It all started when one of Mike’s Wisconsin coworkers would talk about his 10,000 pets. He had a bee hive for his farm. Since then Mike has wanted a hive. Moving here to Tennessee we finally got enough space to have one. (more…)
Category: Gardens
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Monday Marginala – We’ve Got Bees
When it is hot weather bees don’t always go into the hive at night. They ‘beard’ the hive to keep cool. Think of it as sitting on the front porch on a hot evening. Here’s our hive 2 one evening after 100+F day. -
Monday Marginalia – Autumn In The Garden
The hydrangeas had dried beautifully made a dry bouquet for indoors. Then when it started shedding Jack found them delicious! So I tossed them. The time had come when I was settled in our new home AND didn’t have a cast on my foot. It was fall and the garden needed some prep for the season. We did trimming back or the wild bushes so spring blooms would be dense, cleaned up the dead parts of things, trimmed back the irises (FINALLY) and generally got it back in shape. Here’s a few pictures of the day.
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Thursday Throwback – We picked him from the patch
Can you spot Aaron among Granpa Mac’s pumpkins? LOL! This was 1994 on the McAllister’s Michigan farm. Aaron’s orange jacket (his ‘go Vols clothes’ as he called them) just made it too irresistible not to put him there among the pumpkins. I think we picked the best one that year don’t you?
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Welcome to Sailor’s Rest, Established 2016
Yesterday we closed on our house here in Tennessee. (psst any one want to buy a house in Wisconsin?). I am proud to say we are the new owners of Sailor’s Rest, established 2016. Yes that’s the name we chose for this place. It’s already starting to feel like home. A few tweaks of painting here and there. Then it’s figuring out where to tell the movers to put our furniture. THEN the work of making it a home, settling in decorating begins.
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Friday Findings – St. Patrick’s Day in Charleston, SC
Cat crossing in Charleston SC by JR P who graciously shared it under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 2.0 Generic license. Click on the photo to go view her photos stream. As I write this in February we’ve had a very mild winter by Wisconsin standards. Right now it’s rain and sleet mix out there, or sludging making an Icee like slurry on the ground that’s salt and petrol flavored I’d be guessing. For February in Wisconsin, that’s practically Spring-like. However I shall always judge the season by Charleston’s St. Patty’s day. Here’s why I think that’s the best weather ever. (more…)
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Squirrels Are Getting Out of Hand
Image From Page 282 from Internet Archive Book Images as a member of The Commons on Flickr. No known copyright restrictions. This is the first year of gardening without having a dog. What do the two have to do with one another? Well, read on and learn how a dog lazing in the yard helped the garden’s yield.
It all started this spring when Mike was ranting that the rabbits were eating the peas down to the dirt. (Yes my husband does a great Mr. McGregor of Peter Rabbit fame impression.) However one day when I was going to the garage I spotted the real culprits – not rabbits but baby squirrels.
Cut to earlier this week. I was sitting here at my desk working. My office window was wide open as it was a warm day. Outside I hear messy eating sounds, slurping, smacking… I look and on the end of our fence near my window sat a large squirrel holding one of our good big red tomatoes just eating away. He’d hit a seed pocket and SLURP it up then look up with seeds on his cheeks and a pink tongue darting about to clean his whiskers.
Then yesterday again heading to the garage I scared a passel (yes you fellow Southerners know how many I mean, the rest of you it’s kinda like bunch) of squirrels from the garden. Some chomping roma tomatoes, others nibbling peppers – heck one had the guts to take a whole big bell with him while his compatriot ran off with a green beefsteak tomato!
It’s bad enough that they are raiding us blind of veggies and our rabbit fence does nothing to stop this climbing buggers – but now they are waking me at three am with their arguments, drunken singing or whatever in the hell it is that possesses squirrels to scream and chitter amongest themselves at that hour! I kid you not! I can set my clock by it. There’s barking like calls, then chirping, then screams followed by barking again. Mike says Mr. Squirrel comes home drunk and Mrs. Squirrel is giving him what for. It reminds me of the BBC ad where the ground squirrel keeps barking “Allen, Allen” then he says “That’s not Allen that’s Jack! Jack, Jack, Jack…”
We’ve had issues before with them. One year when our apple tree had hard knotting apples due to the drought, they threw the apples at us. No, really I’m serious. They would sit on the awning over the back door and when we opened the door drop the apple that would roll down and hit us in the head or shoulders. We learned that season to just wait a moment for the apple to fall before proceeding out the door.
Now back to the dog and the garden, you see when we had a dog the squirrel raids were limited to the apple tree. The doggie scent about the yard kept them from dining upon the produce. Now dear Belle is long gone and this is the first summer without Rappy… and the squirrels are taking over.
