The Week of Tears on Cranberry Acre

It was a long week.

 

Cranberry Acre has been in mourning since Wednesday over the decision to put our dear and loyal friend to sleep on Friday.

Corona was our dog for almost 16 years. She was the best dog I have ever owned and known in my years as a Vet Technician. I have never felt such loss and emptiness in a home before. We haven't healed from the loss this weekend, but we have tried to keep things moving here so we don't get lost in the sorrow of it all. She will be missed more than she probably knew she would be.

She now gets to spend her days under a Maple tree in the Orchard. We planted a Forsythia bush on the grave so she will shine every Spring!

 

With death there comes life. I found Friday in our Spring many and I mean many, salamander eggs. I could only smile at the thought of little babies swimming around down there in the Spring, and I needed that more than anything on that day. I have only ever seen them in books, but got the pleasure of seeing them in person. So cool to see Nature at it's best.

The Gala apple trees are in full bloom and I'm so excited to see all three of our trees just covered in pink and white flowers. The bees were so busy this weekend and the trees were just humming with their sounds of joy. If everything goes well we will have applesauce and apple butter for the Fall. My fingers are crossed that the frost will stay away for another few days.

 

With everything going on this past week, I never got to do anything in the garden. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Corona before Friday, so I decided it could wait until this week to plant. I am happy to say that all my Tomato starts are up in the Cold frame and I should be able to plant the little buggers sometime around the 2nd week in May!

Saturday after we buried Corona we decided to relocate some Blue Spruce that we had planted last year in a spot they didn't really like so much. We know this because we started out with 13 trees and ended up with only four survivors. Hopefully in this new ground they will be much happier. I believe last year the other spring on the property surfaced more than it had in previous years and made the roots of these pines rot! Lesson learned but gosh that hurt to loss that many in one year.

Ayla was all about the digging and even after we got done planting the trees asked if I had anywhere else for her to dig so I told her the garden. She dug for hours! I figured since I hadn't planted anything yet, it was a safe place for her to dig.

 

The Orchard now has four Blue Spruce by the fence line. Figured it would be a nice privacy fence for when we build an out door area in the Orchard. It will be awhile for that but, all in time.

 

Little update on those cups and saucers I had purchased at a yard sale, they are now bird feeders. After messing up on three, I think I finally have the hang of it now!

I added a silver spoon to this one so the birds can sit on it to eat. This one I will keep!

 

I also experimented with drawing on them and baking the cups, to set the drawing on them. So many ways to dress these little bird feeders up, I just love the possibilities.

 

Soon I will have some of these available to purchase on my Etsy store but wanted everyone to see what I had finally done with them!

 

Yesterday I finished a Market Bag. This one is available on my Etsy store for purchase.

 

 

 

 

 

Easter Weekend!

Hope you all had a great Easter!

 

Sorry I'm a day late, we actually went out of state to celebrate Easter with family.

We had a great time in Florida. The humidity is something  I just couldn't live with at all, but the kids loved it. I love my mountain breezes!

They got to swim all Easter weekend long!

We had a great time, but I missed Cranberry Acre and all it's critters very much. I hate being away from home, but getting away is needed time to time.

Was so nice to see everyone, we were greeted by the critters and then led to the barn by them, so everyone could get fed. It was way past dinner and they were going to let us know.

My two hens were just so happy to be let out of the chicken yard so they could hunt for bugs in the pasture. They clucked away for hours.

After getting almost everything unpacked from our long weekend, I was anxious to see how the orchard was, since when we had left we were having frost almost every morning. I was greeted with the prettiest pear blooms from all three of pear trees. My apples have not bloomed yet and my peach tree I believe will give us fruit this year.

 

This morning baby boy and

 

baby girl greeted me as I went outside. I am so glad to be home with everyone.

 

There is so much to get done and I am feeling a little overwhelmed with it all. Planning on getting my potatoes in this week along with my early greens. Planting and sewing as always!

Sorry that there wasn't more to say, but due to us being gone, I don't know what the farm was up to really.

I am going to change my dates on the Blog for the week AGAIN!!! With the planting season upon me and the Farmer's Market getting ready to start there is just little time to be spent on a computer. So I am going to try every MONDAY! to put out a new post. From time to time I may add some things to my pages and I will let everyone know of that when I do, but like I said my cup is getting pretty full at the moment.

