A Few Tennessee Farm Pictures

On Saturday, July 29 we put up 20 news bluebird houses along the fence row.  You
can see 8 of them in this picture.  We have another 10 to put up on the other side of
Neal Creek.

We have a big compost pile and these interesting mushrooms emerged overnight and
were fist seen July 30, 2007.

July 22, 2007 We have been fortunate in our part of the county and the state to have
had over 7 inches of rain in the past two weeks.  Doesn't mean the record drought is
broken but we have had an excellent reprieve for the moment.  We are working on
getting the long overgrazed pastures back in grass and clover so we clipped the pasture
to about 4 inches to knock down the weeds.  Bermuda has gone to seed already, hopefully
it will do it again in 4-5 weeks.  Clover, too.

Pam the expert bush hogger.  Look on the far side of the fence.  Our neighbor has too
many cattle and not much grass.  Our pasture was part of his pasture last year.  Fence went
up in March.  Look at the recovery difference 5 months can make! Nature's ability to
restore herself is amazing.

The new pumpkin patch in the garden.  Read about paper mulch and mulching vine plants.

The compost pile is the heart of the garden - horse manure, old hay from cleaning out
the barn, wood chips from cleaning up the pastures and vegetable scraps from the
kitchen.  Next year we will have chicken manure from our chickens.

The melons are setting nicely, June 28, 2007

Sweet corn will start coming in by July 11-12.

A sunrise June 22, 2007 view of the garden, note the flexible solar panels 40 watts used to charge the battery to run the pump to irrigate the garden from Neal Creek in the midst of the worst drought in 170 years of recorded weather history in Tennessee.

We got the pastures clipped June 15 and had about 1.5 inches of rain on June 18,
things are looking good considering the dry weather.

Need any rocks?  They are free if you pay the shipping.

Candy the border collie asleep in the barn.  Candy passed away on January 26, 2009.
Read Ode to My Border Collie and the serendipity of good friends.

Taken the evening of the Summer Solstice, new blueberries mulched with paper mulch.

Wild blackberries growing along the bank of Neal Creek are almost ready for some fried pies
or a cobbler.  I prefer fried pies.

New additions Candy (left) and Bandit (right) were rescued from the Knoxville
Border Collie Rescue Group in Maryville, Tennessee.  Read a letter to my dogs.

May 27, 2007 we built a foot bridge across Neal Creek to get
from Sunshine Cottage to the barn and garden without walking the plank.

See 2006 photographs.