As I’m typing this I see one run the phone line with a small pepper in his mouth. I hope it’s a ghost pepper and it burns his mouth and gives him heart burn all night long – as long as he doesn’t shout about it at midnight to wake me twice tonight…
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What’s Going On In Our Backyard
It’s a well know fact Mike likes to putter in the yard and I don’t. I find it too much like work – I’d rather make something than sweat in the beating sun digging in dirt. Still I love beautiful flowers, yards, and gardens. Honestly if it weren’t for Mike I’d live in a condo an enjoy the grounds tended by others. Since he likes it I live in a house with a yard tended by Mike. Here’s some photos that were on my camera from our yard.
As you can see the apple tree has recovered from our winter trimming. It’ll need more reshaping this winter. 
When our lilacs bloomed they were beautiful. 
The roses are lovely too. 
The red tipped white rose is my favorite I think. 
The red is so bright that it almost vibrates! 
I don’t know what these are called but I like them. They are hardy and bloom in the heat and cooler summers. 
Mike put his University of Tennessee stepping stone in the garden by the front door. Great place to display our alma mater. -
Spring Is Springing In My Own Backyard
Been awhile but here’s a photo post. Getting to be nice weather so time to get out with the camera! So sit back and enjoy the first photo post in a long time… as always click on any photo to be taken to my Flickr account where there are more photos on the topic.
Yes the catnip (or cat mint ) is returning! 
Until next time!
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An Apple Tree In Winter
We have an apple tree in our backyard. It is very old and gnarly. Yet it still has the loveliest blooms in the Spring. It bears small hard apples that are wormy. So bad the squirrels throw them at us in disgust come Fall. Mike has always wanted the treat to bear eatable apples. So in spurts and starts he’d fuss with it, trimming, spraying where he could reach and such. Well, this January after a long talk with an orchard owner he set out to trim up this way over grown tree. We had a warm day in the 50s on a weekend. So there we were doing ropes to haul down limbs without damaging the neighbor’s garage or our fence. Mike was being all manly wielding a chain saw while on a ladder or perched in the tree. Either we killed it or made it better – we’ll know by this Fall which it is but here’s the pictures.
So this is about what it looked like when we started. WAY taller than neighbor’s garage 
So Mike would get to the limb that he determined needed taking off. He’d tie a rope to it drop it down to me. I’d get the rope & hand up the chain saw. My job was to guide the loose limb down safely. 
Yes I safely guided this one down without damaging the neighbor’s garage roof. 
So here’s Mike in the tree with the saw. I was planning my route to the ER every time he revved that saw’s engine. 
The yard debris drop off doesn’t open until March so we piled the trimmed wood in our garden. A neighbor took some apple wood for his smoker. 
Don’t know if we helped or hurt – stay tuned in the Spring to see! -
A Recipe For Mike’s Garden
One of the Summer things I look forward to is fresh Gazpacho made from Mike’s garden. So far this year we’ve made and consumed gallons of the stuff. It is WONDERFUL! So here’s the basis of it. I never cook by a recipe (much to my mother-in-law’s chagrin) I tend to cook by feel, taste, available ingredients, and health requirements. So this is the source of my inspiration when making Gazpacho but the results always vary a bit depending on how many tomatoes, peppers, onion, etc. are coming in from the garden.
Gazpacho
1 ½ pounds tomatoes peeled and diced
1 medium white onion chopped
1 medium cucumber peeled seeded chopped
1 cup green bell pepper seeded chopped
2 cups tomato juice
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1/8 cup lime juice
2 large cloves of garlic peeled and finely minced
Seeded chopped jalapeno to taste
½ teaspoon of Nature’s Seasoning (or ¼ teaspoon each of salt and black pepper)
Combine all ingredients in large bowl refrigerate for several hours before serving. Serve each bowl with 1 Tablespoon of fat free sour cream on top.
10 servings Each serving contains 83 Calories, 6g fat, 1g Protein, 8g Carbohydrates, 2g Fiber Exchanges 11/2 Vegtable 1 Fat
It’s a team effort to make it. There’s a lot of chopping and peeling and seeding involved. Sometimes when there’s lots of tomatoes I puree tomatoes with salt and pepper to use for the tomato juice part. The nutrition information was estimated by my MasterCook program. I usually don’t use that much olive oil, about half that. I at times I add a bit more lime juice just so the color stays bright and I like the kick it adds. It’s really better if it sits in the fridge over night before eating. Then enjoy! It’s worth the effort!
Mary Louise Eklund 