 

I will leave you today with a gorgeous picture of Ms. Silver. On our walk last night she followed me around the property just talking away, she stopped looked at the Spring and ran over to it. I guess she got pretty thirsty telling ,me the tales of what had happened when I was gone.

 I just love this bird!

A Very cold morning!

Mother Nature has gone nuts!

 

 

It has been pretty crazy here in Virginia with the weather. One morning you wake up and it's 50 some degrees out and then this morning I woke up and it was only 39 degrees out! Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday we woke up to freezing weather.

My poor Lilac I believe did not make it. I was looking forward to it's blooms, but I found it all droopy Monday morning. I also lost my Japanese Magnolia, which was quit sad. I am crossing my fingers that the peach tree was done with it blooms before we got our frosty mornings, this we will just have to wait and see. I am very happy that the pears and apples have waited to bloom. There is hope for fruit from these trees this year, as long as we don't get another freeze anytime soon.

Monday morning it was so cold and rainy, that not one animal came out of the barn! Even the chickens stayed in.

The only Cranberry Critters to go outside were the Stogies! They also used their shelter for the first time in a year of it being out there in the orchard.

I heard them screaming when the rain started and went out to see where they were and to my surprise I saw a little head peep out at me from their shelter. Maybe they aren't as dumb as I thought.

So with all this rain, I decided it would be a great day to go to Goodwill, one of my most favorite places to find treasures! Glad I went, because I found an old ironing board. I have always wanted one of these,

but every time I've seen one they have been somewhere around $65 to $90 dollars. I got so lucky with this and spent $25 for this one! So excited in using this.

I just need to get a cover for it, which I will need to make, because it is not a standard size. They just don't make them like this anymore.

Also on my adventure to the Goodwill, I found half a chicken!

I just couldn't leave it there, it was an oddball that needed a home, so it came home with me for $1.00. I will eventually make it a nest to sit on.

Ms. Griffin during feeding Wednesday night, decided she would really start acting as the princes of the pasture.

She walked around the yard with her crown for a few minutes. Her reign did not last long, her brother Luther decided he wanted to try it and knocked it off her head!

Never a dull moment her on Cranberry Acre.

Ms. Pico decided to be a cat today and was caught hunting rats in the barn. This cat just doesn't have it in her to hunt and if it wasn't for us feeding her, she would probably starve. No joke, she is almost 12 years old and still really doesn't know what to do.

 

New Project !

 

I wanted to do something special for the door leading to the laundry room, so I have drawn this silhouette of a woman doing laundry. I have decided I will paint the image on the glass first to see if I really like it there. If so I believe I will glass etch the image to it.

I wanted something there, but a curtain would block the sun when it was coming through the window, so I believe this might be a good fix. We will see.

When things get boring for Ms. Griffin, she starts the chicken chasing game. She will sneak up on these poor birds and bite their tail feathers. She then starts to chase them until they run under the barn. It only lasts a few mins, but it seems to do the trick for Griffin and she will lay down to wait for them to emerge from the barn, so she can do it again. She is such a funny little goat.

 

 

Things on the farm are quite, I think we are all waiting for Mother Nature to decide on when she really wants to start Spring. I have held off on some planting because of the cold, I will plant my lettuce next week along with my spinach and kale. Potatoes will also be going in next week. The thermal temp seems to be better, just the frost that gets the top of the ground. It doesn't seem to last long enough to effect the soil temp much so planting potatoes will happen very soon.

 

Gloomy Hot Day!

Humid weather!

 

Today is a day that you just don't know what it's going to do, rain and be cloudy or cloudy with a hint of sun and no rain. The animals here on Cranberry Acre, I think feel the same way. The humidity today is what is killing me. The house gets sticky, so you want to open the windows, but if you open the windows and it rains, well floors are wet! Yesterday was a perfect day, warm but a nice dry breeze.

Luther has been one of the ones who just doesn't care what's happening outside, as long as there is grass, he will be outside eating it! The rest of the herd has spent most of the morning laying in the barn, awaiting the rain.

Short Stuff and Puffy Cheeks made there way outside pretty early this morning. The wind today is brutal and I watched it push these two around the yard, but they never seem to care to much about the wind.

Thinking I would be nice today I decided to let the girls and Mo out in the pasture with the goats, well Silver decided to go outside with no problems, but these four, I wanted to choke them!

