Census Surprise!

Today we bought a new double reclining leather sofa and matching gliding recliner love seat at Ashley Furniture in Springfield. I can't take a picture because we had to order it. They say it will take three to four weeks. I am planing on George painting the kitchen before we get it. The only trouble is, we have to remove the cabinets before we can paint.

This is a picture from Ashley's website. It looks almost brown, but surprise! It is Burgundy! The called it Burgundy Revolution, but if you google this, most of the pictures are brown. The one I got is definitely not brown. In the right light, it has a wine colored cast. I wanted leather, but George found the one he wanted in a brown tweed material. I really, really wanted leather and this was the only one we could agree on. I think I will really like it. If not too bad. It is already bought and paid for.

I have made fun of Betty for buying purple shoes, but I don't think she ever bought a purple sofa.




And it is raining on my new plantings. We have almost a half inch and it is still coming down. It is supposed to clear up and warm up tomorrow, but for now, the rain looks good.

Ride or Walk?

That is the question. Whatever work we need to do, George wants to find a machine to do the work. Whatever the machine is, I often believe it is easier just to bypass the machine and do the work by hand.

We put the first seeds in the garden yesterday. Earlier in the week, I found George hooking the big tiller up to the tractor. I told him it was too wet to till. Tilling the garden would damage the soil instead of helping. George agreed and proceeded to till anyway. The ground was too wet. He had already tilled the garden this spring and the soil was ready for planting. Today it is less ready.

Just the same, we planted yesterday. George always wants really straight rows in the garden. I like straight rows, but I do not see straight lines in the garden as a necessity. Left to my eye, garden rows, as well as many other things including my mind, tend to meander from one point to another in more of a dog leg fashion. George and neighbor Frank think alike. Frank has purchased a machine to make straight rows in the garden, as seen in the photo. Before we could plant, George insisted we should use this machine to make perfect rows in our less than perfect soil.

When I got home about 1:30 yesterday, they had the machine setting by the garden. They had already tired it on Franks garden, where it broke down in several places. They repaired and brought the wonder machine to our garden where it promptly broke again. After a couple of more trips to town for parts, they got it going. In the mean time, I started cutting the potatoes for planting. George could not help cut potatoes because it seems to use this machine, they need two operators. One to drive and a spotter to indicated exactly when to lower or lift the machine. If it was allowed to travel into soil that was not really loose, the machine rebelled and fell apart. After marking about 4 rows, a pin fell from the machine in the middle of the garden. George worked for several minutes, got the machine back together and away they went again. After a couple of minutes, I looked up and saw the machine at a standstill with George standing beside it holding a part that looked suspiciously like a tiller rod and tine. With that, they gave up and hauled the machine back to neighbor Frank's house.

George planted Kennebec and Yukon Gold potatoes. I planted three types of radishes including white icicles,Butter crunch and black seeded simpson lettuce and some mustard. I planted Texas Sweet onion plants and white unnamed onion sets from Bonham's hardware. But first, I planted an entire row of sunflowers and marigolds in the first row. I planted enough of these for me and the crows. I had plenty as they were seeds saved from last year's crop.

Yesterday, I stopped in at the Mennonite's green house on Douglas Road to see what their plants were like. They had nice looking tomatoes and bedding plants for $1.69 a 4 pack. Their plants looked much better than what most places sell. I am going back next weekend to buy tomatoes, peppers and flowers. I remember Daddy used to buy his plants at Buckeye green house at Berryville. They have been out of business for years. Now, most places that sell plants here get them all from the same wholesaler. There is one road side garden business at Harrison that I think run their own green house. This year, I am going to try the Germans' greenhouse and see if their plants are not a little better.

Almost...

George has the new floor down in the hallway. Tonight, I stained another round of the trim.

This is THE room. I took the curtains out of my bedroom and put them in here. I got a set of JCP heavy drapes at the thrift store that I put in my room. I really do not like the color of the ones in my bedroom now, but they are heavy lined drapes and they make it very dark in the room. I like that. The pole light we have on the light pole shines right in my window all night. I think I will get a set of ecru colored sheers or lace under curtains to go with the drapes and maybe I will like them better. Or, I may just get new drapes when we get around to fixing our bedroom.

Now we have to get the cabinets out of the kitchen so we can paint and finish the floor. These curtains looked nice in my bedroom, but they really set this room off. We are really pleased with the room.

In a few days I am going to plant potatoes, lettuce and radishes if the rain holds off.

We have been seeing the deer over on Dan's most days, but tonight they are back in our pasture back by where we saw the turkeys this week end. It is the same family of 5 almost every day. They are not coming so close to the house now. I think because they have more to eat. I am glad because I was afraid they would be eating on my garden. Well, I guess they won't get a chance if I don't hurry up and get it started. Our potatoes were really good last year so I am looking forward to even more this year. I bought some regular white potatoes and some Yukon Gold. We will see how it goes. Stay tuned...