April Showers...

Bring May Flowers!

 

 I've been hard at work in the yard this Spring! And, I'm proud to say I did most all of it myself! Lance did haul me some dirt in on a tractor, but the rest was all me!

 This is to the right side of the house...

This is to the left of the house... 

This is where the dirt Lance hauled comes in. I fixed these new flower beds with bird baths on each side of the house.  

 My knockout roses are looking great! I was fighting with some dern aphids, but opened a can of whoop Sevin on 'em, lol.

 

I planted a wisteria in this old cast iron pot and got a new trellis for it. I had to shoo some pests off this plant too, so it's not blooming at the moment.

 

Now this is what I'm proud of! I fixed these drainage river beds at all of my downspouts (all 6 of them!). Lots of hauling block and heavy bags of river rock, but very happy with the results! Beats one of those ugly brown gutter extensions!

 

I also fixed some blocks around the 4 dogwood trees by our driveway.

 

Look at those pretty zinnias! Wait, there's none there, lol. I had to replant the seeds because right after I planted them the first time, it rained about 3 inches. Anyways, it will eventually be pretty!

 

Planting Season's In Full Swing!

Planting season is a busy time here at Miller Farms! We've finished planting our peanuts and are currently planting cotton. We haven't planted any corn yet because those fields were too wet, and hopefully we won't have to plant any soybeans! If we plant soybeans, that means we ran out of time to plant cotton.

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This is Lance, his Uncle Jim, and farm employee Anthony loading peanut seed into the hoppers.

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We planted 150 acres of peanuts, 40 more than last year!
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You can see Jim planting in the background, and Lance is running our new tractor in the foreground.
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Lance is using the new tractor to row-till. Last year we bedded the peanut ground, (see the 1st picture in this post to see what bedded rows look like!) and that turned out not to be a good thing because of all the rain we had in the fall, the peanut combine picked up a lot of dirt with the peanuts. So this year, we disked the ground to flatten out the beds. We are using the row-till to lay off the rows to plant in.
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Look Mom! No Hands!



Wait...and now Lance is napping while he's driving the tractor?



What's wrong with him? He's gonna wreck! Maybe get a ticket!



Nahh...Look at this fanciness we recently acquired!



What the heck is that you ask? Why it's GPS for the tractor! We had a Trimble Guidance system installed! It has auto-steer which drives the tractor for you! It uses satellites which helps farmers to row-till, plant, plow, spray, and harvest more accurately! It lets you know when you've overlapped rows and keeps the tractor/rows straight as possible. Once you've driven over a farm once, it will always know where the rows are. The only thing you have to do is turn around at the end of the rows, otherwise you'll just keep on going, probably right into a tree. There is an alarm that sounds every so often in case you do go to sleep like Lance.

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Check out this cute doggie that joined us in the field a couple of days! He even has a cast on his right leg! He sure did like to try to hug you with it, lol.
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We've planted almost 200 acres of cotton so far, and this is what it looks like now.
We're going to plant around 500 acres of cotton this year.
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Here's what the peanuts look like at the moment...

They are just beginning to sprout from the ground!

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Speaking of growing things...

The grass in our yard is finally growing! It still looks pretty brown right around the house, but is improving everyday!
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Check out this rosebush that survived the house building! (Not many things did!)

What's my secret to growing great roses? I haven't touched it at all! It should live forever.
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I have been trying to spruce the place up a bit. I was tired of everything outside just looking like dirt.

So I planted some flowers in pots to put on my porch.
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And I planted 4 azaleas by the backporch.
Unfortunately one has died. I'm pretty sure it was dead before I even planted it. Considering they were bought for me at Christmas, I'm surprised any survived!
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When we were walking around the yard, figuring out what trees to save before we started building, we decided to keep this thing. It was in the winter, so we couldn't tell what it was, just that we thought it had some flowers on it at one point.
Turns out it was a blackberry bush. Yay! Unfortunately it has all kinds of little bitty trees and junk growing in with it. It even has a pretty good size sassafrass tree, which I haven't decided if I want to keep or not. Are there any blackberry bush experts out there? I've never had one!
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Our garden is actually surviving too!

I thought it was doomed when it rained 4 inches the day after I planted it. Most of it pulled through though. I only had 1 hill of squash come up out of 6, and about half of my okra drowned, so that will need to be replanted. I have 2 rows of tomatoes, bell pepper, okra, squash, and cucumber.
I have a few tomato plants, 1 regular and 4 cherry tomato plants, that already have small tomatoes on them. Yay! (As long as the peacocks don't find them!).

I'm Back!

Well, before I say that, I should probably ask, "Did anybody notice I was gone?" haha. My internet has been kaput since Friday! There is so much to blog about! Where do I start?! How about Friday morning?!

See this rain gauge?

Over 4 inches! Thats what we got in 3 hours on Friday morning. The 3 hours I was up at the chicken houses. Hauling around bucket fulls of dead chickens in the rain is not one of my favorite hobbies. I looked like a drownded rat. When I stepped out of the chicken truck at the freezer shed (where I dump the dead chickens), my shoe went underwater. Wet socks and dead chickens. A match made in heaven.

Anyways, want to know what 4 inches of rain does to newly cleared land and a driveway?

My neighbor asked if he could put a catfish in it.

Don't think 4 inches was all we received though. Since Friday morning, we have had 6 inches of rain. The builder is now supposed to come lay off the foundation on Thursday, but its supposed to rain on Wednesday, and we're already under a flood watch for that, so it's not looking promising. You know it's getting a bit ridiculous when your builder's wife calls and says "I'm sorry, but we've decided not to build you a house. We're building you an ark instead."

Glad somebody's enjoying the rain!

Between floods, I managed to get some flowers planted!

Here's a blueberry cobbler I made with blueberries I picked from a neighbor's yard last year!

And here's one of the Mini Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake that I made for the guys who cleared our land!

To celebrate an entire 24 hours without rain, we decided to grill out and picnic tonight!

Here's the grill master himself!

Look how happy Bo is that I'm back online!

Merry Christmas!

Ok, so maybe its March...but according to my blooming Christmas Cactus...its Christmas time! So I will be anxiously awaiting presents from everyone! Ho Ho Ho!

Is there a Doctor in the House?

There are two patients in my house that need seeing. First one would be myself, mainly my lip. I don't know what in the world is going on, but my lip keeps on swelling up! It always happens at random times too! I'm never doing the same thing! Its freakin' me out! It's actually been going on for maybe a month or two, but now its happening more often! Sitting on the couch, working in the office, meeting with the house builder, eating lunch, going to the bank...its like normal one second...strange cross between Angelina Jolie and Octomom the next! I'm beginning to think I'm allergic to something, but since I'm never doing the same thing or eating the same thing, I can't figure out what it is. For your own safety, I will not be providing you a picture.

The second patient would be my poor plant! I got it in 2007 at my grandfather's funeral, and its looked fine until about a month ago. Back in December Lance trimmed it back because it was getting so big it was taking over the living room! It didn't seem to mind then, but now, half of it is dying! I've watered it, not watered it, miracle growed it, misted it, prayed for it, sang to it, yelled at it, did some voodoo on it, put it outside, I've even grounded it from watching tv. Nothing seems to work! Can't look it up online because I don't even know the name of it!