Oklahoma...the land we belong to is grand

Weekend progress...

2012-02-16T09:38:00.000-08:00

Well, winter came and went in 2 days. This week we will have 50 degree days again. I was gone all day Saturday, and when I came home, I discovered some progress in the jungle! My husband and son went at it with a chain saw. I am impressed with the speed things go when you have a tool like this! I have been using a long handled branch trimmer - 1 twig at a time! :-) Here is a photo of their progress. Amazing! What you don't see is the huge pile of branches and vines that were removed. We will need to rent a chipper to get rid of those - we have lots of uses for wood chips.

Winter is coming...

2012-02-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

Well, finally, just a week before potato planting time, winter is coming to Oklahoma! Tonight we are supposed to get a hard freeze (good-bye peaches) and the schools are warning the children to watch the weather for Monday. Hopefully this will pass quickly. I insulated my garden, hoping to save the new little plants that have emerged. We shall see... Meanwhile, I noticed that the periwinkle are in bloom. What a great plant for areas where nothing else will grow!!

Day 3 - Free the Tree!

2012-02-10T08:42:00.000-08:00

Today I worked for almost an hour just to free this oak tree. The briars were 20-30 feet long up in this tree. The two small cedars in front of it will be cut out eventually...maybe...

Signs of Spring

2012-02-09T14:02:00.000-08:00

I have been waiting with bated breath for winter to arrive in Oklahoma this year. The mild weather has me just waiting for the other shoe to fall...When it did not come in January, I decided to put in a few cold weather crops as an experiment to see if they would survive. The peas and lettuce are up now, and tonight we are expecting a cold snap. The sad thing is that the peach trees are budding. I am afraid tonight will be the end of our peach crop. Maybe there are still some buds that are not quite out that will survive.

The lilacs are budding too.

And the bulbs are pushing up through the oak leaves...

Day 2

2012-02-09T13:10:00.001-08:00

Okay...day 2:

I have a path cut out almost to the pasture!

Taming my wilderness...

2012-02-09T11:29:00.000-08:00

I am an artist. My studio windows face south and east. To the south is beautiful pastureland, but to the east is almost an acre of JUNGLE!! It is made up of a few large oaks, a couple large cedars, MANY small cedars, sumac and tons of briars winding their way up and around all the other trees....oooh....almost forgot the poison ivy!! The photo to the right is the area.

I have been wanting to tame this area for several years, and have actually had people come out to give me an estimate to brush hog it. No one will touch it. They are afraid that it will have large rocks and stumps that will destroy their equipment.

My second thought was to hire several people to come in and cut it down by hand. My third thought was to get my body out there and do it myself (hopefully with the occasional help of my husband and strong sons :-)

Well...I put it off for long enough. This week I decided to just stop waiting for help and do it myself. I figured I could give 1/2 - 1 hour a day to work "casually" at it. Considering the fact that I could be classified as an antique, this is not a small undertaking. But, I figured that the sunshine, fresh air and exercise would be a good thing for me, so out I went.

My first day (about 45 minutes of work) was encouraging to me. I know it may not look like much, but it gives me hope! :-) See that bare spot? That is what I did!! Woo hoo!

My plan is to cut out all the small cedars, underbrush and briars. I want to leave all the large oaks. I am considering leaving a couple of the large cedars. I do not love cedars, but I think they may be something the birds like to nest in. I will have to do some research on that.

I am also leaving some of the old rotted oaks that have been on the ground for quite some time. I am hoping that they will encourage some mushroom growth. My neighbors have lots of morels growing among their large oak trees. I would LOVE to start finding some of them in my back yard!!

Tomatoes!!

