It has been a very busy week with picking our harvest of sour cherries and other berries. I have lots more picking ahead to do as things continue to ripen. Our sour cherries have kept me the busiest.
The sour cherry tree was loaded, this photo is after we have already picked over 60lbs of cherries. I expect to pick another 50lbs then just leave the rest for the birds and whatever else wants to come and eat them.
Here is my picking container. An old pop bottle with the top cut off with a short cord that hooks over my head so the container sits right on my chest. Not to long so it doesn’t get hooked up on branches when leaning in to do your picking.
I had to sit and pit almost 30lbs already more yet to do after I pick them. Our freezer is already full from freezing many bags with their pits in them. As I have so many I may try making wine out of the ones I froze. I will do that later this fall. Just don’t have time to try it right now.
Those that I pitted I canned and made jam with.
It’s always a good feeling when the canning is done. However when putting the jam in my pantry I realized I had about 8 jars still from last year.
They all look so luscious and now ready for pies and deserts.
Along with the cherries I have also finished picking black currants and red currants. I am still picking raspberries.
Also producing now are my strawberries. I know most of you have long finished with strawberries, but my growing season is so short that I am often a couple months behind. Most years I get frost just when the strawberries are ripe so I guess this is a good year for them.
I don’t have a lot of strawberries so they are just eaten fresh.
My raspberries are plump and ripening. I just freeze some and make jam later and use for smoothies for next summer. With the fresh ones I make one gallon of liquor that’s take about 6 months before they are ready.
Just in time for Christmas.
I have been lucky this year the chickmunks and squirrels as well as the wasp have not discovered them. But everyday I go out and pick a container full.
These are our 1st grapes which are being grown in the greenhouse. Hubby just had to have some grapes even though they might not make it grown outside, but they have done well in the greenhouse covering an entire window with their vines, which have help to keep the greenhouse cooler.
As I had to make room in the freezer so I went ahead and pulled my bags of rhubarb out and started my rhubarb wine. It will take almost 4 months before it is ready.
I am sure I will only have a short break then my other fruit trees will be ready to start harvesting. With plums, apples and pears still to go.
My garden has been a big disappointment this year. I have a mole that is eating all my potatoes. My peas are only now producing. My beans never recovered from the late frost we had beginning of July.
I have lots of onions and lettuce. I only just finished harvesting the last of my radishes that were planted in June and they were still good. Many of my cold weather stuff is doing alright, but no squash so far.
Oh but of course my flowers have been the best ever. Just can’t keep my garden weeded like I use too with my back and shoulder problems. I don’t enjoy it as much anymore as I see so much that needs to be done in it, but just can’t do it.
Well to add to my sweet week I also received
Irresistibly Sweet Blog Award.
Thank you Janie2 for given me this award. If you don’t know her already please visit her wonderful blogs and photos at
http://sunflowersnaps.blogspot.com/
Standard Blog Award Rules:
1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award to 12 more deserving blogs.
Ok I guess I have to now share 7 random facts about me and let me warn you I have opened up a bit here as normally I never share much about myself personally.
1. I have been in every state in the United States and lived in Maine, Louisiana, Texas and Washington. I was a Boeing Brat and our vacations and weekends were all camping. Now here in Canada I rarely get the chance to go camping. But where I live is like camping to many people.
2. I can’t spell worth a bean and use poor grammar when writing and speaking, but really don’t care. My friends miss my hand written letters before I had spell check. They always got such a chuckle. Many of you have seen it on my comments or even here.
3. I lived here at the ranch for the 1st 4 years without power and running water. I know how to go without if I have too. I know I could survive in the bush as well. Must have been all those years spent camping .
4. I have never had much energy and whenever I try to be like other people who do I end up crashing feeling sad and exhausted. Sometimes I feel I’ve missed many things in life I wanted to try but just couldn’t muster the energy to do it. So at this time in my life I am learning to except and appreciate who I am (a thinker not a doer) and the life I am still blessed with.
5. I don’t share my feelings well with other people. I could easily be a recluse. However I love being connected with people thru the internet. I am more comfortable here then physically with people. I have always felt a real connection with nature and feel totally comfortable with it.
6. When I was a teenager I had 2 dreams. One was to live in a Victorian style house with a picket fence and have a load of children. The 2nd was to live in the mountains in a log house away from everything and everybody. I think I had a split personality. Well life’s circumstance led me to the log house far from everyone and no children. I will always regret not at least adopting children, but looking back don’t think I would have had the energy to raise them.
7. My passion is photography. Something that doesn’t require a lot of energy and I do have a natural eye for. It comes from my sense that everything has to be in balance with it surroundings and seeing details in what I look at. From colors to shapes to placement, I tend to arrange everything in my house that way. If I don’t feel it’s in balance with everything I have to move or remove it. Photography has brought me a sense of balance to my life where I can share a part of me. I can’t write with a hoot, but my photos helped me to share words that are buried inside me. I tried crafts for a few years because everyone else was doing it and was told one should find something to be creative at. I hated the time it took for something to be finished and was never satisfied with my work. I do wish I had more time to get involved with more photography sites but found when I did I just couldn’t keep up so quit or closed the accounts. I have depended on my photo blogging friends here for inspiration and new ways to look at things. So with my love of photography I really need to move it to the next level and buy a proper camera, that’s my dream now but just don’t know if I will have the energy and time to learn all that I will have to regarding a bigger camera and it’s use. I love the ease and simplicity of my little pocket camera and that is what I use for all my photos.
