New Nemesis??

 I mowed today and, in the process, may have discovered a new homestead nemesis.  It's not a new one, even to me, but since I've kind of been "doing the minimums" for the last couple of years it's had a chance to sneak up on me and get established.  Mulberries trees.  They're everywhere!! 

My new homestead nemesis?

Since it's the season for them to ripen I could easily spot their beautiful red and purple berries.  Everywhere.  Stubbornly growing up through every neglected fence line.  Stealthily invading every unpoliced border with the wooded area next to my house.  Brazenly growing up right through the lilac bushes.  Everywhere!

My next question is "What now?"  I have a chainsaw, of course, and will probably employ that to terminate most of them with extreme prejudice.  I'll drag them into a brush pile and burn them all this winter.  However, I know from experience most of them will grow back.  I could - and eventually may have to - purchase some Tordon or equivalent to keep them from coming back, but I prefer to keep the herbicide use to a minimum, or not at all if possible.  I will be looking for a non-herbicide solution first!

So there it is!  Another challenge to address on the Hoosier Country Homestead!  All that being said, if that's the worst problem I have going I'm still pretty well off!  I am, in fact, still blessed!

Col. 1:9-12,

Mark

Back again... Again!

 So...  I'm not dead yet!  I am: 

• Mostly recovered from a couple of rough medical years.  I'm much better now and am (hopefully) done with surgeries for awhile.  I have some limitations, but they're not too onerous.

• A 'long haul' Covid survivor from January of this year.  The 'survivor' bit was an open question for a few days, but once again God came through and answered a lot of prayers.  Lungs and heart have a ways to go, but overall I feel pretty good!

• Retired!  Not exactly my preferred timing, but I could no longer keep up the pace required as the site's Chief System Test Engineer and God has blessed so we can do so pretty comfortably.

• Able to be active for solid 1/2 days, which is enough to have a nice garden and keep up the homestead. Hopefully that will improve but even if it doesn't, it's all good.  I'll be telling you about it!

• Still blessed!

We're up to 5 grands,  we have a garden, and chickens, and have a lot going on in our lives. The plan is to catch up with you all and, at least once a week, get back to sharing a bit of our lives on the Hoosier Country Homestead!

Col. 1:9-12

Mark

2018 in a Nutshell!

Hi Folks!!

If anyone is still out there paying attention, or just wondering what in the world happened to Mark, I've got some updates and some answers!!

Homestead updates:
This year was not a bad garden year, but not our greatest either.  It was cold and really wet early on and our green beans (like most other folks in the area) just didn't come on well.  That being said, we ended up with about 70 something pints against the 130 something pints from last year.  Not awful, but we're hoping for better next year.  The other crops survived the cold spring reasonably well, and we had a number of harvests like this - less the butternut squash and sweet potatoes - over the season.  The pictures don't include the obligatory over abundance of summer squash, zucchini, and tomatoes that most everyone has most years!

I had some good help getting the crops out of my weedy garden some days.  I love when they ask Papa if they can go work in the garden with me.  The two city girls have developed a love of working the garden. It makes a Papa proud!  They've also developed a love of digging for worms.  Don't get that one, but I always tell them "Have at it!"  A couple of the grands just didn't seem to be up to helping out!  Maybe next year!

Getting the last of the tomatoes and peppers

Ok - Gratuitous grandkid picture!! 

 With all that help De , along with a little assistance from me, got a lot of canning done and we were able to put up a nice variety of yummy things for the family and us.

Sweet potatoes and carrots

We love all the colors!!

We also had some great family times!  One of the highlights was being able to dance with Daughter #1 at her wedding!  It was a wonderful, magical day and we added another amazing son-in-law to the family.

Daddy didn't cry...  too much!

Lastly, I got some answers to my long running health questions, but had a couple of rough spots along the way.  After months of appointments and tests and a half a dozen doctors I have a diagnosis: It's not Lupus, it's Polymyalgia Rheumatica.  It's an autoimmune condition that attacks muscle tissue. It's not, at least on it own, degenerative but it causes a boatload of pain and some serious fatigue.  There's no cure, but it's surprisingly easy to beat into remission with a couple of years of low dose immune suppressants.  In the grand scheme of things that's good news!

There were some rough spots along way that are a lot more amusing looking back on them than they were at the time.  One of my mid-stream pain medication protocols didn't suit me very well and I ended up passing out while on my feet.  At a fancy company "Winter Celebration".  In front of 500 coworkers and spouses, and with a 4 piece string ensemble playing in the background.  I ended up with a concussion and don't remember much but I'm told there were a handful of medical professional spouses looking after my pasty, prone, and out-like-a-light self as I lay on the floor right in front of the hors d'oeuvre table.  I was out for about 20 minutes, and only have a few 'snapshot' memories of the next two hours.   I'm told there were security folks, and two policeman, and no less than two fire trucks with crews, all before the paramedics arrived.  I have a lot to live down!