2011-10-11T18:19:00.000-07:00

I'm baaaaaack....I have to take a picture of my tomatoes. I have not had a single tomato on my vines all summer. The summer has been HOT and I guess my tomatoes did not like it. However, since it has cooled off, my vines are BEAUTIFUL and actually have tomatoes! Sure hope they ripen before it freezes! Might have to try some fried green tomatoes...
And...I have to add...I have the BEST home made tomato soup recipe! I found this somewhere on the internet and adjusted it to my liking :-)
Tomato Soup:
Preheat your oven to 450 degrees. Oil a cookie sheet. Chop 4 tomatoes in 1/2" cubes (or use canned tomatoes wedges or cubes if you do not have fresh tomatoes). Spread them (drained if you are using canned - save the juice!) on the cookie sheet and drizzle with olive oil. Roast them for 15 minutes or so.
While these are roasting:
Dice 1 stalk of celery, 1 carrot, 1 small onion, and mince 2 cloves of garlic
Heat 1/4 cup or so of olive oil in a saucepan and saute the veggies (listed above) until tender (about 10 minutes)
Add the roasted tomatoes. Scrape all the yummy carmelized pieces from the cookie sheet. They are TASTY!
Add 1 cup chicken broth, the juice if you used canned tomatoes, a bay leaf and 2 TBL. of butter. Simmer it all for 20 minutes or so. Add 1/4 cup chopped fresh basil leaves and 1/2 cup cream. If you like a smooth soup, blend it in your blender until smooth. Rich and YUMMY!

I think that I shall never see...

2009-07-26T08:07:00.000-07:00

...anything as lovely as an Oklahoma peach tree!

If you live in Oklahoma, you really are missing out if you have not planted one! You don't necessarily get peaches every year, but the years you get them, you will not forget ~ picking it off the tree and biting into that juicy, messy, sun-warmed goodness!

We get a late spring frost some years while the trees are still blossoming. This kills the fruit for that season, but you can still enjoy the beautiful tree...and hope that next year will be better.

You can buy an inexpensive tree (usually less than $20) from a nursery. Buy two or three while you are at it! The dwarf and semi-dwarf trees are great! Plant them in a place that will get full sun and good drainage. If you plant it at a higher elevation, it is less likely to be damaged by those spring frosts since frost likes to go into the lower valleys. Keep it watered well that first year while it is taking root. By the second year, my trees are already trying to give me peaches! And by the third summer, if you do not get that late frost, you will certainly have at least a few yummy juicy peaches!

I had the most beautiful peach tree up until a year ago. I let a friend keep his dairy goats in my pasture when he had no place to keep them. I love goats and have kept them for years, so I know what goats can do to fruit trees. They really prefer the taste of fruit trees and roses and anything beautiful! But...that is a totally different story... I put a fence up around my beautiful peach tree. But...unbeknownst to me, these goats were fence climbers...and that was the end of my beautiful peach tree.

So, my family, knowing how I loved that peach tree, went out last spring and bought me two new trees to replace that one. This time we planted them outside of the pasture. This year they blossomed beautifully and the spring frost came late and killed the blossom. So we are just enjoying the beauty of the trees themselves. This will give them another year to mature and be more ready for fruiting anyway. I thought you might enjoy seeing the pictures of my new trees and the peaches from my last one.

Make it a point to get to the nursery this fall and start your own personal peach factory!! Fall is a great time to plant fruit trees in Oklahoma. Don't put it off any longer. You will be so glad you did!

bloomin' plants...

2009-07-24T07:03:00.000-07:00

I keep forgetting to take pictures of my 4 O'clock when it is in full bloom in the late afternoon, but when I was out this morning I noticed that half of the blooms were still open, so I went out to take a picture to show you the beautiful color of this plant. This is the "mother plant". It stands about 4 feet tall and spreads out at the top to maybe 5 or 6' in diameter. I have several seedlings that are growing up around it. I am slowly moving them to other areas in my yard in need of beauty.

tomatoes...

2009-07-23T10:20:00.001-07:00

I planted my tomatoes a little late. I am picking lots of cherry and plum tomatoes, but my canning (SALSA) tomatoes are still very green. The vines are still looking healthy though. We should have a great crop if the weather and the bugs cooperate. I don't use pesticides on my garden, so bugs are all hand picked ~ yay! :-) Meanwhile I will make my fresh salsa with the plum and cherry tomatoes. We love salsa at my house and try to can as much as we are able to ~ usually 50 - 100 pints. I have a FANTASTIC recipe for salsa/peanut chicken that is the family favorite, so we use tons of salsa.

