Somebody STOP me!

[Kathy]

Neat pics! Lannie, are those mule deer or whitetails? Those are good pics and the antler velvet sure does show.

Those chicklets are getting big and gosh they're pretty.

That's a nice herb garden, I never thought about using a stock tank.

The tomatoes look pretty good from the pictures; mine are doing fine but they just don't seem to be getting all that big yet. Maybe they'll shoot up one of these days.

What kind of plums are those? I'll have to get some pics of my plum tree-this year the thing is so loaded it's actually pulling the branches down. I think it's a prune plum-all Buddy knows is they're purple. I don't remember them being all that fragrant when they were in bloom although the blooms were really pretty.
That's why I wondered what kind yours were-maybe only some kinds smell good.


Thanks so much for the pics; I love seeing pictures of the different gardens & homesteads.

[Deleted]

The deer are Mulies. Supposedly, we have Whitetails in the area, but I've never seen one. This is about where their two ranges meet and overlap, but we must still be in Mulie Country!

The plums are wild plums, not the kind you'd want to eat. Bleck! Rich likes them, but they're so sour and astringent, I can't stand them. If you get one that's really really ripe, it's not too bad, but mostly, yuk. They're really tiny, too, like large cherries. The scent from the blossoms just wafts on the breeze (when it's not blowing like a freaking hurricane), and you can smell it all over outside. When you get within 50 feet of a bunch of them, it smells so good you get dizzy! Well, I do, anyway! LOL! The sad part is they only bloom for about a week or two, then they're gone. When the lilacs take over, they're pale by comparison.

If I had to make a stab at identifying the plum blossom aroma, I'd have to say it reminds me of a combination of hyacinth and ginger flower, but sweeter. It's truly a heady scent.

That stock tank was here when we moved in and we used it for a couple of years, but it was getting holes in the bottom and constantly leaked. Plus the fact, it was so big, it was a pain to empty and clean it. We finally went and got a small sheep trough which is fine for the animals we have (and the chickens can drink out of it without perching on the edge) and it's much easier to clean - I can do it myself in 5 minutes or less. Anyway, Rich cut the bottom out of the big one and set it out in the herb bed, marked around the perimeter, then moved it and dug a trench for the edge to sit in, then we filled it up with dirt. Last year it just grew weeds, but I decided it would make a good nursery bed for things to keep them out of the way and allow more specific tending to. I like it, and even after I replant the big herb garden, I'm going to keep something in the trough bed from now on. I just think it's pretty! Maybe I'll pile up some rocks in the middle and do something arty with it later.

~Lannie

[Deleted]

That tank would be beautiful with a small fountian or waterfall on the middle.... surrounded by plants.

But, I'm partial to water things.

Kaza

[bbird]

10 pointer?! That's funny, I didn't know people in the east did that, lol.

Wonderful pics, I love the stocktank with herbs. I also like kaza's idea about a water feature in there...love water! Oh and plums...love plums! Can you cook wild plums and make them more edible? I don't think I have ever had a wild plum, so maybe that wouldn't work.

I would love to have a whole bunch of raised flowerbeds. When I see other peoples pictures of their raised beds it makes me want to try it here.

[Deleted]

I love water features, too! I wonder if I could bury a 5-gallon bucket and stick a little submersible pump... oh, wait, no plug in. I'd have to pop for a solar powered one. Hmmm... I'll keep that idea in the back of my mind. I'd love to have a little fountain, just so long as I could keep the water moving and not have to worry about skeeters breeding.

Deb, in the east, they count all the points on both sides, plus the brow tines, so a 4-point here would be a 10-point there. A forky here would be a 4-point there. And so on.

The wild plums make rockin' jam! You have to put as much sugar (by weight) as you have plums, and cook it down, not to mention the eye-crossing task of pitting all those little plums, but the jam is good. I made a big batch of it the first year we were here and put up a couple dozen pints. When I ditched sugar, I had to give the rest of it away, which made me sad, but I'd rather be healthy than eat jam. The neighbors were happy! LOL! Now we let them come over and pick from our trees, and they make their own jam. For some reason, our plum trees blossom and fruit every year, and theirs don't seem to. Maybe because ours live at "Love Acres!"

~Lannie

[Deleted]

May 16, 2008 12:51:25 GMT -5 @lannie said:

Deb, in the east, they count all the points on both sides, plus the brow tines, so a 4-point here would be a 10-point there. A forky here would be a 4-point there. And so on.

~Lannie

That's true... so long as each tine is at least one full inch from the main stem.