In Mendota, Virginia, we usually plant potatoes on Good Friday. I don’t think anyone thinks much about why we do this, but I Googled it once, and it’s an Irish tradition. However, it was so cold that I missed this date.
This evening I decided to plant them in the raised beds. I have no idea if the “signs” were right, but I knew that if I tripped over that bag of potatoes sitting in the garage one more time, I was gonna….you get the picture. I have purchased organic potatoes from Southern Exposure in the past, but I didn’t have great luck with them. This year we purchased the potatoes from Southern States. Mike loves Southern States.
Yukon Gold potatoes are my favorite.
Most everyone around here halves their potatoes if there are enough “eyes” on them. I only halved a few of them. Mostly I just put them in the dirt.
I planted 18 per bed; four beds total. I have 72 potatoes planted. One year our granddaughters just stuck them in the dirt (similar to what I did tonight), and they did great. I’m hoping!
No hills, no planning, no help from Mike who is laid up with his new knee. I can tell you one thing…it’s not as much fun planting potatoes by yourself. Hate to admit that.
I went for a walk on Sunday, and I know for sure that spring is here.
Do I know it just by the flowering trees in this picture? Nope.
Or this picture? Nope.
Could it be by the green grass in my sister’s yard? Nope.
Well, all of these are sure signs of spring, but I knew it was really spring when I saw this guy (feeling a little flat in this photo). He/she had been crossing the road headed toward the river when the trip was interrupted.
When I went for this walk, I felt like I was leading a parade. A bunch of kids followed me. No…not “kids” as in human kids! Goats!!
Here’s some more signs of spring and the business of rural life here in Mendota. New fencing…
Clothes on the line…can you smell the sheets in your imagination? (Little disclosure…this picture was made Saturday and those sheets are STILL on the clothesline.) These sheets make me feel heady…three sheets to the wind!
I received the new Pottery Barn catalogue a little over a week ago. I love looking at their catalog. Once in a while something on the pages either inspires me to try and replicate the look or reminds me of something that is already in my house.
Pottery Barn has been selling Mason jars (with handles on them) for drink glasses for the past few years. At my house, we either drink from a real Mason jar or ones just like the ones from Pottery Barn. I got them at the Dollar Store about ten years ago and paid $1.00 for two jars. Home canning is a part of our Southwest Virginia rural life, and I like for my table to reflect that. I’m happy that Pottery Barn is on board with this idea!
Here’s Pottery Barn’s very pretty glass..
And here is my very pretty glass…I stuck a pansy in it just to fancy it up. It’s got that “Poor Valley” water in it, and “once you drink the water from Poor Valley, water will never taste good anywhere else.”
Right now when I open a home decor magazine for country homes, I see white. Hmmm…obviously not from Southwest Virginia where we name our children “Clay”. Pottery Barn still has rooms with a lot of color, and I’m so glad! It validates my love of color in the home. I’m loving their red bar stool, and I’m gonna be spray painting mine red next week!
And lookeee here…oh yeah…Pottery Barn’s entertainment center rocks!
And here’s the one in my den made from reclaimed barn wood…created from the American Chestnut, and it’s signed and dated by someone I know pretty well! Thanks Michael! Sorry Pottery Barn…I like mine better. I hope you understand.
Really like the organic look of the wooden bowls…
But I love my bowl handcrafted by gnarled hands from Appalachia and purchased at the Virginia Highlands Festival in Abingdon. It’s signed on the bottom.
Here’s something I don’t have, but I want it! Maybe if it gets marked down a little bit…
Hi there! Mike is recuperating so nicely from his knee replacement surgery. The very worst thing–thus far–has been a four-day case of hiccups which, thank goodness, have passed. After knee replacement surgery, especially if it’s your right knee–you’re prohibited from driving for about three weeks. Because of this, I’m at home during this time driving him to/fro PT and just making sure he’s okay.
Since I’m more or less stranded here on RiverCliff hill, I’m doing deeper cleaning on the house. Today, I cleaned the copper pots on my potrack. Here’s the lineup…a parade of dirty copper pots!
In the past, I’ve used copper cleaner on these pots, and I started to do so tonight, but I’m getting a yucky blue building…
I remembered that vinegar and salt cleaned copper. I went to the internet and confirmed this and mixed a 1/2 and 1/2 concoction of white vinegar and table salt. Some of the internet recipes which you can find by Googling suggested a mix which can be put in a spray bottle and sprayed on the copper. However, I had no spray bottle, so here’s my mix which I just dabbed on with a sponge.
It worked! Here’s a “before” picture of a copper lid. I got this at Dixie Pottery when I was in my 20’s! If you are too young to remember the fun of going to Dixie Pottery, you missed something.
And here’s the after…
Here’s the potrack with all of the copper cleaned…and using what I have on hand aligns with my reminder to myself to “Simpify.”
And here’s a bit of ivy to liven things up. This is a live plant, so I’ll have to rotate it with one that is about the same size to keep it looking good.
This motiviated me to mop the floor and that is what I’m going to do right now!
Mike’s in the hospital having the knee he had replaced back in 2007 replaced again. Apparently, his cement was cracked. I’m stranded here with him.
I went on a cruise ship once and wanted to read Harlequin romances all week, but I didn’t want any of my husband’s co-workers to know that I read romance books where the girl hates the guy who is usually dark and lean with piercing eyes. She’s generally a girl-next-door type, and they’ve possibly had a baby that he does not know about. At any rate, each morning I slid a new Harlequin inside a book cover of “Catcher in the Rye” by JD Salinger. It was just the right size for my one-day romance novel. Everyone thought I was really smart and cool reading Salinger. I don’t even remember if I’ve ever even read Catcher in the Rye. If I have, I’ve forgot it.
