Our Travels: Nashville

This week we went to Nashville to play because Matt had to go to a conference. I've never been to Nashville, and always thought it would be a great place to go. I have to say that I really enjoyed the trip, but without being knowledgeable of the area and things to do, it was difficult to find things to do and places to go that fit all of our likes especially in such a short time. We were there for about two days.



Our first stop was at the Parthenon and Centennial Park. It had a few interesting art exhibits of oil paintings and photography, and I found the history of the building and restoration of the Parthenon to be fascinating. I've know it was there for many years, but I had no idea that it had so much history behind it. We toured the building and walked around the grounds for a while watched the fish and turtles and birds in the landscape and found a historic train engine and plane.

We headed out to find something for lunch and ended up at a great place called The Pharmacy(odd name, but the food was excellent). Although we didn't order any there was also an impressive list of Bier(beer) and there was also an old-school soda fountain. The food was great and, the service was too even though it was extremely busy. The kids had burgers and fries, and Matt and I split a Biergarten Platter; it was a sampling of Wurstchen. We had Jaugerwurst, Currywurst, and Kielbasa. It was served on a bed of sauerkraut, with a couple of mustards and we chose German Potato salad to go with it.

At this point we had to bring Matt to his first meeting and try to find something to do. We tried to find something and decided that driving aimlessly in that town was a little stressful. I did stop a couple of times to take a picture here and there, but we decided to check into the hotel and figure out what options there were.

We ended up waiting for Matt to get back from his tour/meeting and went out to the Chinese Lantern Festival that just happened to be there. I was really excited to see this. It was a really beautiful display of delicate frame structures covered in silk and lit from the inside making an amazing collection of lantern figures.

The next day, we started out and went to McKay's Book Store. This place was huge...we could have probably spent the rest of our time there and still not seen everything. But we had to get Matt to his next place and figure out our day. So we left with our stash of books and dropped Matt off at his trade show.

Then we went to Fort Negley and walked the grounds and got a nice view of the Nashville Skyline from the top of the fort. We learned a little about the Civil War and the fortification of Nashville when it was taken over by the Union soldiers.

The kids got tired and hungry and we left to go on our next place but we couldn't decide where so I picked the Opry Land Hotel. It was huge and unbelievably amazing. It ended up taking up a lot of our day. It has some of the most beautiful indoor gardens that I have ever seen.

There were 4 huge gardens with trails, canals, waterfalls, fountains, beautiful tropical plants, trees, and palms. It was a beautiful walk, and we only saw part of it we didn't make it through all of the gardens.

Overall, it was a fun little stay, I just wish we were better prepared with a plan and an idea of how to navigate the town...maybe on a return trip. It was only a 4 hour drive.

Exploring Our Woods

We went on an adventure this morning exploring our(and our neighbor's) woods. We went in search of a plant that I have seen in the past but hadn't noticed in a couple of years. Apparently deer really like this plant so it is hard to spot because it is usually stripped down every year from the browsing beasts(and I do say that with affection I love them, they are beautiful...but why do they have to eat all the good stuff?)

Anyway, the plant we were searching for is called Euonymus americanus. Some of its common names are American strawberry bush, Strawberry bush, Hearts-a-burstin, or Bursting heart. It is from the staff tree or bittersweet family(Celastraceae) of plants. It is one of our North American native species.

This very distinct and unusual shrub has dark green stems, bright green oval lance shaped leaves that have almost no stem and are pointed on both ends. The leaves will turn red in fall. The flowers are small greenish five petal flowers that kind of float above the leaves on their long-ish stems. The fruits and seeds are odd hard little round capsules that are a pinkish red and bumpy. When they are ripe and pop open they reveal bright orange seeds that hang on to the bottom of the capsule usually in groups of 4 or 5. It can grow to be between 2-6 feet tall. The pictures I was able to get are difficult to really see what the plant looks like, because the deer have mostly eaten all of the leaves off of the plant. But now I know that I didn't lose it and will be able to protect it next year.

Some of the other things we found on our explore.

 A frog:

Lots of caterpillars and bugs:

Interesting mushrooms/fungi:

Lots of moss that was fuzzy to touch:

Lots and lots...and lots of spider webs and spiders:

We found some but most of them found us.

