May at the Farm

Good Morning! The sun is shining bright this morning which is cause for celebration and will get the creative juices flowing!  Or at least give me some much needed kick in the behind to do some necessary things. My energy comes from the sun. And coffee.  I had decided to stop drinking my coffee with coffeemate which is how i have drank it for year. Well... black ain't to my liking. I managed that for about 2 weeks, but was down to 1 cup of coffee a day, just to keep from having a headache from NOT having coffee. After dragging my left leg around behind myself from lack of energy....I have decided that it is not worth it. So coffeemate it is, and  I am back to 3-4 cups a day and feeling much better. Guess if that was my worst vice, it wouldn't be so bad.  But we all know better than that! don't we?? In our part of Michigan, spring is coming very slow.  We have had a lot of rain, and it is cold. My tulips are just nicely coming up. The leaves are slow to the trees. But in the state they are in, which is small, they add such beautiful color to the landscape. I LOVE SPRING. Looking across the hayfields to the hardwoods, you can't even count the different colors of green.  Remember when we were kids and there was only one green color in the coloring box? I have plants to plant but with frost warnings on, they mostly sit covered with a quilt on the front porch.  I haven't gotten my full amount yet.  I plan another trip to the nursery for more. You might wonder WHY I am getting more when I can't even plant the ones I have yet. But if you don't get them..they are gone.  So far I have managed to keep them all alive.  Ronnie continues with his theory of throwing them in the swamp on the way home to save porch space. He even has gone as far as to say to the nursery owners that they should just throw a truck load of plants out behind the green houses to die for me and save us the trip!  BUT I am determined to plant every single plant!! I will keep you posted on this! As for the rosemary plant, I am finding it difficult to distinguish between dormant and dead. I think the later is probably true.  However, I continue to water it and have it on the back porch in the sun. Drats!  I forgot to bring it in last night. Do you suppose a dormant/dead rosemary plant can freeze? Anyway, in spite of it's pitiful appearance, it still has its shape, and even in dormant/dead is an interesting plant.  And if you touch it gently (GENTLY! or else a whole branch of stuff falls all over!)  it still smells wonderful. So the saga of the rosemary continues. I am driving a new truck. I get very attached to my vehicles. We don't trade every 2 years like many people. So what I drive becomes a dear friend to me.  I started driving trucks several years back to accommodate all the junk I buy. My new one is white, and very sharp.  Youngest daughter JoJo tells me I am "too old" to drive this sharp a truck. My old one was fire engine red. 8 years old, it looks as good as when it was new.  (Inspire of all that mud ,that I finally got off the bottom, from that ill fated pussy willow caper!) I LOVE THAT TRUCK!  Ronnie drives it now for work. TO A CONSTRUCTION SITE! Each time I think of my old shiny fire engine red truck sitting in a construction site, I get an anxiety attack. Even stuck in the mud in the hay field by the swamp, with THAT anxiety, I knew I would EVENTUALLY get out and get her washed up. It took about 40 quarters at the car wash though to get that mud out of the bottom! As they are both extended cabs, the old one has its place of honor in the house attached garage because he leaves before 6 each morning.  Because of size we can't get them both in this garage. They are too long and you can barely walk around them. So the new white one, is parked in the pole barn across the road.  So each time I drive some where I have to walk across the road, making sure I remembered to bring the g.door opener.  The upside of this is, that I don't have to worry anymore about getting the other stall in the garage cleaned out because it will never have a vehicle in it!  Yah! Ronnie fertilized the yards last week (in one of the MANY days of rain, we have had). We have large yards. About 10 years ago, when we acquired the 100 acres of farm that now houses the shop, I decided to clean up around the outbuildings of the barns and chicken coops etc. Getting all the old junk away from them and raking up leaves. Pondering that now, I should have realized how much added work that means to  normal maintenance during the grass growing season. Odd as it may sound, I LOVE MOWING GRASS! During late May and June, it's a good thing I do. Because I spend one day about every 3rd day mowing. So this fertilizer he added, and all the rain, has really shot up the grass. That and all that turkey poop. When I fertilize the yard, even when I think I did a really great job....we tend to have stripes of very lush green that could hide children! and stripes that don't even hide a snake!  yegads. Snakes. I DO NOT like snakes. I shot one about 3 years ago that Ron refused to get rid of for me. The old farmer, you know...snakes are beneficial.  I called it a Michigan python, a very aggressive, hissy, nasty snake. For over a year we argued about this  snake. One day, seeing him in the backyard about 10 steps away from where I was walking barefooted as usual to the clothes line, I spotted him! Head up about 6 inches, looking right at me, with those snake eyes that I had come to know on a personal level.   I threw my clothes everywhere, got back up on the porch, This snake could RUN, you know. Yes ,he could! I had had LOTS of experience with this snake in that previous year. I built cages from boxes and tried to corral him in pails etc. All the while hyperventilating and emitting screams of terror. Probably scared the neighbors half to death. Anyway, I stood on the porch, barely breathing, looking at him and him looking at me. And devised this plan.  I will SHOOT him. Which I did. I'll teach that Ron NOT to get rid of the snake for me. Then I threw up. However, I still keep a watch out for any of his 'snake-lings" he  might  have fathered, that still may be lurking around here. Okay.......... Crow soup new items comes up tomorrow. We are showing 3 new samplers I did. 2 are "mourning" samplers.  I took the information on them off from gravestones at a country cemetery near here. Our cemeteries are old, with massive stones and wild flowers. I love going there.  The information on them is accurate. (from the 1890's)  And also a small doll with vintage dress, and a reproduction civil war "dog tag". I wear one nearly each day about Dorsey Pender who died July 19, 1863, wounded on the second day of battle at Gettysburg. These tags are very unique and limited. I haven't talked to Holly because she has been moving this past week. (MOVING?????!!!!!!!!!!) So don't know IF she has any thing up to show.  But anyway, go to www.crowsoup.com  tomorrow and check us out!  Look for Holly under The Wired Crow. And me, of course, under High Button Shoe. Also go to our web site  www.highbuttonshoe.net    Robie put up new pictures of the shop last week.  Click on the icon, shop tour ,and see what changes we have made. Thanks for asking to be a part of our farm life! The web site will reflect some new changes in the next month, so check us out when you get a few extra minutes.    Pat (Trisha)  www.highbuttonshoe.net