If you like oriental food, you will love this recipe. This is the basic recipe which we double and triple to feed our family of four to six (depending on who is home).

2 chicken breasts cut into 1" pieces

4 tsp. soy sauce

1 clove garlic minced

1 tsp. ginger

1 TBL veg. oil

1 bell pepper cut into 3/4" pieces

3 green onion cut diagonally into 1/2" pieces

1/2 C. salsa

2 TBL chunky peanut butter

Combine the chicken, soy sauce, garlic and ginger. Let this marinate for at least 10 minutes. Heat oil and cook chicken (with the soy and spices too) until white all the way through. Add peppers, salsa and peanut butter. Cook until peppers are tender. Add green onions. Heat through. Serve over rice. YUM!!

And speaking of rice ~ you will be doing yourself a GREAT BIG FAVOR if you go get yourself a bag of Jasmine rice. You will never go back to plain old grocery store white rice! It can be very expensive in some stores, but I find mine (25 pound bag) at Walmart for around $10. I know the commissary at Tinker carries it even cheaper, but I am not able to buy there since I am not military. Anyway, if your family likes rice, this is a great bargain. And if they did not like rice before, they will after you get this rice. I keep mine in a metal can and it stays great.

And while I am on the subject of rice...how to cook rice perfectly...Rinse the rice before you use it. Run cool water over it and dump it off until the water runs clear. Put the amount of rice you like for your family in a heavy bottom kettle (you can rinse it in the same kettle). Add cold water until it comes up to the first (tip) joint of your little finger while your finger is sitting on top of the rice. Bring the water and rice to a boil, then turn the burner to low, put the cover on and don't take the cover off until it is done in 14 minutes. If you take the cover off when you are cooking rice, you lose the steam that is cooking the rice.

Okay, after talking about rice, I am hungry! Off I go to make some...

Is there any nutrition in okra?

2009-07-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Let me begin by saying my family loves okra ~ especially breaded and fried! Okra does not look like it would have anything nutritious in it, so I did a search on the vitamins and minerals in it. Big surprise! According to nutritiondata.com 1/2 cup of boiled unsalted okra will give you 40% of your daily vitamin K and 22% of your vitamin C. If you eat it sliced raw in salads (which we also love) you will get 66% of your K and 35% of your C. This website did not have facts on fried okra and I am afraid that we are probably killing everything good for us in this veggie when we add the delicious fat and salt! By the way, any way you like okra, you MUST cut it while it is small to get good tender pods. I like to cut mine at 3" and under. I go out every morning while it is still halfway cool and clip the young pods. If you leave them for a few days, they will be long and tough. My favorite way to prepare okra (besides just slicing them thinly and putting raw in salads) is to slice them about 1/4" thick, dip the slices in beaten egg, then in cornmeal with just a bit of salt and pepper added. Fry in butter or oil. Yummy!!

...better late than never?

2009-07-21T08:55:00.000-07:00

Last week while we were wandering through the garden, just checking things out, my son asked me where the watermelons were. Well...I didn't plant any! So, we went to the store and found an 85 day watermelon and got several hills planted. Hopefully the first frost will be late this year! :-)

Peanuts grow great in our soil, as do sweet potatoes. I love to grow these. They are pretty care-free plants. I keep them watered well until they are well established, then I let nature take over. They don't mind the dry hot weather, in fact should not have a lot of water once they have set fruit.

...and the walls came tumbling down...

