 |
| Part of the garden last March |
 |
| A month later, rows and planted (all by hand) |
I'm supposed to write about something fall related and with all the harvesting done and fall clean up in full swing, the timing is good. I thought I'd share some of the highlights of our past year becoming prairie dwellers and small farmers.
It's been one year this month that Frank retired, we bought a home on acreage in Paulden, Arizona and had no idea what we were in for!
If you haven't been following my prairie posts from the beginning, you might not know why we embarked on this new lifestyle. In the first post, I explained it. And then the farming began. So here goes:
January 2012
What do you do for retirement when
the main financial contributor to the household has been out of work for three
of the last five years - thanks to the not quite a depression of the last
several years - and your retirement accounts have been cut in half due to the
same state of affairs? I ask this question knowing so many others have found
their life to be in the same fix. Do you work until death do you part? After
considering that, we said no.
Two years ago, in the midst of
wondering what the last half of our life would be like, my son, Lance, called
and proposed we join forces, create our own little commune. Oh, I liked that -
always wanted to try that life style way back when. After considering the pros
and cons of living under the same roof as our son and his lady, we came up with
a plan to do just that.
 |
| Peppers, peppers, peppers |
June 2012
Farming is not for the faint of heart or weak of
limb. Although, Lance is the lead in the vegetable garden and does ninety
percent of the work, the other ten percent leaves me exhausted at times.
So now we can add Blister Beetle to our list of
pestilent visitors which includes frost (killed eighty tomato plants, damaged
the potato plants, froze off the flowers from the peach trees, apricot trees and blackberry
bushes), wind which threatened our baby pepper plants and tomato plants, tiny
black bugs that nearly destroyed all of our spinach, broccoli and rendered our
radish tops really ugly.
 |
| Geared for battle |
I've been the messenger of death lately - or
actually the hand of death. Waging war against weeds is an endless effort, and
today I got serious. I took the weed eater to the garden. The heck with
hand-pulling in this heat.
July 2012
I'm so excited about the garden today. We're seeing
even more vegetables make it to our table and promises of more to come.
August 2012
It's windy here most days at least by mid-morning.
But one evening the wind blew so hard we feared for the veggies.
September 2012
Harvesting continues. With lots of sneezes and
wheezing. Neither Christie or I were bothered during the typical spring allergy
season that plagued us in Phoenix. But August and September have been miserable
if we work too long in the garden.
 |
| That's a single tomato plant |
Frank is wondering if he really is retired. Working
the farm, keeping up the house and all that goes with it - not much time for
the front porch rocker. And right now with all the crops coming in, none us of
are twiddling our thumbs. Lance is now calling his dad Pickle. He's getting
pretty good at canning pickles and relish.
October 2012
These final harvested veggies aren't pretty. They're survivors, and I'm sure they still have plenty of nutrition.
To celebrate the fall harvest and the Halloween season, I'm giving away candy - trick or treating blog style. And not just any candy but See's Halloween chocolates. Leave a comment between October 26 and the 31st and I'll enter your name in the drawing. Check out these other blogs during that same time period and see what goodies they're giving away. Good luck!
| http://christineela |
| http://debbie- |
| http://decadentdeci |
| http://donnamichael |
| http://ginger- |
