Taxes, blueberries and apiary prep

Last week we picked up our blueberry bushes and got an area ready for the bees that will come this week.

The blueberry hedge (in the making)

My picture of the blueberry bushes is a little underwhelming. It was a lot of work! Since blueberries don't grow very well here in Kansas, there were some pretty particular instructions for planting - and all of it was hard. Each of the 6 plants required a hole 20" around by 15" deep. That didn't sound like much until I tried digging one and realized I had to do 5 more :-P

Each of those holes needed to be filled with 1.8 cu. ft. of Canadian peat moss. I purchased 3.8 cu. ft. bales which were a little too heavy for me. But I moved them anyway. The peat moss had to be mixed with water until it was the consistency of mud. That was fun, but time-consuming. And, finally, after 2 days' work, the blueberries were in the ground.

It's hard to see in the photo, but they are planted at the top of a retaining wall on the west side of the house. This will allow me to water them easily as it is close to the spigot and the gray water outlet. The placement will also provide good drainage.

Apiary for our new bees.

Yesterday, I spent the entire day clearing an area for our beehives. Our bees will leave their birthplace in North Carolina on Wednesday. We should be ready when they arrive at the post office later this week.

Meanwhile, Brent was fixing a very important fixture that had started leaking - the kitchen faucet. Amazingly, we have already had some equipment failures in our new home. We are chalking it up to the hardness of the water here. The faucet malfunction was a major disruption, but he got it fixed and we have running water in the kitchen again :-)

Saturday, we met with our tax guy Tom. I'm not sure why taxes are so stressful, but they are. Brent and I spent all day on Saturday collecting the papers in preparation for the meeting. Glad to have that in the works. We were a little late getting that process started.

Kick spindle full of fun.

After all that paper organizing, Brent and I each found our own ways to relax. I decided to spend some time spinning yarn in our quiet house. Brent spent some time at the local bar and grill watching the basketball tournament. That was the perfect way to decompress.

Overall, a good and productive week. The upcoming week looks to be an exciting one, too. I will embark on a new hobby - beekeeping!

Another weekend of forming the gardens…and follow me on Instagram

This time we used native perennial seed, compost, pretty gravel/rocks and mulch. Some of the spaces will be filled with transplants and others will wait for plants to sprout from seeds.

These photos show how the areas on the west side of the house turned out.

View from the front porch

View from the parking area

The dry creek bed (drainage ditch/stream)

I could go on and on about what is/will be planted where - and I will. For now, there's only time for this quick glimpse of the progress.

For more frequent glimpses, I've started posting photos on Instagram. There won't be details there. But I have a lot of fun with snapping quick photos of the happenings around the farm. You can find me @gardenrambler or by searching for Patti Ragsdale (I think - it's all pretty new to me!).

Here's a photo from a recent Instagram post about our new neighbor :-)

More gravel and garden sculpting

Add caption

This was the second of three truckloads of gravel that Brent and I spread. We ordered a whopping 45 tons of gravel to finish out the our drive, walkways and a guest parking area. That's on top of the 40 tons that we spread earlier this past winter.

Luckily, without 2 mortgages we can now afford to rent things like this Dingo to help :-)

Amazingly useful Toro Dingo (loved it!)

Before we spread the gravel, I used the Dingo to finalize the layout of our gardens on the west side of the house. The smaller bucket attachment with the teeth was perfect for digging and moving dirt.

Here are some photos of the new lay of the garden space on the west side of the house:

We included a low "bridge" made of limestone slabs.
(There's my favorite landscaping partner posing to give it some scale.)

This view of the "bridge" shows the beginning of the gravel path from the front porch.

Here is the finished path from the guest parking to the front door.
The soft swale that will drain water down the hill is somewhat visible on the left side of this photo.

And this is the finished rock wall. The "bridge" with the drainage "stream" is to the left.
The stream will drain into a water detention depression that is below the rock wall.
The swale mentioned in the previous photo caption also drains to the depression.

With any luck, this work will give us a lot of different habitats for our native and edible plantings. It along with some well-placed and carefully chosen plants, will also mitigate any erosion issues on our rather steep sloped yard. Some of the plantings will start today - in the form of rapid spreading of seeds. It's supposed to rain tomorrow so I need to work fast to get those on the ground!

More to come...

We now have one mortgage - and Spring is here!

Wow. We never could have anticipated all of the difficulties and complications inherent in building a house. It's been a very long process spanning nearly three and a half years from the purchase of the property till closing, and now it's done. And do we love it? Oh, yeah!

Our closing happened on March 5 (last Thursday). It was an email from the bank with a subject "the message you thought would never come." And it was so true. After all that time, the fact that it was finally going to happen was very hard to believe.

The first thing Brent and I did after the closing late on Thursday was buy wine. We were sitting in our banker's office and could see Holyfield Winery right across the street. And it had been a while since we had felt comfortable spending on a luxury like good wine - and it is good. We bought 6 bottles!

It was an awesome day and to top it all off it seemed like Spring started right then! The temperatures have been in the 50's, 60's and 70's ever since.

So, of course, we've spent every spare minute outside - like every other person :-)

The boys got to meet some of the neighbors. 