2009-07-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

Last weekend my grandchildren were here visiting. We took them down to the local Sonic for a treat. When we got back we had a minor flood in the house. The youngest grandchild loves to play in the sink. She plugged the upstairs bathroom sink and left the water running while we were gone. It does have an overflow drain, but I guess it could not keep up. Needless to say the bathroom was FLOODED and the water was running through the floor and through the kitchen ceiling below. Luckily the kitchen ceiling is all paneled with those ugly clear lighted panels that come down easily ~ even when you DON'T want them to! Anyway ~ the floor was a layer of plywood covered with a layer of particle board. BIG mistake!! The particle board was like a sponge and had swollen up to twice its normal size. All that to say ~ now my bathroom "furniture" is sitting in my bedroom. The bathroom is totally gutted and we are starting over. The house is 30 something and we were wanting a new shower anyway...

...and maybe just maybe a new kitchen ceiling? hmmm.....

...and now on to the NW corner...

2009-07-18T09:07:00.000-07:00

...where I have one last "bald" spot. I have hauled in a wheelbarrow load or two of better soil. I have tried several types of bushes in this spot, but nothing thrives. This year I moved three of my four o'clock seedlings from the south side of my house over to this spot. So far they are surviving. I am hoping that they will take over this corner completely. This spot is about 6' x 6' and I don't mind if they go out of bounds on this side. Nothing else will grow here anyway ~ other than the vinca that is. Their flowers smell so wonderful and they are a beautiful plant. This picture shows how much sun they get in the morning. See that spot of light? That is it! They are shaded over by my beautiful grand daddy oak tree! And just to the left of that spot is the biggest of the three that I moved over. They do get a little of the late afternoon sun as it goes down. They don't look like much yet, but maybe next year...

...and this it the mother plant from which they came. I will try to get a picture of her late this afternoon when she is in full bloom. The hummingbirds seem to love this plant too! Some people have found the four o'clock to be too invasive for their tastes, but I personally love a plant that will thrive in my poor soil and find it easy to pull up any seedlings that I don't want.

My mother-in-law's tongue...

2009-07-17T08:28:00.000-07:00

I have had this plant for years. This year I set it out on my back deck (remember it is on the totally shaded south side of my house). It got lots of early summer rain. Normally, when it is in the house, I seldom water it, so this was a big change for this plant. Anyway...all that to say...it did something it has never done before. It sent up a flower stock. It has stayed looking nice for a couple weeks now. What a great surprise!

and in the shade beside the pond...

2009-07-16T08:57:00.000-07:00

I had a empty spot where nothing would grow. I needed a bush that would fill up a spot about 4' x 4' and would grow up to the bottom of my deck which is about 5' off the ground at that spot. After much research, I found the perfect plant. It is an oak leaf hydrangea. It was 3 stems about 18" tall when I bought it two years ago. Now it looks like this. I just love it! It is growing in almost complete shade on the SW corner of my house. It is covered over with American Elm branches and only gets the late afternoon sun from the west.

the shady side...

2009-07-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Okay ~ so the south side of my house is totally shaded too ~ by a BEAUTIFUL, huge American Elm. My back deck is in total shade. I have a small fish pond beside it that is on the southwest corner of my house. I have had to cut back the elm branches a bit to give my pond a bit of sunlight. The waterlilly is beautiful, but never flowers because of the lack of sun.

In the beginning...

2009-07-14T10:26:00.001-07:00

God created this beautiful

hot red dirt

sand

and clay...

and

God said "it is good"...

Today I was wandering in my garden which, by the way, is doing well for the middle of HOT Oklahoma July.

This is my "flower" garden...

I want my garden to stay nice and healthy in HOT July and August. My garden is planted in sand so I must water, water, water... It has been over 100 degrees here for a couple weeks. I have been watering every three days or so to keep things from wilting away. I water deeply, not just a surface sprinkling.

I have a huge oak tree in my front yard (north side of house). It is a great natural air conditioner! But, I fought for years to grow grass under it. The grass would grow great until the middle of the summer, then it would die out. This area gets little to no sun ~ just a little hot late afternoon sun when the sun is going down in the west. Finally in the last couple years I gave up on grass and am gradually planting it with two plants that don't mind the shade or the ucky dirt. These two wonderful ground covers are Vinca Major and Ajuga. I LOVE them! ...and they LOVE me and my tree!! :-)

And...my chicken DO NOT LIKE to eat it!! Yippee!