That Was The Week That Was

That Was The Week That Was or Wednesday Wandering or What Non Quilty Stuff Has Been Going On Around Here Since Last Wednesday?  Take your pick of titles for this blog post. 

Naked Ladies. 

Maybe you know them as Surprise, Magic, or Resurrection Lilies. Or maybe you like the official name of Lycoris Squamigera. They popped up last week and most are still standing after the last storm. The foliage appears in July then dies back and disappears before August when the lilies magically pop up. Surprise! Naked Ladies. 

Monarch and Zinnia. 

Monarch and Butterfly Weed I started three years ago from seed. The Butterfly Weed has topped over from the storm but I think it will right itself because none of the stems are broken off.   Build it and they will come! I see more and more butterflies each year. 

I harvested what beets I had. Early in the year right after the beets had sprouted deer trampled through an entire row of beets. I usually get two canners full of  pickled beets (14 quarts) but this year I only had enough beets...

...for three jars. I didn't even bother to get the boiling water bath going to can them. I'll just keep them in the refrigerator. 

I've always used an old Farm Journal cookbook recipe and have marked it up with my changes and notes. 

The latest in our fight against deer, raccoons and ground hogs- solar powered motion detector lights. My husband installed one in the veggie garden and one in the flower garden. Maybe it won't scare any rascally varmints away and will just light up and show them what there is to eat. 

I cleaned up an area of brambles near the end of the flower garden for some Orienpet/O.T./Tree Lilies which are a cross between an  Oriental Lily and a Trumpet Lily. Fragrant and statuesque, they also make nice cut flowers.  I've had my eye on them for years and found two companies that were running specials on them so I have several different variety of bulbs coming in September. 

We had more trees down than we originally thought from Monday's straight line wind storm. This one was a derecho and it swept across Iowa leaving thousands without power and destruction in its wake. 

  My husband was feeling very overwhelmed. Where do we start? Just an FYI - I think we have had at least one if not two straight line windstorms per year with downed trees for the last fifteen years.  We are lucky because some are still without power. I know my brother--in--law who lives about 20 miles north of us still does not have power and my daughter and family who live 20 miles south still do not have power. 

Why don't we start with your pepper plants, dear husband. Let's assess the damage and get the ones that are not completely broken off staked back up. 

Now let's work on the tomatoes. See, things aren't as bad ad it first appeared. Most plants can be saved. As as far as all the green tomatoes that we picked up...well, we can let some ripen inside and when life gives you green tomatoes make green tomato relish! (My husband and grandkids love relishes of all types). 

This was my bean patch before the storm. 

The yellowish plants are black beans we dry and the back of that row are painted pony beans, another one that we dry. The next row is wax and green beans. The two rows after that are dried flowers. The vines climbing up the pole are Christmas Lima Beans. And along the fence where you see the big yellow blossom is Butternut Squash. 

These were my beans after the storm. The poles of Christmas Limas fell on the other beans. And the statice and straw flowers (dried flowers) are all over the place.  I still haven't gotten around to cleaning up that mess. 

Four giant limbs now in the ditch in front of our house were the cause of part of the power outage in our area. 

We (my oldest son, husband and I) spent six hours yesterday and six today doing clean up, cutting wood, getting the tree limbs off the roof and dragging everything to a pile. Big pieces we kept for firewood, little for kindling. Big branches we will let dry and probably burn after we cut off smaller branches with leaves for the compost pile.  That's work that can be done even next year and seems to be an ongoing project around here.  As we've gotten older and the kids have left home we are barely able to keep all the scrub tree growth under control. 

We now have three big branches barely hanging in there on trees near the house and propane tank that are too high for us to reach. I guess it's time to call the professionals. 

Books I've read so far this month:

It was  a nice fairy tale. Now I feel like I should pick up everything I find and catalog it. Wouldn't that be a fun collection?

They don't write psychological thrillers like they used to. But I did read all the way to the end. 

WWI historical fiction that was an easy read during a power outage. 

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And that's all the news that is fit to print.

Quilty news coming soon! I need to get my clothesline hooked back up first so I can show some completed flimsies.