Well now that I got that off my shoulders here are 12 blog sites that I would like to share. I am picking ones that are a bit different from what most of my close blog friends visit. I wanted to share ones you might not already know so check them out if you like.
1. http://amishstorys1.blogspot.com/
2. http://4pawsandatale.blogspot.com/
3. http://color-humano-daniel-casares-roman.blogspot.com/
4. http://matteotaffuri.blogspot.com/
5. http://imagenesfaleroni.blogspot.com/
6. http://jrnoguer.blogspot.com/
7. http://leroyphotography.blogspot.com/
8. http://lizfernandezg.blogspot.com/
9. http://mygrammassouljo.blogspot.com/
10. http://poppysplace-poppy.blogspot.com/
11. http://sharonlovejoy.blogspot.com/
12. http://twotumbleweeds.blogspot.com/
Well that took me forever. Had to quit for awhile as getting the links my computer starting working over time and quit working.
Hope you have a sweet week
and a
Good Morning… Good Afternoon… Good Night…
Whatever it is to you.
Photos & Words
by
Here I Am/Carrie
. The wind had been howling like a living thing and had not much abated during our little adventure. This little cottage was very overgrown
. Several sheds were on the property with rusted roofs
. At first I didn’t start to feel strange but admittedly this place was kind of creepy even during the day
. I had to laugh at myself as I thought of the original “Living Dead” movie
. I could easily imagine a zombie ambling down those stairs! I had no idea how long it had been since someone lived here but I’d say it had been a very long time
. The surrounding walls seemed to be kept up but I imagine that was because they neighbors were still there
. One abandoned room had an old stove in it that also was showing its age
. Some of the gates seemed to be about ready to fall
. Old metal and pealing paint really catch my attention
. I was soon too distracted to think about the creepy feeling of the place
. They say that if walls could speak they would have a story to tell…the same can’t be said for the roof here
! It was really beyond me why someone would bother to pad lock anything
. The blank stare of broken windows began to remind me of the strange feeling that was making my skin crawl
. Soon our attention was drawn to a door in a second story of a shed. It was creaking and opening and closing on it's own accord
. We didn’t think much of it until later. I continued to photograph things that grabbed my attention. This particular shot I really happen to like
. Old dead bolts with lots of rust and a cobweb or two..ah yeah
! We finally moved on leaving the dead windows staring at our backs
. It was not until we were down the road some that my daughter began to review some of the video they were taking while we explored the abandoned farm house that some made my hair stand straight up on end. There was some talking between us then a very eerie voice spoke that I knew wasn’t any of us. It said simply: “Welcome…”. Have you ever had one of those moments that feels like you just got an electric shock though you know it’s nothing to do with electricity? That’s exactly what I felt. We did not hear the voice until we reviewed the video…I knew where each person was and what they were saying…this was not any of us. The voice can be heard at 15 seconds into the video 
other times it can be things like this stone wall alone a road we walked many times
. I found that almost every structure along this road had a personality that caught my attention. This was an abandoned building that has quite a story
that I will relate later. I’m not a real believer in ghosts but I captured something here that was very strange. I will post it later. I like the little things often enough and so this sign seemed to call out to be photographed
…signs like this were all along the Tain Way showing where to walk. I usually don’t believe in posing for shots but on occasion I do just that when it seems fitting…after all what would a trip to Ireland be without at least one clover shot
? There are times when a shot presents itself that is humorous and I love that. There were some large clovers that the Irish bumblebees were visiting. They were getting completely wasted at the clover lounge…just look at this and tell me you don’t think it looks like this is one drunk bee
! I love to take pictures of Gabby because she’s not old enough to get too annoyed with me if I only take one or two pictures. She was gathering flowers for a bouquet for my mom here and I just couldn’t resist asking her to show me her treasury and click a quick shot before she got annoyed
. My camera has a feature that I’ve grown to really like lately. It’s a panorama setting that doesn’t force me to go back and stitch shots together…it allows me to slowly pan from left to right and then makes the picture right then and there
…I really like that! I love green as a color and Ireland never has a shortage of that color
! Fact is I think it might have made my eyes just a little more green too
! Pictures of some of the roads really attracted me too. I felt like it spoke also of the path God has us walking on
. Actually some of the countryside here reminded me of what there is on the Bear Tooth Pass here in montana
or maybe something you’d see in Glacier National Park
though admittedly there was no snow and always there are old structures around that you don’t usually find in our national parks
. Let’s walk on and see what we can see
. I only wish I could have seen this place with my grandparents on my Mom’s side
. They knew and loved so many wild flowers…they always knew the names of them all…something which escapes me
. I relished the solitude on our walks…it was just us and the flowers and some sheep on occasion
. There weren’t all that many trees on this walk so this patch of forest stuck out to me
. It’s funny how you can take things for granted from your own neck of the woods until you leave it…where’s the pine
? Looking down on the valley gave a wonderful view…though I’m not sure the sheep here would have said the same thing
. This ram had seen better days
. Oh how I miss this view
! I come from a state that’s got lots of cows and sheep but these, these were Irish sheep
! It’s not easy to get the whole picture but take a slice of what I offer here and know that Ireland is beautiful indeed
! My next blog I’ll show the abandoned farm we explored and post the strange phenomenon we recorded…we weren’t looking for it but it found us! Tune in next week!