Begle Ridge Herb Farm

Yesterday I attended the annual Beagle Ridge Herb Farm Lavender and Thyme luncheon and garden tour. This "farm" is also a haven for insects and butterflies and is totally pesticide free. It's also a demonstration garden as the owner (Ellen) does environmental education for multiple Va. counties, is master garden, and beside all that a really nice lady.  I ran into two of my neighbors there too so we had a nice time together at lunch.

They have a butterfly house (Flying Flowers) and had an event on Mother's day to let people release butterflies.  At our event we got to see a cycle of butterflies who had emerged from their pupae and were almost ready to take off. Ellen let those that wanted be grabbed by a butterfly as they tried out their wings. Only two actually took off and the others were gently encouraged to move to a bush to finish drying their wings. There are 6 varieties of butterflies in the house and they have gone through many cycles already as most butterflies that has laid its eggs only live a few more weeks. The pictures here are of Monarch butterflies. The Pupae almost look like jade- aren't they something?

The gardens are not manicured in anyway which I love! She calls it a Mediterranean garden as it's very arid and is totally built on "dirty rock" lots of stones.   Thyme grows everywhere and you can walk on it and not harm it. Most things are left to grow where they are found- i.e. where birds drop them. As long as some bug or butterfly likes that plant and it doesn't stop there being walkways or injure other plants, Ellen is happy to have it there.

She does grow a lot of lavender (many kinds) and makes many items from her lavender. She also uses them to demonstrate to others how to grow, harvest, propagate, and prune lavender correctly. Deer don't like lavender either and so they have surrounded the farm property with lavender as the back up onto much wooded acreage.  First picture shows a few of the lavenders and the other shows more of the butterfly friendly plants.

 On the way home I picked blueberries - no pictures - but I picked a gallon. Decided the price for "already picked blueberries" will be worth spending the next time unless I have some friends or  relatives with me!! You'd have to pay me a lot more to do that picking more than once a year!
  Now I have to decide what to do with them besides just plain good eating. And things that take no oven as looks like I won't have one of those for about 3 weeks!

Beginning to harvest vegies

Dragon Tongue Beans

Radishes

Picked enough produce today for several meals! The hard work is starting to pay off. First batch of Dragon Tongue Beans - yummy taste and can be eaten raw or cooked. Our first radishes. And more snow peas - froze a bunch of these.

I went to a cooking glass at the Chautauqua Festival today and one of the recipes was for snow peas and roasted red peppers. Had a little taste and they were yummy. Will be trying that out with our snow peas (and maybe dragon tongue beans too) soon.

Our stove (installed in 1988) gave up on us yesterday. The oven is just not going to come back on this time, though Nelson tried valiantly to fix it. So off we went to Lowes to buy a new one. But only room only for a 24 inch stove and of course, no one carries them - so we had to  special order and that could take 3 weeks to get.  Will be interesting couple of weeks. Hopefully Nelson can put it back together enough so that burners can be used for a few weeks.

Snow Peas

What's Blooming

We have flowers in the yard and in the garden; some in the garden are actually turning into vegetables. Amazing how this works.

Nightshade and hydrangeas 

Day lilies

Elephant Garlic

Lavendar

Rhododendron

Green Peppers forming

Snow Peas- have had many and frozen 3 batches

Lilies

Yucca

I think these are called Dragon Tongue Beans; Just forming
can't see it yet very well but they are purple and green; Looking forward to tasting

Chautauqua in Wytheville

Saturday was the first day of the Chautauqua Festival. It begins with a parade down mainstreet. This is when one discovers that you really are supposed to charge the battery in your camera. But did manage a few pictures before it went kerplunk! I expect this is typical small town parade. First a police car, then headed by Hospital personnel walking some in scrubs, some just in regular clothes, with a banner.  Then various groups/individuals contribute to the parade. I saw old cars, balloon uni-cylcers, and the Shriners' "Kazim hillbillies" were out in fine form, just to show a few.  Camera ran out before I could get the martial arts classes in black gi's and various colored belts doing stick fights every few yards, or just doing high kicks with appropriate martial arts yells. Some were doing acrobatics -  back flips or cartwheels down the road. Dancing classes in their tutu's, a large contingent of service dogs (all breeds) and many other local groups.

