Digging up around house for drainage

Remember my post from May 6th, talking about the end of the house that gets all the hill runoff, it soggies up the yard and ends up in our basement May 6 post 
and this post showing the mess

Well it's time we did something about that, not my favorite thing in the world, tearing up a beautiful yard after it's taken so long to get everything looking pretty out there, but sometimes we have to do it

 hubby on the measuring stick (for depth of ditch) and brother in law on the backhoe of the neighbors we borrowed to do this ditch project

it's getting there!, what a mess, all that dirt all over the yard now :(

 had to get the box turtles out of their enclosure because it is now all dug up, they will have to all live in crates for a day or two until I determine where I want to make their new homes

see the snail along for the ride, someone must have found the toad and put in there with them, goofy things, hitchin a ride

pretty babies, don't know what to do stuck in a crate

 checking depth

 ran some water to see if the runoff has the right slope so it doesn't back up but flows out into the ditch

 that's a deep and long trench!

 and that used to be my beautiful front yard boo waahh

 at least they moved my shrub

adjusting the slope a bit

Veggie garden & some canned salsa recipe

We have been hard at work fixing things up around this place and in the vegetable garden we put in as well as canning some of the goodies

I took a video for my CA friend, might as well share it here as well

just being goofy in the garden

these beefsteak tomatoes were huge, overhung the bread and were so delicious!

We also grow roma tomatoes for the sauces we make

homemade salsa, nothing like it, the kids eat it up like its going out of style

SALSA RECIPE

3 quarts peeled, cored, chopped tomatoes (15-20 lbs) we use Roma

3 cups chopped onions

6 jalapeno peppers, seeded & chopped (or banana pepper, what ever kind you like)

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped (or use garlic chips found with spices, they give it a kick!)

2 six-ounce cans tomato paste - OR 2 Tablespoons CLEAR JEL this helps thicken it up

2 cups bottled lemon juice 

1 tablespoon salt

1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 tablespoon ground cumin (optional)

2 tablespoons oregano leaves or chopped cilantro (optional)

Add all your tomatoes and seasonings into your stock pot, start simmering, I bring to

a quick hard simmer, almost boil then reduce heat and simmer about 30 minutes

Taste it as it cooks, adjust spices to what YOU like

Fill the jars with sauces and put the lid and rings on

Fill them to within ¼-inch of the top, seat the lid and hand-tighten the ring around them.  

Boil the jars in the water bath canner for 15 minutes

Put them in the canner and keep them covered with at least 1 to 2 inches of water. Keep the water boiling.

Process the jars in a boiling-water bath for pints 15 minutes

Lift the jars out of the water and let them cool without touching or bumping them in a draft-free place (usually takes overnight)  You can then remove the rings if you like, I do so they don't build up moisture and rust.

Makes about 9 pints.

 the tomato and pepper garden

 can't keep tall enough stakes in this tomato garden

 and you can hardly walk between the rows again 

 fried green tomatoes!!

 growing some german strawberry neighbor gave me to try

I even had to venture out into the flower beds with tomatoes this year because we ran out of room in the actual garden plot

 peppers, need lots for salsa

 area of strawberries, just put in this year, so over planted with peppers this year

more peppers

Digging up potatoes

It's time to dig up the Yukon Gold potatoes, I grow these each year because I just LOVE these!

there we go, look at those beauties, sitting to dry off and heading to the basement

there was the spot we had the 2 rows of potatoes, snuggled between the asparagus and onions

pretty nice haul, need to get them into basement before it decides to rain, wouldn't want them all to rot on us

 we didn't have enough room in the other garden so we had to improvise, we decided to plant the raised bed under the sweetgum tree over by the firepit

 old  metal bed frame makes a nice spot for the cukes

this I call the neighbor garden, here we have rattlesnake pole beans growing up the back sunflowers, some more peppers and zucchini, I left bags in the shed for the neighbors to stop and pick their own when they wanted anything from this little garden

Our Happy Homestead in the 1970's

Aerial view of the happy little homestead in the 60's?, my how things have changed since then!

(previous owner's son gave us the 3'x2' print)

Pranksters after our gathering

Well we decided to have a little gathering this weekend, to show off the deck of course, with the pretty new blue chairs I bought at work, they work pretty good out there except when you sit on them and your hair gets stuck to the brick on the house! Yes I think eventually a different set of chairs will be better out there and these will end up in the yard!

oh my reason for this post was to show a few photos of the nearly complete front deck and the surprise we got after our little gathering

We made this to show my bestest friend Donna who lives in CA, since we are in OH we like to share videos with her and this was a video moment LOL

so who are the pranksters behind this latest escapade, who you ask would do such a thing? to try and scare the bejeebers out of us when we open the blinds in the morning?

oh yes, the guilty parties sitting right there on my couch!

the lovely sister and that good lookin neighbor that it took me a year to convince them they were a perfect match together, see aren't they cute! (revenge is sweet remember that you two)

back to the deck

 the "spy girl" was put there as a joke for the neighbor, he calls this the spy house, so I had to buy that, its solar and I told him she would keep an eye on him when I wasn't here to do it!!

it's almost all done, haven't decided what kind of railing I want, hubby wants rope strung between the posts, not sure I am on board with that but time will tell I guess

Finally building a new front deck

First had to get rid of the cement slab that used to be the front stoop because it really was only big enough for just a couple chairs

I had such a pretty yard until the guys decided instead of breaking up the cement slab that they would take it off and use it somewhere on the farm

You see how that worked out, tore up the yard, oh well, that's the way it goes when you try to fix one thing, you end up with two more to fix, it all gets done in time though.

piles of treated lumber for the new front deck

I didn't get as many photos because I was actually working and forgot

this level of the deck was done yesterday so we need to get to the lower level off to the right yet

Cousins gathering back in Grandma's rocks/woods

It's that time again, us cousins grew up living beside each other, we are like brothers/sisters more than cousins and we love to gather back in the rocks in grandma's woods, everyone brings a covered dish OR we just do dogs n burgers on the fire, sit around and catchup on gossip

 one cuz has a new wife

 and the sister has a new boyfriend tee hee remember that handsome neighbor

 yup this time it decided it would rain on us, that's ok we still had a blast as usual