Farm and Garden: Goats

It finally happened! Friday evening we brought home two new additions. Charlotte and Willow are now a part of our growing farm family. The trip home was a bit stressful for them and they were a little panicked by the time we got them out of the back of my SUV. Noah and I carefully got the dog kennel out of the back of the car and I carried each of them carefully to one of the pens in the back yard where they had to temporarily share space with the rabbits. Separating the goats for the time to get them from the car to the pen seemed like a moment of pure torture for them and they were screaming like babies. I'm not sure what our neighbors were thinking, but it was not at all a pleasant moment. After a bit of timid walking around the pen they found the hidden rabbits and it was interesting. The rabbits were trying to hide and they were trying to figure out what the heck those lightning fast fuzzy balls were. It was so very cute to see their curious looks and posturing. By the time we got them in the yard and settled it was getting dark so the children were not able to play with the kids. They are making up for that now, I'm sure that by this afternoon all the kids will be well acquainted. So now we need to find a puppy to go with the goats.

Saturday morning Noah came in our room saying we almost have our own personal petting zoo. I guess we are getting there.

So, why the goats? I'm sure many will ask...We have a beautiful piece of property, that unfortunately is so very over grown it will take a huge amount of effort to clear and in an effort to find alternative ways of doing-instead of using big machinery, or slowly working it by hand-we have decided to employ a few goats to eat their way through the overgrowth and stuff we don't want. We will have a moveable pen that we set up around the yard so that they can happily munch away and mow down on a rotation schedule to keep our yard cleaner and neater.

Next year we will breed them so that we can begin milking the following year. We will be able to use milk in cheese and soap. So...that's the plan in a nutshell.

Farm and Garden: Bees update August 2016

Our bees are struggling and it happened rather fast. We have been in the habit of checking on them weekly to make sure that everything was looking okay and everything was developing well, and then the rain started and I got a little worried about checking on angry bees. Understandably, bees don't like cloudy, or rainy weather; it makes them very grumpy. We began to go longer between checking on them and hive beetles had moved in. The bees were doing their best to keep them at bay, but those little buggers are relentless. I did what I could trying to remove/kill what I could but they just kept coming. We have a couple of traps now that are doing really well, but it still needs more work and possibly a beetle board that I saw someone making that keeps the beetles from being able to get in in the first place.

The beetles are a big issue, and I'm not sure what came first, but our next two issues were the most devastating. A swarm of robber bees came(several times apparently because I see them come back almost every day) and took everything that my little hives made. It took me a while to figure out that this was going on at the same time as the population drop in the hives. These robber bees just swooped in and completely cleaned our hives out of all their honey and pollen stores. Then soon after I began noticing that the numbers of bees began dropping. Our strong hive dwindled down to only a few hundred bees and it seemed like the queen was gone. The other hive still seemed to be strong, but the bees hanging out in front seemed to be quite a few less and upon inspection, they seemed to have either lost their queen also or they just decided to abscond. Basically looking at their losses and hive issues the queen took most of the bees and went to find better accommodations.

My neighbor tried to help out with some brood frames from his bees last week. We went through a couple of his hives and took off some of his honey frames. In the process of doing this the robber swarm that has been attacking my bees came after his hive too probably because it was open and they thought vulnerable. My neighbor's hives are really big and strong and were able to fight them off easily, but it made for an interesting inspection with bees flying everywhere...angry, fighting, aggressive bees. I got stung twice because of improper shoes...lesson learned.

This week, in order to try to save the hives, we have combined the two hives and I am in the process of replacing the queen. Hopefully in doing this, building the numbers and having a queen laying again, the hive can strengthen itself and have the ability to make it through the winter. We will then split the hives again and hope that they strengthened enough to make two strong hives for the year.

The robber bees are relentless. Sadly, I am pretty sure that we will be starting over with new bees in the Spring. I think at this point it will take a miracle to keep this hive going. In desperation, we have completely closed up the entrance to the hive in order to discourage the robber bees and keep them out. I have put an empty hive body on top of the inner lid of the hive and set up some sugar water and a bowl of water with rocks so that they have access to water while they are shut in. The outside of the hive is covered with the rogue bees desperately trying to get into the hive. they have pretty much cleaned out the hive for several weeks now and the bees that I have left have been completely wiped out of any possible honey and pollen stores for the winter.

Farm and Garden: Bees

Today we opened up the nucs and transferred them to the full size hives. I think it went really slow, because I actually felt a little more timid than I thought I would be. I was really concerned about accidently mashing bees with the frames and having chaos ensue.