We started landscaping the front walkway.

And we put up some birdhouses that had been long-buried
in our Shawnee garage. We hope the wrens and bluebirds find our home inviting too!

 It feels like the whole world is celebrating with us. Even our neglected collection of Amaryllis bulbs seem to know it's time to smile.

Brent's giant red Amaryllis with an amazing 3 flower stalks (one isn't open)

I've started posting on Instagram, too. What a fun way to connect. I'm "gardenrambler" and you will see a lot of the same photos I post on the blog - but not so many words :-P

Now we are really home

It's official. Today Happy Apple's Farm is our only home. The Shawnee house has a new owner and all our possessions are here - well, kinda.

We have spent nearly every day for the last month packing, deciding, selling, packing some more and moving an enormous amount of stuff. It is the stuff collected by a family full of children and fun. It is the stuff that makes up a life. And every box and bin, drawer and closet held history. It was hard and slow and seemed as though it would never end.

literally car full after car full of things were donated

Thankfully, there are many places like Goodwill and Savers that welcomed the donation of our extra things. And we visited at least one of those places in Shawnee nearly every time we went to the house to pack - sometimes more than once a day. What a wonderful service they do! And it feels good to know that most of those donations will be used.

And there is our modern version of the classified ad: Craigslist. We sold and gave away a couple of couches, beds, desks, entertainment centers and fish tanks. And we even made a little bit of extra money.

In spite of all that , we still have two rather large storage units of stuff that we aren't sure what to do about. And there are boxes and bags of things all over our new home that have yet to find their spot.

And to top all of that off, the water heater stopped working Monday night - and won't be fixed until Friday. Ugh.

But, today, none of that mattered much. We had a wonderful bottle of wine and pasta at a nearby restaurant. We did it. We no longer live in a suburban neighborhood. We now live at Happy Apple's Farm :-)

And all my plants came with us, too!
Yep, it's really cozy in here.

Legacy

Lisa's 2015 cake

This week was mostly about moving out of a home with a lot of memories. And, rightly, it was about recognizing the legacy left to us by loved ones. So on Wednesday, Feb. 4, we celebrated Lisa Ragsdale's birthday, as we do each year, with a cake. I know, it's rather crudely decorated, but I didn't have my decorating supplies. This was a "salad dressing" cake which Brent tells me Lisa also had made.

It was only Brent and Jeremy (and, of course, me) who celebrated with some words about what we give thanks for. We smiled and enjoyed the time together considering this woman and her life. There is a lot to say "thank you" to Lisa for - not the least being the 3 wonderful young men Brent and I call ours.

Vivian's cupcakes

Saturday we took a few moments out of our moving day to recognize Vivian Ragsdale's birthday. This "celebration" was very different. As in previous years, I purchased a variety of fancy cupcakes to recognize the day. But we did not say words because, well, there still are none. And, yet, I feel it is good to give this little girl and her memory a day. She is terribly missed by all those who were fortunate to know her.

The Ragsdale sign

We ended our week by placing the Ragsdale marker near the end of the driveway at the farm. Brent and I have dreamed and planned the placing of this sign for, literally, years. It was given to Brent and Lisa by Lisa's parents. Brent, Jeremy and I feel lucky to have it at the farm and lucky to have Rex and Margaret in our lives. Their support is invaluable.

There is also a lot of work happening and some wonderful people who are finding time to help. My parents, Mary and Pete, are a couple of hard-working people. Packing is just no fun at all. The last two weekends they have been packing right along with us. We couldn't get this done without them. (Thanks again Mom and Pete!)

We are thankful for all we are given. In our own ways this week we found time to recognize the wonderful people who are still living with us - even (and especially) those whose time is done. Their legacy is all around us here - at Happy Apple's Farm.

A little pause before the big move

Well, it looks as though we may have sold our Shawnee house, which is awesome! So within a month we will be down to one house payment :-)

It also means we have A LOT of stuff to move in a few weeks. And we have a few more things to finish up here at the farm before we can close on the mortgage here. Hmmm. Generally, we are, well, we're overwhelmed.

After visiting with the bankers about the new house, we swallowed our disappointment and hustled to finish up a couple of things quickly. And now we are waiting to hear what else they need.

We've also prepped a little for the move. Brent will be installing a floor in our attic storage space on Saturday. That will give us space for boxes that can be lifted up the stairs. And we finished up the last closet in the master bedroom.

While Brent is installing the attic floor, I will be packing boxes and clearing out our master bedroom and bathroom at the Shawnee house. Sunday, with the help of my step-dad Pete and his van, some of the furniture will move.

I think the next 3 weekends will be about the same.

Meanwhile, just to keep us smiling, I've been snapping some pictures of the silly, fuzzy boys in our backyard.

The most endearing alpaca pose (sniffing my face).
This is Mr. "T".

Loki and Tigger practicing synchronized chewing.

An alpaca argument (always over food-because there are no girls).
That is Toby on the left.

Mr "T" looking like the boss
(this is my new wallpaper on my phone)

Tigger (foreground) and Tuscany.
Tigger's dad was a mystery until now. I think Tuscany was the guy.

Especially when I found them kissing!
Just kidding. They probably accidentally bumped into each other.