Life

Life has been busy, quite for me. The reccesion has done nothing for me as far as how busy I am. I have enjoyed my first year of high school. I am looking forward somewhat to the second year. I have lots of stuff as far as school goes this fall.
Flute
Choir
read a science book through
Spanish
Math
History
LotR Litt.
Writing
So I am quite busy as far as school goes.

On Saturday my second cousin picked me up to show me around her bee hives. So we got to the place, I put the suit on, she only had a veil and wore gloves some of the time. We lit the smoker (she said the hardest part about bees is getting the smoker lit, and its a problem lots of people have.) and we went to the hive.
We lifted up the top, took out a frame, I tasted some honey. She talked all about it, showed me the difference between honey comb and where they lay the eggs.
Took about 1 1/2 hours, but was lots of fun. She will be getting a DVD and some books on the subject to me. Will save me the money of buying alot of books.
I am not getting a kit which I originally thought. I am getting two hives though, more honey and it a lot of ways its easier to do bees.
I will be getting two hives, a smoker, bee tool, and maybe a few other things. Here is where I will be buying it, I will probably pick it up at the place.
http://www.brushymountainbeefarm.com/

Garden. I LOVE GARDENING!!! I could do it all my life, in fact in one sence thats what I want to do. Be self sufficient. Grow my own meat, milk, vegetables, fruits etc.
But on to gardening. I have not been content with the garden that I have. Its a couple of raised boxes that are square foot gardens, google it to find out more. Square Foot Gardening. It works for some people, I think the smaller family, to supplement what you already buy. Besides that I have a few places I can try and put a few seeds. My cousin, Dave brought a book called Self Suffcient life and how to live it. Well I fell in love with the way he had the garden.

He had a green house to the left of the garden, then had perrenials next to it on the right and bottom, Rhubarb, aspargus, artichoke, and herbs. Then he had plot A that was the the right of that. That had beans, peas, turnips, etc. Next to that was plot B, that had broccoli, cauliflower, melons, squash etc. Plot C was next to that it had leeks, oninons, and other. Plot D had Mostly potatoes and other. In the winter he would grow winter rye starting on plot D and move to C, then B then A, each year. Making it a 4 year crop rotation, in the other three plots during winter he had winter stuff growing, cabbages and the like. And each year he would move the things around, the peas, beans, turnips would go in plot D or something. And so you never have the same thing grown in the same place twice. It has a rest of at least 3 years. And I loved the fact. It keeps diseases and pests at bay doing this method.

And so that is how I plan to set up the garden I am 'building'. I got my brothers to help me clear brush and hack down thorns and pokeberry bushes till I had an area cleared 30x80 roughly. Bigger and smaller in areas. I had already planted a couple of rasied beds of strawberries near their. So during the month of August hopefully I can build a green house, get the land plowed, maybe a get a few things in, but mostly build a fence, compost, and all that in their getting it ready for spring. I plan to plant winter rye on all of it this year, and dig it in in the spring as green manure.

I also plan on growing wheat and a little barley in another spot in the woods. Wheat for bread, barley for beer. : ) This evening my family went to church for bible study and I stayed home to do this :) and clear more brush by the garden and then I sprayed with pesticide (whatever the one that kills plants is, herbicide?). When Dave comes again I am hoping he can help me with it all.

Well, just spent nearly 30min writing this, hope it was a good read. Its good to put down what's in your head to paper, or maybe to key board. Alright, signing off for a while. Got to go make a garden, a wonderful passion!!!

Daniel Wood
Gardener

First One

Well, this is the blog where I will post whats going on in my life. I am going by a different name then my real name for different reasons, none of which I will tell you. : )

Today I felt the urge to do a little gardening. So I went out, found a spot that gets sun (mostly afternoon/evening sun), and got the pic and rake and made 3 little rows. The spot is about 4' wide by 6' long. Not to bad.

My cousin Dave Wood (yes, using a fake name here to, same reason) brought tons of seeds. Probably $20s worth. I planted: Parsips, carrots, spinish, tomatoes (2-3 vrtys), beans (2-3 vrtys), cantaloupe, and maybe a few more things.

Had to go out with candle and what not to be able to see.


I have what looks like a busy day tomorrow. Roast coffee (grandparents coming Friday), do some math, maybe clear another garden, water strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, grapes, and gardens. Yup we got all those while Dave was here last week. Probably worked close to 20 hours doing it, was awesome, with machetes!

Gotta go wash dishes, then maybe be up early for some reason. Tried browny recipe tonight, I ended up adding baking powder which was a mistake. Made them more like chocolate muffins. They were light and airy, not fudgey, is that a word?

I have 3 other blogs, I am sorry if I offend any body agaist alcohol. But hey, I also, roast my own coffee, grow big gardens, make lots of homebaked goods, make soda, and all sorts of good stuff, gotta take the good with the bad. Besides, I make vinegar out of some of it.

I just love Phil Collins, one of his songs a verse is "But life goes on just the same", Really captures alot what I'm feeling, we don't really have a second chance to do anything. Do it good once. If you want the song title (can't remember right now), post a comment about it and I will try to find it, or if you know it post it your self.

Daniel Wood