Christmas

Our Christmas tree with its four ornaments. Maybe next year we will have room for a real tree. This year the room is taken up by tools.




We are still sleeping in the living room. But now that we have the woodstove going we are probably going to miss being in the living room once we move into the bedroom. So warm.



But the rate things are going we won't move into the bedroom until it starts warming up outside.

The Great Wall

Jeff and I built these retaining walls(terraces) for mom and dad back in November. I have 1000 tulip bulbs and 100 daffodil bulbs planted here.

Jeff and Nik Getting Ready for Church

Nik spent the night with us Saturday night. He and Jeff had a good time laying bricks in front of the wood stove Saturday afternoon and then we made cookies in the evening.

Jeff working on our bedroom.

Sunny and Rico

Sunny and Rico joined the ranks in the fight against rodents. Although they are to young right now to be chasing down any mice, we have them in training. They were pretty well wild when we got them last week(why they are in a cage) but they are taming down nicely now. They meow at me for food and play with Jeff's fingers. I have a sneaking suspicion they are male and female(we can't hold them to tell) so some "fixing" will have to be done..especially as close to the dump as we are. :) kittens galore

First Snow at Our New House

This morning we woke up to a light dusting of snow ...the first snow we have had at our new house. Soon we will have a good snow, Nik and I are sure of, because we have the best sledding hill in these parts!!

I am still laying in bed this morning doing some much needed blogging while I wait for the house to warm up. It is 31 degrees outside ....not as cold as you would think as cold as it feels in here. I guess that happens when your heating system is broken. We have a kerosene heater that we move from room to room. One doesn't hang out in the bathroom to long around here. :) The animals don't seem to mind though. Ceili hangs outside all morning chewing on a deer hide, Wookie sleeps by the heater, and Sunny and Ricco make a mess of their cage ..again!

May the games begin!!

After Jeff and my combined 13 years of renting, we are headed into the great world of home ownership. We are looking forward to it. No more money grubbing useless landlords for us, hopefully forever! Instead of pouring our hard earned money into a empty hole we will be pouring it into a hole that will show some progress of being filled.
We have our closing Friday and the church is helping us move in on Saturday. I have already been doing some things at the house liking tearing out wallpaper. But more on that to come.
Been some crazy times for us. I am trying to plan next years crop as well as plant some fall bulbs and clean up from this first crazy year in farming. Jeff has been trying to make enough to keep our heads above water until next years crop. And in the middle of that we have been trying to sort through and rid ourselves of some of our junk from combining households, get teeth taken care of, get the real estate agent to actually work for us, get the lawyer to do his job for the closing, deal with bad landlords, and start working on the house. And soon Christmas will be here and sooner than that Jennifer and Tim's wedding in Columbia. But I do thrive on too much to do, so I guess I won't complain. And there is so much more I'd like to do.....start classes in aromatherapy and herbal medicine, build a small greenhouse, plan a workday for the church, make dried flower wreaths, make more soap, make cheese and yogurt, start a graywater system....well you get the idea.

Jeff and I put an offer on this house today!!! Should be under contract by the end of the week and we should be moving in by the end of the month. It was a hard decision because we had to realize we were buying it for the sake of the house and not the land. When we first saw it we were so excited because it was just what we were looking for; a small fixer-upper house and some land for the flower fields. And then the next day we found out that no they had divided the land so that the steep land was with the house and the tillable land was being sold for $22,000 an acre. Way more than we could pay and really way over the market. We were so disappointed. It took us a while to get back on our feet and decide that we could still lease land around to use and at least we would have a house to live in without paying money into the black hole(rent). The four acres that it has with it is not really useful for our purposes (although we may put a few sheep out there). But are hoping to make do and possibly with the real estate market dropping off we could offer to buy some of the land around at a more reasonable price.

Don't get me started on the price of property here. It is ridiculous what people think they are going to get even with the market like it is. But I guess it will catch up with them.

We are back!!!!!! Good times in JAPAN. Pictures to come soon.

Only 3 days till the wedding and 5 till we leave for Japan!!!! What makes it more exciting for a weather buff like me is here in Southwest Virginia we are supposed to drop own to seasonable (and reasonable) temperatures .....65 degree high and 41 degree low....just in time for the wedding before heading back up again. If nothing has been normal this year at least the day of the wedding will be!

Your Life is 68% Green

You live a very green life, and you're aware of how your actions help the earth. Of course, it's hard to be totally green. But when you make a tradeoff, you know why you're making it.

How Green Is Your Life?

You Are 66% Independent

You've cultivated your own indepedent interests and personal style. But you're open minded enough to also embrace anything trendy that strikes you.