Then there was Ms Chautauqua (pictured above). What would a parade be without a "beauty queen?" But wait - Then there is Young Ms, Chautauqua, and then Junior Ms Chautauqua, and then Little Ms Chautauqua, then Wee Ms Chautauqua, and last but not least, Baby Ms Chautauqua (newborn to 23 months old category) who is being held by mother (I assume) atop the back seat of a convertible and is actually waving at the crowd. How does one teach an 18-mo old to do that for the length of the parade - that's what I wanna know?  And just in case not enough beauties for you - in each category, the runner up and/or 2nd runner up might also be in the parade, each in their own convertible.  

Then I spent some time with the master gardeners who taught me more about bulbs, rhizomes, and corms, and demonstrated plants, dividing, and some tricks for old bulbs (though recommendation was to replace sometimes).  Later they demonstrated square foot gardening. Might be the way to go - much less space to weed. :). Also a flower show - lots of beautiful arrangements, including using some flowers I've been ripping out as weeds.. Maybe I need to rethink that?  And an art show of local artists and photographers.

They also have hot air balloon rallies, though fewer balloons go up these days than they used to or so I've been told -probably due to expense to get them here and insurance. But saw two go up in the air yesterday afternoon. It's sight to see.. Followed the balloon with my cousin driving, so learned some new shortcuts around town in the process. 

We also stayed for fair food and the Saturday night concert. Standing in line with us to get dinner, we saw a "balloon hero" getting a ride in its owner's (a 2-year old) stroller. The 2-year old was no where to be seen, but grandma and grandpop were pushing the stroller as directed. Said they were thinking of giving other's balloon characters $2 rides.  Got to love it.  The concert had two good bands - one doing Jimmy Buffet songs and the other did a wide variety of stuff from '60- through 2012 songs.

I'm gonna skip going today, but Monday will be back there for more fun.

Windows

What was I thinking? Cleaning the porch and noticed how dirty windows on the porch were, so thought I'd clean them. That led to, " I have to take out the screen to do that" and then to  "guess I should clean the inside too", and "oh there's another window in each of the rooms, so guess I'll clean them too."  And then well, "gosh the screens don't look so good, maybe I should get them rescreened."  Oh maybe I should look at the other screens... can you figure out where this is going??

Sixteen windows later, I am almost done.  The windows all needed serious cleaning (much more than just the glass) and every screen in the house has been re-screened, Most of the windows have half screens - except for 6 -  one of which is easy to get to.. Then there is the kitchen window, behind a very large grape vine in full growth and four windows on second floor. Screens can only be removed and re-installed from outside the house so,  ladder here I come... The front's not bad, at least there is the porch roof to stand on. The back is another story..

All the while, Max is inside just being Max. What a life

"Don't bug me Mom, I was sleeping!"

Name Your Poison

June 8th is for some unknown reason "Name Your Poison Day."   According to the "Holiday Insights Website", "Name Your Poison Day is a day to make a choice. The term "Name Your Poison" is commonly used to suggest that you select among a number of options. This term has a negative connotation. The origin of this term is unknown. But, at the time, it probably referred to some unhappy choice. It is commonly used when asking someone what type of alcoholic drink they want. But, it is also used to refer to any choice of options, good or bad. For example, "Name Your Poison" may refer to selecting an ice cream flavor, a dessert choice, etc."    The site suggests, that we all "Celebrate today by making a decision..... Name Your Poison."

Poor segue, but in addition to picking "Jack" as the cocktail of choice before dinner, I made lots of other decisions today:


Peonies on last legs

Poppies- before needing dead-heading

For instance, lots of cooking goes on in this house - not all done by me, by the way - and the oven was really, really dirty and smoking when turned on high. So today, I broke down and decided to clean the oven. Easier than I imagined, but still not my favorite pastime.

• Then I deadheaded some peonies, roses, irises, and poppies, and took the dog for a walk up the hill.

I also walked a few miles at the gym track, did some exercises on the mats, and then got my orientation at the gym (required before you can use the gym which I joined yesterday).  I also just walked out on the street in the  backyard just to see what was in bloom. Pretty roses and some blue spiky weeds/wildflowers that the butterflies just love!