The concussion is mostly better but I'm still light sensitive and get frequent headaches.  I also hurt my right hand on the way down.  I expected it would eventually get better with time like most hard bumps but it didn't.  After shameless procrastination and considerable urging from De I finally went in "just to have it checked out".  It took me awhile so sort out the radiologist's report (the family doc just said 'fractured'), but near as I can tell I ripped one of the ligaments in my thumb clean off the bone and took a chip with it.  I see the hand doc tomorrow who will tell me if it's Ginsu knife time, just a cast, or something else.

Even with all that, I'm doing better that I have in a long time.  They have my pain meds tuned up pretty well with no narcotics involved.  I'm getting around most of the time without my cane, and that just in time to dance with my daughter at her wedding!  I'm on a good path and am looking forward to feeling even better!  One more time, I am so blessed!

Col. 1:9-12

Mark

Yes, we have a garden!!

Hi Folks!!

We do, in fact, have a working garden!!  As you can see it's a real ugly, unkempt, one (more on that in a bit), but God has blessed our efforts and the harvest is coming in!   

That is one weedy looking garden!!

It has been very hot, very wet, and very humid here in NE Indiana this summer (95F/35C with 90ish %RH) and for the first time in many years, the green beans will likely have a poor showing.  We thought the tomatoes would never start turning red, but they seem to be coming on quickly now and we'll have a good tomato year.  Broccoli did well.  Peppers, zucchini, summer squash, cucumbers, and egg plant are doing very well.  Beets and sweet potatoes seem to be doing fine.  Cabbage was a total loss as was the brussel sprouts.   Today is the start of canning season for us, so we are "off to the races"!

We have had some hard times this summer, too, in a couple of ways.

On August 5th De's Mom fell in her apartment.  She shattered her shoulder joint, broke her knee cap, some bones in one hand, and maybe her hip.  Her lifelong heavy smoking habit had left her frail, and her kidneys, heart, and lungs could not tolerate the shock of her injuries.  On August 10th, early in the morning, she went to be with Jesus.  De and her other daughter were with her when she died.  Family, Church, and friends all pulled together to get us through this difficult time, and we held her funeral on the 14th.

To complicate matters a bit more, I seem to have developed a new 'thing' over the last few months.  The preliminary diagnosis is lupus, but we may not know for sure until November, which is the earliest available rheumatologist appointment.  I have the usual bone-crushing fatigue, joint and muscle pain, and funky rash across my nose and cheeks that comes and goes, as well as some balance, speech, and cognitive issues. (No stroke - they checked.)   I use a cane pretty much full-time now for balance, when I'm not in the house. (Thus the shoddy looking garden.  Harder to swing my beefy weed whacker when you need to use it to balance some, too.  It can be done, but it's slooowww.)  

Even with all that, we are still blessed.  The outpouring of caring we received when Mom B. passed was amazing.  Everyone has been great in accommodating me and my new limitations - well beyond what they need to.   I'm getting along OK with prayers, rest, and ibuprofen in equal abundance, and I'm praying for a cancellation that allows me to see the rheumatologist soon.  By God's grace I can do most of what I need to do (including the garden) and some of what I want to do.  He provides for what I can't do.  And we have some really good tasting bell peppers and tomatoes!!

Col. 1:9-12,

Mark

It Ain't Pretty, But....

Hi Folks,

Yeah - I'm still not dead yet, but I'm a pretty lousy blogger!!  It's July and my last post was about winter!  What a looser!

Things here are mostly the same.  My health hasn't gotten better but it's not gotten much worse either, so that counts as a victory.  I'm still able to do almost anything I want, only in limited quantities and slower than I used to.  Still -  it's all pretty good.

We do have a garden this year.  Smaller than most years, but a little bigger than last year.  It sure ain't pretty, but it's growing like crazy.  That is not, of course, do to any ninja gardening skills or deep, dark, family gardening secrets.  It mostly due to the almost tropical weather we've had this spring.  Lots of rain, with local flooding in some areas, and higher than normal temperatures and humidity.  We're toward the end (I hope) of a string of days with 105 degree F heat indexes.  Great for the garden, not so great for gardeners.  Outdoor work gets done early mornings (on days off) and evenings (on day-job work days) and it's indoor work the rest of the time.

So the garden...  Last fall I had just enough energy to get the harvest in, but didn't get the usual post-harvest clean-up done.  That's kicking the can down the road, I know, but sometimes that has to be good enough.  In any case, before I could started on the spring work, I had to do last fall's work first.  The problem was that it was so wet, and for a short time flooded with an inch or so of water, I couldn't get into it when I needed to.  So when I could get to it, I started with this:

Sad, isn't it?  All that quackgrass!

We were able to do two things this year that made the job a lot easier.  First, I was able to buy a Mantis tiller from a friend at the day job.  I can easily lift it into the beds and it is a terror on quackgrass roots.  For guy with limited energy it was truly a God-send.  With the tiller we got the garden, in stages, to:

Ok, it's a start...

Looking a little better now!

