hawks that have returned to the area of my farm for several years now.  I have christened them Token and Charm.  (What?! Why of course, I named them! They are magnificent!)  There is also a pair of red tailed hawks that I have been following for almost 8 years that I have named Aegis and Aurora.  Their territory is about one and half miles from the outskirts of town, about two and half miles to the west of the farm, and I see them quite frequently on my way to and from work, either perched atop a pole or hovering and diving for a catch.

If this new hawk stays around and then returns next year, it will earn a name as well!  Any ideas?!

I was happy to see that several scissor-tail flycatchers have recently returned for the summer here in my small part of the world.  I really enjoy watching their ballet-like movements in the air as they select their mates, and, later in the summer, as they spot insects high above the open areas of my pastures. Truly an amazing site to behold!

And, yesterday afternoon I caught sight of a very new feathered visitor to HeartSong Farm, and a quick look at my field guide confirmed my first impression that it was either a warbler or vireo of some kind. I am 95% positive that it is a vireo of the yellow-throated persuasion.  A few more sightings and I should be able to confirm this.  I know that I have heard a distinct new song in the front yard the past week, so hopefully we have a new resident among us!

AND FINALLY.....

In the afternoon, Godfrey confiscated the box that held my Mothers Day gifts.

And that is how it went this week on HeartSong Farm!

I love dirt!

I am a farmer at heart. I know this. I have known this for many, many years…as a child even, before I knew what I was feeling.  An attachment to the land and its elements….its beauty, sounds, fragrances and textures. As a four year old, I enjoyed digging in the dirt in my Daddy’s vegetable garden, letting it sift through my tiny
fingers, enjoying the smell and feel, and marveling at how you could drop a tiny seed into a hole made with your finger, add a bit of water and in a matter of days there would be something green sticking its head up through the brown earth, seeking the warmth of the sun. My Daddy told me it was all part of the Magic of the Universe, part of God’s Plan. That he and I were witness to it together made it all the more magical to me.

I remember beans, peas, asparagus, squash, eggplants, cucumbers and tomatoes growing in those garden plots, and the summer supper table being set with the wonderful fresh bounty. There is nothing like a sandwich made with a freshly sliced homegrown tomato!

We also had a few chickens scratching around, providing us with eggs and sometimes meat. I didn’t care much for the smell of wet, burnt chicken feathers or the plucking, but the resulting crispy fried chicken pieces cooked to a perfect reddish-brown from the Crisco and cast iron skillet on the Sunday dinner table was certainly worth the price of the unsavory preparation. Chickens from the grocery stores these days do not taste like those free rangers did, and it is not just nostalgia telling me this.

And so, throughout the decades from then until now, I have longed to be settled on a farm and have a vegetable garden that would ultimately provide me with what I needed to live a healthy life. I moved around quite a bit during those years, but here and there I was able to work a garden of some sort into my life as well as chickens, guineas, ducks and geese. Those experiences served to reinforce my connection to the land and my desire for rural life and self-reliance grew to where it was becoming hard to contain it.

In 1998, I moved to my present home here in East Texas due to circumstances in my life that I had little control over, and I knew when the choice was made to move, it had to be to a spot where I could fulfill that desire that I had nourished all those years. I would put down roots at last and so I did, but still a full time job to pay the bills and taking care of my elderly parents, as well building a barn and fences and hand shearing upwards of 25 llamas some years, got in the way of any serious gardening until a few years ago when my son
and I built two 4’ x 16’ raised beds and tried out square foot gardening.

That was a great learning experience, but once again circumstances necessitated that I concentrate on other aspects of my life and it was not until this past spring (2013) that I was able to return to those two raised beds, pull a magnitude of weeds, turn over the soil with some llama “beans”, and plant a vegetable crop.

My veggies included crookneck squash, okra, cucumbers, Ichiban eggplant, bell peppers (red, green, purple and chocolate), Cherokee Purple slicing tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, and a several types of cherry tomatoes. I planted two basil plants, a little rosemary “bush”, and some oregano.   And I planted white, green, and two shades of brown cotton. Yes!  I might have been a bit more excited about my cotton plants, to tell the truth, but I can tell you that I ate a lot of fresh, grilled, roasted and sautéed produce over the summer months and into early fall!

Cotton plant seedlings in front, okra in rear

So why plant cotton? Well, I am a spinner and this year at our annual Wildflower Fiber Retreat we learned about growing and spinning cotton and were given seeds for white cotton and Sea Island Brown cotton to plant if we wanted to try our hand at growing our own spinning fiber. Many of those that attend the Retreat each year raise fiber animals like angora goats and rabbits, llamas, alpacas, and various breeds of sheep, but less than a handful had ever planted a cotton seed to harvest. And so, for me, the year of learning to spin cotton began in March, 2013, and included planting cotton along with my vegetables. If I was going to do it “right”, I wanted green cotton, too, and online I found Earline’s Green Cotton, and also some Nankeen Brown seeds to order, which I did without hesitation.

I planted about 5 or 6 white, 15 green, 10 Sea Island Brown, and 12 Nankeen. The latter did not do as well as the others because I planted them too late, I think, in a new bed quite a way from the others. Still I got a nice bag of lint from those 12 seeds. With the others, however, I got a bumper crop and I will never have to purchase cotton seeds again! I discovered that each individual boll produced about 20 seeds and each plant produced at least 12 bolls (all from 1 seed!). If you would like some, contact me and I will share!

Early bloom

Old bloom

Bees love the blooms

The plants and blooms are lovely. Cotton is related to okra, hibiscus and marsh mallow plants. The blooms start off white and end up pink, yellow or red before dropping. The bees love them, and the natural colors of the cotton lint are gorgeous! Cotton plants are frequently grown in pots as ornamentals and in the far, far South can even be perennials, but mine were victims of the first serious frost in early November this year.

Cotton boll forming

Cotton lint

Harvested bolls

Currently, I am spending the majority of my evenings during the week hand-ginning my cotton bolls and looking forward to spinning the lint...maybe even dying some of the white.  Next year I plan to expand my cotton planting to several new beds in various places around the farm. I need more practice with spinning cotton!