Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Missy, Missy, quite contrary - how does your garden grow? (FTR, this is actually my hubby's baby. He does the plowing and planting and staking and tying and most of the watering and gathering. I make suggestions and weed a little bit...a very little bit, lol.)
With lots and lots of tomaters!
Within the next day or two, I'll be canning these babies.
Cherry tomaters for Salad and snacking.
Our cucumber crop did really well this year, since we moved them to the North end of the garden. I was planning to can up some pickles out of them but J keeps giving them away.  Not like I need pickles anyway, with all the free ones I get from coupon-shopping, but I just enjoy the fact that I *can* homemake pickles.
We didn't plant alot of corn, maybe 12 to 20 stalks. The ears have been coming ripe like 3 or 4 at a time. We pick them fresh off the stalk and grill or microwave them in the shuck. Yum!
LOL, Red-haired corn. 
Here's the start of a little gourd J is growing to make a birdhouse out of. He is a birdhouse nut. He's built several out of scrap wood and stuff. I'm like, Dude, you see all these trees in the yard? Birdhouses!  My theory is that it's like with the people in Africa (or our own inner cities, for that matter). Birds need to learn to build their own houses.
I had 5 out of 6 of my cabbage plants survive. Which was a great accomplishment for me! And, apparently, for whatever bug or animal ate them all to pieces. 
Some of our garden bounty. The Sweet Banana peppers did good, too, we've gotten alot of peppers. J takes those to work to eat and/or give away.
This is the other corner of the back yard, opposite the garden. I heart my backyard :-)

4 comments:

Avery Q. Poner said...

you have a beautiful yard.

Melissa said...

Thanks!

We (and by we, I mean my husband, lol) works hard in it to make it nice for us to enjoy.

The front yard, though, not so much. It kinda resembles a jungle. Bleh.

Dee said...

I had really become a fan of your blog after being referred to it by a fellow couponer; however I don't think I am really a follower you would want. Some of the things you say really are for a select demographic. I really was offended by your comments about Africans (or inner city residents) building their own houses. Who builds houses for Africans if they aren't doing so themselves? Maybe missionaries visit to provide aide, but I don't think their help is exclusive to Africa. Nor do I think they build the majority of homes in Africa. Likewise, what inner city residents who can afford the land prices aren't building thier own homes? Most inner city land is purchased by non-inner city residents. Then housing is built that will generate the most income for the landowner. Do you really know any Africans or African-Americans (which seems to be the inner city residents you are referring to)? I know both and I can assure you everyone has a desire to build their own homes. We all have the same wishes, desires and dreams. Sad that in this day and age something so mean could be easily expressed.

Melissa said...

*Sigh*

Ok, reading back over my comment, I guess I can see how it could have been misunderstood.

My point was more about Nature, than Race.

I didn't intend to say that Africans/Americans weren't or needed to be building their own houses.

I was referencing that our Government has trapped alot of people into a system that they can't now get out of, and my concern that the same thing is going to happen in other countries.

No, not only Africa, but Africa is my reference for the fact that Life has sustained there the longest (according to Scientists).

People lived and survived in Africa thousands or millions of years before *we* came along to "help".
I believe, if *we* (meaning a bunch of bleeding-heart, fantasy-world-living celebs) leave them alone, they'll still be surviving long after we're gone.

Not that long ago, right here in America, people had to work to provide for themselves and their family; they had to have shelter, and to raise or forage food, enough to be able to sustain them through a winter. They had to find water, and create coverings for their nudity.
Unless you were a rich railroad baron, or struck a gold vein, everyone had to do it, no matter what their race.
Parents taught their young the skills needed to be able to help provide for the family, and to provide for their own familys one day.

Birds (and other wild animals) teach their young the skills needed to be able to provide for themselves and their familys one day.

If my husband builds the birds houses, they won't need to learn to build their own. If they don't learn, they can't teach their young to build their own house, and so on.

In reference to humans, when I say "build their own home", I'm not talking about literally building a house in the physical sense. It's more of general reference of raising your young with the expectation that one day they'll be leaving your nest to settle into a nest of their own, and the skills and knowledge needed to be able to aquire their own place and set up housekeeping and all that's involved in caring for theirself and their family if/when they have one.

If you take away someone, or something's, skills and knowledge to be able to provide for theirself, then they become dependant, and stuck.
Which is what has happened to a lot of people here after the Great Society legislation of the 1960's.

I feel like alot of African-Americans would have done alot better left alone than they have with the Govermental "help".
I know many of them did do better without the so-called "help".

People want to help when they think there's a need - my husband seems to think our local yard birds would be happier if he gave them comfortable accomodations - but sometimes good intentions are more harmful in the long run.