Imagine me running around after these four just to get them out the door to greener pastures. Then Ms. Jojo and Ms. Griffin decide they must join in the fun. My pen is only maybe a 15x15 area, so it was not fun. In this chase, Jojo, found some hot buffalo wing poppers that I had given the chickens, well she thought these were great, so I was battling her while trying to shew 4 birds out of the pen! I really think when God went to give Guineas their brains he sneezed and missed them!

Larry was the first to make it out and then it took me another 15min of wrestling goats at the door and trying to shew birds out that same door to get everyone out in the pasture.

I could have cooked them all!!!

Ms.JoJo, just sat there and starred at those buffalo chicken poppers, really trying hard to figure out how to get them. I am almost expecting to go outside after writing this and find a goat climbing the pen! One of the strangest goats I ever met, she loves Cheeseburgers, yes I said cheeseburgers. I think she is the type of goat that people saw when they decided, that goats would eat anything, because this one, will!

My Japanese Magnolia has finally bloomed all over. The bees this weekend were just in love with it and my peach tree! So glad the little guess are out and about. I went and helped out at the Farmers Market in Independence this weekend, and I'm so excited to start the Season next month! Just hope my garden will be ready!

I finally have a Garden Apron done that will be up for sale soon on my Etsy site. I love the colors on this one a lot. If I didn't already own one,I probably would own this one!

I also had time this weekend to draw up a pattern for one of my most favorite aprons, or dress, or shirt, depends what you like to wear! I made the first one too small, so Ayla is the proud owner of a new apron. I believe she is going to use it as a shirt.

I have always wanted one, but the pattern is so hard to find, due to it being out of print, so a friend who also would like one of these, directed me to a Japanese site that had a pattern for free! Well in looking at the pattern and doing the measurements, I realized how small the adult size was, and me being not child like in size, decided to make a new pattern, now that I know how the pattern works, it should be a lot easier!

Ayla was so excited about wearing it that she was going to wear it to school, then decided against it when she remembered it was art today!

So I  am back at the drafting table with a better idea of size and how I would like to change the design yet again! There goes another bed sheet!

 

Pretty Spring Day!!!

What a pretty Day!

 

You would think with such a pretty day ahead of me that I would spend the whole day planting seeds, well I had chores, so later today I will probably do such a thing, but didn't get a chance earlier this morning. The goats were sleeping when I got back from chores and I believe they have probably been doing that all day. I would if I were a goat!

I am just in love with my peach tree and was so happy to see bees buzzing around it's blooms. There is hope for fruit this year!

My horseradish came back! It was another one of my late transplants and really didn't think it would come back, but there it is. Hardy little plant.

The girls decided that they would go ahead and make themselves at home in my compost bin. Soooo I now have shavings about 5 feet from the compost bin. I guess I can look at it as them fertilizing the yard, but truly it's a mess!

Strawberries!!!! They survived the rage of a dust bath by the Stooges. They are now coming back with a vengeance and I really can't wait to eat them.

This is all the wood I have in my house....and....

This is the wood left in my woodshed! As you can see nothing. One thing that sucks about living on an acre, is you do not have any woods to cut down. So during the Summer you either cut fallen trees from neighbors yards or you buy it. I am truly crossing my fingers there are no more cold nights or we are buying wood. This is not in the budget for extra wood, so we may be wearing more blankets and wool socks, if it gets cold.

Larry and Curly decided to help me with the digging up of the dead peach tree, by taking a dust bath. Well at least the tree is good for something right now. The girls just love it! They have claimed at their own and have been chasing poor Mo away every time he comes to join. Poor little one eyed guinea.

Had to show you some things that one of my friends gave me. They are some old tin trays. I really do not know what I will do with these, but I absolutely love the colors an believe they will find a home in my kitchen!

She finally bloomed. By this weekend the whole tree will be covered in these purple blooms. It is such a pretty tree and I'm always surprised that the colors are so vibrant! Just so Pretty!

Daddy Sparrow made an appearance long enough for me to snap a picture, about darn time! He was checking on the Female Sparrow as she was putting feathers in the nesting box. They are so funny, every time I go out to the garden, they fly away from the box and start singing, then they gradually make their way back to the box. They always have one eye on me at all times.

 

 



One of my projects for the weekend, a Garden Apron. I also will be making soil blocks for some late season tomatoes. Another busy weekend here at Cranberry Acre.