Second, and a number of weeks into the process, we broke down a bought a heavy duty gas-powered weed wacker.  We have a battery powered one that is small enough De can use it, but it just wasn't up to the task by far.  I could almost hear the snickering mockery of the weeds as the battery wore down and the weeds grew taller.  With my heavy duty gas powered one, weeds get hacked off at ground level with no debate or discussion.  It's a beautiful thing!  With the new weed wacker, and some of the usual effort required to get a garden in we got to:

Starting to look like a garden!

Yesterday, with the hog-panel cages on everything it looked like:

Still not pretty, but I can live with it!

The lower garden area at work!

So I still need a long term mulch solution between the beds.  You can see the old feed sacks held down by garden staples in some of the pictures.  It works ok, but boy is it ugly and it consumes a lot of garden staples.  Leigh at Five Acres and a Dream had a great post about the mulching problem, and after seeing it all laid out I think I'm going to go with the feed sacks but cover them with wood chip mulch - after it cools down a bit.

Anyways, there it is - The Hoosier County Homestead garden, such as it is.  One other tidbit, mostly for your amusement.  Sumac is a constant battle here at the edges of any wooded area.  It's very invasive and keeping it at bay without a lot of chemicals is a constant battle.  De and I were recently gone for a week of vacation.  When we came back we discovered it had stormed hard enough to push the walls of the hoop house in far enough to dump some stuff that was sitting on sawhorses on one side on the ground and...



...  the sumac was trying to take over!  All this in about two weeks of growth.

All in all things are pretty good and, as usual, I know for certain I am blessed.

Col 1:9-12

Mark

Relearning Winter

I've never been a big fan of winter.  Not that I hate it and, truth be told, I've missed it when I've lived in places that that didn't have a real, Midwestern, winter.  I just enjoy the other seasons more.

This winter is no exception.  A few weeks ago I was ready to be done with winter.  I don't get a vote, of course, but still I was ready to be done with single digit temperatures, treacherous 40 mile commutes to the day job, clearing vehicles before you can drive them, bundling up to go out and do anything, and wading through snow to do the chores.

Last week we got a bunch of the white stuff early.  I don't always get the tractor out to clear the driveway with new snow since De and I both drive AWD vehicles, but this time there was enough I had to.  My little tractor can only push so much and if we had gotten more I'd have been in trouble.

Then we had a day or two of warmer weather where much, but not all of it, melted.  Then colder weather guaranteeing what was left would stay for the weekend.  This weekend, the kids and grandkids were up for the one year birthday of the youngest one, and the announcement there is another on the way.  With snow on the ground and an open hill in front of the house there was bound to be sledding.  De and I have five or six sleds from when our kids were young we keep for just such an opportunity.   With an inch or so of new snow Saturday night, it was clear there would be more after Church on Sunday.

Saturday was the birthday party, and after the traditional festivities Papa took the four girls, the two grands and the two adopted grands from my last post, out to play in the snow.  Between Saturday and Sunday there was:

A lot of sledding,

Snow angels,

Snow "reindeer",

"Bears" in the snow,

And lots of smiles and laughter.

Through it all, Papa 'relearned' winter.  Where I had seen mostly inconvenience, the grandkids saw a wonderland of imagination, endless possibilities, and pure joy.  For the price a few days of achy joints and sore muscles, I got to share in it all and see winter anew in the laughter of the children I love.  The days where I can do that will someday, perhaps someday soon, come to a close so I'm cherishing the opportunities I have.  It was worth every minute I'll spend with the heating pad, every ibuprofen I'll need in the next day or two to get through the workday, and every bit of muscle cream I'll use before bed.  This day, I am truly blessed!

Col. 1:9-12,

Mark

What it's all about

Yep.  We got it.  De and I, both.  Not sure who was first, but in the end it didn't matter.  I'm taking about the flu of course, which has been burning through this part of the country.  I don't know specifically which variety because when I called the doc he said, via his nurse, "Don't bother to come in to be tested, it's the flu."  Since I was already on Tamiflu as a preventative (due to my unrepentantly, unabashedly, underperforming immune system) they called in an Rx of the same stuff for De.

It was too late.  By the time De got home from work it was clear she had it, too.  A woman who has essentially become a third daughter picked up De's prescription for her and we both settled in for the siege.   Being on Tamiflu did seem to help because neither of us got seriously ill.  The fact that I didn't get seriously ill, even being on Tamiflu, is a simply a testament to God's grace.  There have been over 136 flu deaths in Indiana so far and many of those are folks who had compromised immune systems.  Like me.  I was expecting real trouble and got no more than healthy people get.  Once again, we are so blessed.

So - Down to the 'What it's all about part'.  We got a few inches of fresh snow last night and after church (which De and I sat out this week) the same adopted daughter who picked De's meds stopped by with her two daughters (Adopted granddaughters!! Woot! Woot!).  They wisely didn't come in, but the three of them brushed the snow off both our vehicles, cleared the snow from our patio, took our trash down to the trash cans, and the girls each made a little snowman to sit on the benches outside the front door.

Their family has been a joy to us for the past few years and even more in the past few months.  We were so honored and humbled by their kindness.  I'm going to be smiling all week, everytime I think about it.  Kindness, community, family, Christianity - Yep!  That IS what it's all about.

Col. 1:9-12,

Mark