Tomorrow, I pick up the Appalachian Trail hikers. Hope you made some good decisions today!

Trail Days

Getting ready to go from last year's spot

Off they go on next leg

June 2nd was really offical Trails Day, but I was traveling then, so a little bit behind. My brother and his friend are doing sections of the Appalachian Trail each year. Here they are where they ended last year- at the bridge. Then off they go onto the next section of the trek!
Today was "their trail day."  It was raining and cold but they still wanted to go. It got nicer later and we heard from them this afternoon that they are fine and now at their night-time camp.

More Leaving Florida

East side before

More work needed to be done! More pictures to remind me of the work I need to do each year before I can leave Florida - things were a little overgrown! Harris Tree Service did the roblini's and I cleaned up the bushes and grasses.. Can't see my work too well in the after picture of East side, but it definitely looked like someone had done some work there.  Similar trees and smaller bushes on the east side were cleaned up as well.  Sixteen bags of trash later, I am done. Thank goodness for nice neighbors who will put the bags out for trash pickup.  Harris Tree service will send me pictures when they finish the rest of the work!

East side after

West Side before

West side after

Pampas Grass cut down



Leaving Florida

While it seems like having two houses is just wonderful, it is not the easiest thing in the world!  Leaving a Florida house for a few months  especially in the summer is worrisome. The house itself is not the difficult part; it's the yard! Will the weeds be 6 feet high when I return? Will all the plantings be terribly overgrown? The solution is to do severe pruning just before you leave and then hope for the best.  Sore back and many blisters later - the outside is ready for me to leave! Still have some trees that need work, but tree man is coming back while I am gone.

Most back-breaking was cutting back the front grasses. Has to be done by hand, one plant at a time. You can now actually see the whole front walkway again!  The "tree people" were there when I was working on this and kept coming by while they were on break to tell me what good work I was doing.  Fortunately, not paying them by the hour.


My Lantana was just huge!  No one can believe how big it gets. I keep trimming it back, but seems to make it grow even bigger. This was trimmed just 2 weeks ago and already it's back to being bigger than it was when I trimmed it!  This time I did severe pruning.. We'll see how it makes out over the summer. These 3 plants were each about 3 inches across when I put them in last spring.

This is after trimming, though hard to see as the palm fronds on ground are still overwhelming too. The tree man will get them when he works on that palm.  This is just the front, had lots more to do. And while I was trying to get this all done and had the garage door open, two morning doves decided the top of my garage door opener was a good place to begin building a nest. Every time I walked into the garage, a bird was dive bombing me. I couldn't figure out what was going on at first. Then suddenly I saw the other one just sitting on top of the garage door opener and it dawned on me what was happening.. I had to chase that bird out with a broom and then cleaned off the little bit of the nest they has started. But they were persistent and kept coming back. So finally I had to keep the garage door closed while I worked outside. Made things more diffiult for sure- tracking dirt through the house to get to the garage just meant I had one more thing to do before I left.. 

But arrived on Sunday and enjoying being here.. Already played golf one day and took a mile walk with Max, John and Jimmy (they wore their hiking packs)

My Review

Originally submitted at Wirefly

LH 430G

By ginny from rural retereat, va on 6/4/2012

 

1out of 5

Pros: Lightweight, Simple Controls

Cons: Weak Signal, Difficult To Use

Best Uses: Disappointed

Describe Yourself: Retired- two locations, Practical

Primary use: Personal

Was this a gift?: No

My husband has an LG trackfone and it works in both of our houses. I wanted a phone with a camera and of course assumed since his worked in both houses mine would too. Apparently not so - am very disappointed. Had a phone that worked in our house already but got rid of it to go to Trackfone since was service so much cheaper I went with it.. Our phones don't even have the same menus.. Worked okay at our major home but not at vacatoin home. None of differences dscribed in the promos.. thought I was getting a phone with more capability than my husband's, turned out to have less, even though I paid more - big buimmer.. Can't even go to his version of phone with my minutes since they are not transferrable. Extremely disapointed.

(legalese)