A Busy Week

Yes, it has been a busy week around here.

Ray was off most of the week under the weather. He went to the doctor, got some meds and is now on the mend.

The lawn was in dire need of mowing after almost two weeks of growth and rain, so it was my destiny to attack it. Now, if you haven't seen our lawn, imagine an acre of several hills with a few rather steep inclines. Yes, it's quite a workout! I was in alot of pain after two days of mowing with a push mower. I made the mistake of mowing over a hill of red ants that weren't there last year. One scurried up my shoe and took a nice bite out of my ankle before dying from a quick slap. I hope it enjoyed that last meal. (sigh)

After the mowing was finished, the clippings were everywhere. It looked like a hayfield. I raked most it up, placed newspapers around the corn, added some fertilizer and mulched with the grass clippings. I also added some grass clippings around the strawberry plants too. It looks alot better now.


The tomatoes are growing nicely after adding more fertilizer and some powdered lime to sweeten the soil.



"Pappaw" always said that lime will make the tomatoes less acidic. He was right too.


The zuchinni has gotten huge this year!

I've had to pull off four zuchinni because they didn't get enough calcium on the initial growth. They turned yellow on the end and began to rot. The plants always grow out of it though and the rest is looking really nice. I'm still going to add some bone meal around the plants.

Thursday I harvested some lavender.

I crushed the leaves, stalks and blooms, and poured some olive oil over all of it. It's now in a sealed plastic container on the sink where it will be shaken daily for a month, strained and bottled. I'll then have my own lavender oil.

I also gathered some lavender blooms and have them drying for sachets that I plan to make pretty soon. I'm going to sew some small muslin bags, embroider lavender blossoms on them and add the word lavender. I'll post pics of those when they're finished too.

Today was a nice day for harvesting some peppermint leaves. It's best to harvest those on a sunny day right before it starts to bloom.

I've stripped them from the stalks, washed and dried them and have filled a Mason jar with them. I wrapped a few leaves up in a "tea bag" I'd fashioned from a coffee filter. I stapled a teaspoon of them inside it and steeped them in very hot water for about five minutes. I added two teaspoons of sugar to each cup and enjoyed a fantastic cup of peppermint tea.
You can have up to 2 cups of peppermint tea a day for around 8 days straight if you like it, but after that, don't drink it for a week. Too much of a good thing is never a good idea. I read heart problems can result if you drink too much of it without the week wait.