We opened up the more aggressive of the two hives, and although they got a little rowdy, flew around and bumped into us a bit, they really didn't try to attack. It took them a while to settle down and go inside, but it really wasn't bad. This hive was so busy and hectic that I couldn't find the queen and one of the frames had some bumpy comb on it that reminded me of queen cells that I have seen on other frames in other people's hives. Luckily it is just misshapen comb and not the threat of swarming.

The second hive is a bit smaller and slower than the first hive, but there was lots of brood in many different stages of development and I was able to locate the queen in this hive because they were not nearly as crazy as the first group.

I'm not sure which I enjoyed better. The crazy busy rocking hive, or the one that is moving along at a steady pace that is calmer. I guess time will tell.

Farm and Garden: Bees

We finally got bees. On Saturday we drove out to Red Belly Bee Farm and picked up our first two packages of bees and brought them home with a mixture of anticipation, excitement, and a little anxiety. It has been a very long wait, but we can finally strike it off our list of things that we would like to try learning to do.

Bob packaged the nucs by stapling a piece of screen across the access hole and duct taping the top down so that they didn't bounce off on the drive home. I was very grateful that they were securely packed for the drive home, and we made it all the way back without incident.

Nathan(hesitantly) and I gently took the boxes to the back of the property where we will be placing them for now hoping that they are in a good place to take up residence.

The first box was really easy to settle in. I put on protective gear-hat, vale, and gloves-and carefully removed the staples and took of the screen. The bees slowly peeked out took a small flight around and quietly settled in for the evening.

The second box was a little bit different. I haven't had very much experience with bees, but with the little bit of exposure that I have had, I've quickly learned that a mashed bee means that there will possibly be trouble. I was optimistic though that the two smashed bees may not still cause too much excitement after a whole 40-ish minutes ride home...looking at the opening that was blocked with the screen quickly made me realize that this one was going to be a challenge. I puffed a bit of smoke hoping it would help and gently began undoing the staples. The closer I came to releasing the screen the angrier the mob seemed. I told Nathan to stand a good distance back and released the flood. They were really angry and poured out of the opening to inspect the "danger" quite a few of them surrounded my area and I calmly smoked around me in hopes of distracting them, and then carefully walked toward Nathan to gently smoke the ones that were inspecting him for possible signs of "danger".


After a few minutes they lost interest and surveyed their area and then settled in for the evening.
We didn't panic, and we didn't get stung. I counted that as an extremely amazing and encouraging first encounter with our new bees. I am sure going forward there will be stings...probably quite a few, but for today we avoided that possible tragedy and move forward into the world of Beekeeping.


So...so far so good. Yesterday and today both hives seemed to be busy as...well...bees. Tomorrow we will try to open up the hives and see what's going on inside and attempt to move them into their new residence.



Here's to continued adventure of Our Handmade and Homegrown Life.

Hope you are having a beautiful beginning to your summer.

Landscaping: New Native Plants

Matt and I went out to Strawberry Plains Audubon Center in Holly Springs, Mississippi. This place is amazing. They do lots of events throughout the year and there are lots of classes and opportunities to learn about and commune with nature. The event highlight of the year is in September for their humming bird festival that celebrates all types of animals, and the migration of the humming birds. Last week, we went out and picked up some native woodland species to add to our yard. I am really hoping to create a landscape haven for wildlife in our yard, and also introduce lots of species that are edibles for both our family and the wildlife that surrounds us. This also gives us the opportunity to add specific plants that will be good for our new hives of bees giving them plenty of opportunity to have close nectar sources.

There were so many different kinds of plants to choose from that it was really difficult to make choices, but this year we picked up Oak Leaf Hydrangea, which I have been wanting for many years.

Jewel Weed(Impatiens capensis) for ground cover in a damp area of the yard.  It is a common native found in areas along creeks, bottomlands, ditches, ponds and low land damp areas. It is a relative of impatients. The stems re translucent and succulent like. the flowers are bright orange and spotted and the seed pods are sensitive to touch when ripe and explode open shooting seeds out. This plant is considered an annual native to North America, not perennial, but it can be an aggressive reseeding plant and may not be welcome in some gardens. Be sure to plant in an area that you don't mind becoming over-run with these plants. It is also said to be great for skin issues, bug bites, and soothing rashes especially poison ivy. The two plants are often seen growing near each other in the wild. some other names for this plant are;  orange jewelweed, common jewelweed, spotted jewelweed, spotted touch-me-not, or orange balsam.