It’s like that with blogs. I see where my Facebook friends read and share really interesting, noteworthy posts that inspire and help us be better people…that cause us to think!
I’m not sure why, but I just cannot stay involved in a self-help anything. In the blog world, I’m currently wallowing in pop-culture trash.
There is always a lot to do on our property in the spring, and this year is no different. However, we’ve had a shorter “window” of time to get everything outside done. Where we would normally do this at a more reasonable pace, Mike’s knee replacement surgery will take place in the next few days and this has accelerated the schedule.
Here’s some of the things that were done outside in the past ten days…
Compost spread in all the garden beds. In the picture below, those are perennials here and there in the dirt. We’ll put lots of annuals in the beds.
The next picture is the new apiary. Gerald and Mike installed wire fencing on Friday to keep skunks out. I wish skunks were rare and valuable. We’d be rich. Did you know that the raised area (on the cinderblocks in this picture) where the hive sits should be 1/2″ taller in the rear than in the front? This allows rainwater to run off the roof of the hive.
Rosebushes pruned. I remember reading in Southern Living that the time to prune roses is during the NCAA Final Four so we’re right on time.
The six acres fenced in where our house sits did not have a single tree on it when we purchased this property. There’s now about 70 trees. All have fresh mulch around them to control weeds. This tree is a weeping mulberry tree. Chrissy the Cat gets stuck in this tree several times each year.
Chrissy: I hate her. She puts me in that tree and gets me all tangled up. I’d never do anything so stupid.
The weeping cherry tree is at the onset of it’s brief-but-beautiful show this year. Almost bloomed out!
I’m so glad that when Mike comes home he won’t have to worry about these things and can just focus on recovering.
I’m so excited about our new apiary. Our new bees will arrive mid-to-late April.
Jenna and Ashley worked hard on this project today. I took pictures. Here’s where they started this morning….
The hives have to sit level so there was digging and positioning involved…here’s Jenna…
After the leveling, they installed landscape plastic as a weed barrier held in place with large flat rocks that we had on hand. The rocks are heavy but Jenna and Ashley moved them around like rock stars. Betty Butterbutt came to lend a hand…
But she grew bored and took a nap…
Here’s where we are at the end of the day….still need the fence wire in place and the posts need to be evened up, but most of the work is done. We made the stone into a path along the back side of the hive where we’ll stand and work behind the bees. In the front of the bees, the stone is laid in a decorative pattern to hold down the weed barrier.
Notice how the shade falls on the hive? The picture below was taken about 6 pm — this shade will feel good to our bees in the blazing heat of summer.
Here’s our hard working pals, Jenna and Ashley. We enjoy their friendship and will miss them greatly when they leave for their work this summer. They have been such a help, and Mike will go into his upcoming knee replacement surgery with peace of mind that the real RiverCliff Cottage is in good shape.
Have you ever heard of Shoebox Ministries? Samaritan’s Purse comes to mind when I think of these ministries. My sister is working to make her shoebox extra special for a little girl. Can you imagine the face of a sweet child opening her box and seeing this sweet face staring back?
A sweet dolly…with skin the same color as the little girl’s skin? With a pretty dress…and cute feet?
This dolly was sewn with love and prayers. It will make a little girl smile. And I am smiling, too.
We are still at it here at RiverCliff Cottage as we get our hobby farm ready for spring. However, I thought you might like a break from the pictures of us working!
Hi…we are so busy around here. Mike will be having knee replacement surgery soon, so we’re trying to get everything done. In addition, we didn’t expect to lose all of our bees which means that we had to remove any honey in the hives. We did this on Sunday after church.
Here’s our neighbor, Helene, uncapping the honey from the frame.
We won’t have a great deal of honey, but we don’t want any to go to waste. It seemed strange working with honey on a cold day. It was stiff. We moved it close to the woodstove to get it warm but the extraction was a lot of work. I didn’t do any of the work. It was done by Gerald, Ashley, and Jenna. It was Mike’s day to babysit Gracie so he’s no where to be seen in this process.
One person cranked, while two held the extractor down to keep it steady. Here’s Gerald cranking the extractor. This is not an automated process.
The honey was so stiff Gerald’s arm got tired so he rotated to Ashley and Jenna…they all look like their having fun, but it went on for hours!
And here’s the first drop of that precious honey…
We are getting new bees! Our new bees were born and raised in the Roanoke area. We are getting four hives. They are black in color. We’ll be picking them up in mid April, and I’ll take you along for the trip! They are more aggressive bees than the Italians. Hopefully, we’ll learn to get a long.
We’re moving our apiary by the barn. It is a good place for the bees because it gives them privacy but it’s close by. My task for these bees will be to ensure they are fed daily upon their arrival. I enjoy this. I’ll be asking our neighbors…”have you seen our new black bees?” Hopefully, they’ll be working all around Swinging Bridge Road.
Here’s the gate where I’ll enter when I’m feeding them…
And while all this was going on, we purchased firewood for next winter, and Jenna and Ashley worked their tails off unloading it.
Because of Mike’s knee, we decided not to cut our own wood this summer.
Here’s Jenna…
And where was I during all of this? Well, it looks like a small task but I started weeding the flower beds around the house and guest house as well as push mowing the small back yard. I was at it all day, too!
Here’s a “before” of the guest house bed…weedy.
And here’s an after…a few perennials are here and there. I’m glad the two lupine plants survived the winter. They’ll be beautiful this summer.
So, I weeded and weeded and weeded. My arms are aching, although probably not as bad as Jenna and Ashley’s arms.