Are You an Independent Woman?

You Belong in Brooklyn

Down to earth and hard working, you're a true New Yorker. And although you may be turning into a yuppie, you never forget your roots.

Where Should Your Inner New Yorker Live?

Labor Day Weekend Market

Gogle name game

There is a game going around in which you are to put your name in Google followed by "needs" and see what comes up and then list the top 5 funniest. Here are mine.

Beka Needs:
1) To grow up a little bit.
2) A reality check.
3) A vacation.
4) To stay awake to survive.
5) Help reparing a power feedline on the Maru.

My Help

Latest pictures of Flower Field

Finally..some pictures before the flowers are wiped out!!

Weather Adventures

I have been thinking alot about weather lately. Not that I haven't done this a good portion of my life. Weather has been very important to me with most of my daily activities based around the predicted weather. I believe I have been this way since I was very young. Even in school I would check the weather to see if I would be wasting a beautiful day studying when I could be hiking or fishing (both frequent activities while in school). Needless to say I remember quite a bit about the weather. So with these extreme temperatures this summer and many years of dull winters I have begun to wonder if there isn't something to the whole global warming.
I remember summers in SW Virginia since the time I was a kid which we did what we needed throughout the day. I grew up in an non-AC house. We didn't hole up all afternoon to get away from the heat. There may have been a few days which we had to stay next to a fan in the mid-day heat because it reached close to or a few degrees above 90 degrees. But since I worked on a farm mid-day(after school), I usually worked in the afternoons anyways. Never seemed to be all that bad.
Springtime floods! Rain, rain, and more rain. So much water. Such a good way to learn about ecology. Yes, I missed the flooding this year. Seeing the stream swell and swell until it broke bank and flooded fields and washed over bridges. Mud everywhere. Good for me .... I was able to plant early because no flooding. Bad for me because the ground water was low because no flooding.





But what I miss more than anything is the winters. The surprise snow storms that left us with a 3 feet of snow to go sledding and building snow caves, the couple inches that covered the ground to give everything a fresh look, the cold windy nights where the temps dropped below 0 degrees, the heavy snow that knocked out power and made it hard for people to get to work, and the icy nights which left 4 foot long icicles coming off the roof, and most dear to me the hiking about the snow looking for signs of wildlife. These are how I remember the winters here in my mountains. This I miss. I am afraid for the next generation growing up in SW Virginia that they will never get to experience the excitement of waking up to a white world. There is nothing like it. Last winter the deepest snow was 6 inches. Which is a great white world but it has to last!! It has to last long enough that kids can call each other and plan to meet in the evening for a night of fun. And couple times of year, I pray, we will get the deep snows that give everyone the struggle to get groceries home. (Emily and I met my dad about a 1/4 mile from home with a wagon to pick up the groceries out of his truck because he couldnt get it all the way home.) Weather makes life exciting....heat is not weather.

I was just thinking about Ollie, my Quaker parrot of two years ago. I really would love to have an Ollie again. She was my good friend in some rough times. Any sometimes an annoying little pest. :)

Early August update

Last week at old farmers market location

 

I forgot to load these last week. So here they are now. But these are two weeks from the last ones. Things have changed tremendously.

"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expediture nineteen six, result happiness, annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought six, result misery."
- excerpt from David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

Chocolate covered ants

Beka: Hey, Nik, you could sell bugs at the farmers market.
Nik: Weeeeeell, maybe ants.
Beka: You could sell chocolate covered ants.
Nik: No, they would try to get away before you could get the chocolate on them.

eternal summer slacking.

More Pictures

2 weeks later















Jeff inspecting his tomatoes.

Latest pictures of my field taken today. Sunflowers are going to be the big grower I think.

My latest venture Blaithin Blair(pronounced blah-heen blare), or the flower field, as of June 3. I will try to get another picture posted soon as it looks a little different now. At this time we had not had rain for a month, I would guess. We were 6 inches behind in rainfall for the year most of which was the month of May. This was the driest May on record (notice ON RECORD). I believe the normal rainfall for the month of may is around 5 inches while we had about 1.8. Not to mention we had temperatures near 90 in late April followed by a few days of freezes in the teens which killed all redbud, dogwood, and other blossoms. Much was lost. Then we have had extremely high temperatures for the month of May. Closer to the July average and about ten to 15 degrees above normal for May. So, expectedly, the plants, even the weeds, are struggling to figure out whether they should be growing, flowering, dying, or giving up. I am trying to keep things alive with watering, but nothing works like God's water supply. Pray for rain.

This is the inspiration behind my wedding dress being made by Nancy. See you October 13.