Woodland poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a native perennial  that grows well in moist woodland settings. It is happy in shade to part shade. It is also called wood poppy, celandine poppy, and poppy wort. It is valued for its bright sunny yellow flowers that have four petals that float cheerfully above the deeply lobed leaves. The seed pods are a fuzzy blue-ish green pod that add interest because of their uniqueness.

The Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium) plant that is in the same family as Jack in the Pulpit. Although it can be an edible if treated properly, I prefer to have it for it's unique look in the landscape. The plant has a toxin in it that makes if unfavorable unless prepared properly, so we will just consider this a pretty ground cover. These plants are unique, they come up out of the ground with one leaf(with several leaflets) on a stem. when the plant flowers, it creates a stalk near the base of the plant that grows out of the side of the stem and the single flower grows off of it. The flowers are inside a spathe and contain both male and female flowers. The fruits form a cluster of bright orange-red berries at the end of the stem where the flower had grown. It is also known as a Dragon-root plant. It is a native perennial  species found in damp woodland areas of North America. 

Milkweed and Turks Cap for the butterflies, and hummingbirds. Turks Cap(Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is a wonderful woodland perennial to have in the landscape because not only is it a very showy plant with beautiful red flowers to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, it is also a very useful edible. The leaves can be used in the same way as spinach, steamed, boiled or as a salad leaf(young leaves are better). The flowers can be eaten as a treat off of the bush, used as a salad garnish, or made into tea. and the berries can be eaten, made into tea, or jelly. It is in the mallow family of plants and is a hibiscus relative. Some other names of this plant are Wax mallow, Red mallow, Texas mallow, Mexican apple, and Sleeping hibiscus.

I also picked up a couple of wild ginger plants to put in the front of the house where I am in the process of building a dry bed at the drip line along the front of the house in a very difficult area. Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense), a member of the birthwort family was used by early settlers as a substitute for the ginger that they could no longer get. It doesn't have the same flavor as the tropical version, but in learning from the local Indians they were able to adapt it as a substitute flavor in their foods. It also had medicinal uses for the Native Americans. It is a stemless, low-growing, perennial woodland plant that prefers deep shade areas. It is a very slow growing ground cover that makes a beautiful display in areas that may otherwise look bare. It spreads by rhizomes that grow at or just under the ground surface. It has a curious bell shaped brownish red flower that blooms at the ground surface that attracts small insects such as ants and small flies as pollinators.

I am looking forward to making this plant sale a tradition to continue adding beautiful native plants and perennials to our yard.

Landscaping: Drainage/Erosion Fix

Our house has many, many areas that need work. We knew this going in, but over the last few years we have come to find out that the longer it goes the more issues we find, and with that also comes increasing age of the house...and more issues to address. Such is one of the pains of home ownership.

This particular area has been an issue since we moved in, but I put it off because I wasn't sure exactly what direction I wanted to go. In putting it off it has also become more of a problem over time so I decided to let it side track me from other projects and begin to take care of it. More work still needs to be done, but its a start and already making a difference at least from an erosion standpoint.

Our house has a brick wall across the front with a small patch of ground that doesn't grow anything because of the deep shade. There is also has a drip-line area that is constantly washing away dirt from the front of the house and around the corner where it is eroading away and will eventually cause issues with the wall and the foundation. The kids also cause issues because it is a great place for digging and getting muddy, so I really need to remove that temptation also.

For a quick fix, we began piling stones, concrete, and bricks inorder to build up and reduce the washout and that has slowed things down, but it isn't very attractive. It is however on the side of the house and not very visible so for now is stays exactly where it is because it is useful and it is working until I can put something better in place.

In the area at the corner and across the front, I dug a slight trench and filled it with pea gravel. Then I placed some large stones on top starting with the area around the downspout and working my way out and around to give it a good base for the water to hit and run off. Then I filled in with medium pebbles and larger pebbles so that the spaces between the rocks were better filled in and the pea gravel was completely covered.

It is only got partially complete with the rocks and gravel that I had on hand, but it looks a whole lot better than the bare ground and mud. When the weather is dry it will look like a dry stream, when it is wet it will serve as a French drain and hopefully divert water without continuing to erode the dirt.

Soon I will begin filling in areas with native plants that are also perennials so that it is easy to keep up with. So far I have put in a couple of Rosemary and Lavender plants. Next week I will dig up a few ferns and probably some mosses from the front woods. Like so many other things here it is another work in progress.