BilletHead

Ahh what a picture Ness, you should work at the food network. The Ness twist! I like that. You bet we will be doing that move next season. Garden still looking good here. Have almost a gallon on the monster blackberries. One in the middle row. Pick a good hand full every day. Drop them in a ziplock in the freezer. They are adding up well for the first season. Mrs. Billethead picked and ate our first husky cherry red cherry tomato today. She said it was good. Cubanelle peppers coming on like gangbusters as are other peppers. I googled up a bunch of recipes for the cubanells. Soon I will be stuffing them with goodies inside before cooking and then stuffing my face with them. Had four tubs of broccoli which did well. After yanking them up we replanted the tubs with baby romaine lettuce. The package said you could plant it spring, summer and fall producing a crop all season long. We will see if that is a fact though ? BilletHead

Oh My that looks delightful. Thanks for the look see. BilletHead

Have a great Summer Duane! Keep us informed even if it is like rubbing dirt in our faces. Take care buddy, BilletHead

Funny how animals pattern us. We have a phoebe nesting on our downspout. Did not notice until the parents had began sitting. Did not have the heart to tear it down. So the parents follow me around too getting the bugs I stir up mowing. Still have the tick infested doe, the one with the heavy infested ear that sags. When she shows up the phoebes are waiting on the fence. They dart over and grab deer fly's that buzz her head, once and a while they grab a tick off her ear. Deer doesn't get upset just has a puzzled look like what was that? BilletHead

Thanks for the heads up Leonard and Gavin. I hit one of my patches this afternoon and found some small ones, very small but with the drought we have had and no chants for two seasons they were a welcome sight. Maybe with some more rain another bloom will produce larger ones BilletHead

All I can tell you Jason is once you get dirt under your fingernails and taste real fresh veggies you're hooked. Jealous you have a tomato ready ours are a long way off and Tho1mas a pepper, excellent. We have a bunch of peppers coming on and one cubanelle three inches and growing each day. Been picking broccoli after planting for the first time. Have not cooked any yet it doesn't last that long. Eating it as it gets picked raw. Better than any we have ever bought in stores or farmers market. Ness we have some wild black raspberries out front up and down the road. Very flavorful but small. Our new blackberry patch is so neat. Last Spring, that is last Spring before this one I made a row of thorn less berries from Gurneys Five plants. Then another two rows of five plants each of a different variety that Mrs. BilletHead got from one of her coworkers on either side of original row. Fence posts on each end of the rows and then a section of a cattle panel, big zip ties attach them between posts. All last Summer I wove the small vines back and forth in and out the panels. Biggest vine about the same size as the Mrs. little finger. Lots of berries on all these plants in a year! But the amazing thing is the new canes that came up from the ground. Larger diameter than my thumb and I just measured the tallest one, 8'10" long. These just sprouted from the ground this Spring. Holy mackerel I hope this patch doesn't get away from me. I do know I clip the vines that produced this season next Winter. The Gurneys berries are huge and are getting ripe now. Pretty flavorful for tame berries too. Other variety will be a later harvest. Here are a couple pictures, These are mulched with some rotten hay and some thick layers of yard leaves. BilletHead

Well nesting might be on the downward trend as we had a low of two to three for a while. Now back up to fifteen or so early morning and again late evenings. Rainy days there are here all day. Now that butterflies are getting thick they have to share feeders some, BilletHead

Thanks Ralph, Shoulder not so good. Getting an appointment with a surgeon soon. Been told I need a complete shoulder replacement. Will get the scoop soon and if so try to put it off as long as possible. Marty

Maybe we can do a harvest thread? Time to pick the gooseberries, I really don't mind the picking but stemming, not so much. We got them picked and the Mrs. started the stemming process. I picked and pitted some pie cherries from our dwarf tree and then joined her on the porch stemming, It took quite a while to stem this many berries. Sore fingertips too. At least I munched on sunflower seeds to help out with the boredom. Mrs. BilletHead took some of the berries, cherry and gooseberry and made a pie, I could not wait until it cooled off to try it out. Yum-o ! BilletHead

Thanks guys, I must admit I was a bit shaken when I got him close enough to see its size. Here is the half and half that caught the fish today. Used sink tip line but the clouser had bead chain eyes so it did not sink very quick. It is four inches long, BilletHead

Just started Chris. Different place than last year. Quite a bit farther downstream.

All I can say is four landed on river "X". Here is todays biggest. All on a grey over white half and half Clouser. I almost love these fish as much as Mrs. BilletHead, I said almost

Nice Mr. B, you got to love them bluegill! BilletHead

Yes ness it is pretty neat to paddle into there and get some shade. You would be surprised how many fish I have caught casting flys in there. Right now there is about six inches of water covering the concrete pad under it. How many times have you caught fish out of a fire pit? There is one submerged there too so at times you can catch fish in and hanging around the pit. BilletHead

Yes Greasy it is a private pond/lake. it started out as a family farm pond and then a few years back they built up the dam by scraping the dirt around the pond and adding it to the dam. So there is a deep original pond and then it tapers up to large flats from approx. four feet to shoreline. I took the depth finder out there once and there is 20 at full pool in the old pond center. The reason they built it up is now for irrigation. We are so dry they were pumping to water corn already. I have seen it go pretty low and so far no die off. I have seen some rather large stringers of bass go out for eating which is ok in my book but no one keeps gills. I figure us keeping some will help balance and keep it in better shape. There is an old shelter house still standing at the edge of the old original pond. Three trees still standing on the old edge too but they don't give too much cover for the fish. BilletHead

Was gifted some poppers from these fine guys. I had to give them a try yesterday. Got to the water pretty late for the top water bite but did have some success before the action stopped. The block head got the award for the smallest and largest bass. Ness popper netted the most. The little bass hit and followed the Gavin bait for twelve feet blowing up time after time until getting hooked. Did not even try the coffee grinder. When to top water bite stopped used the black bouface for more bass. Had a tough time finding the bluegill but did manage a few including this nine and a half inch bull, BilletHead

Tick haters unite and be prepared to be grossed out. Personally I think deer are the primary carriers of ticks. Personal close up observation. We feed the deer starting in late Winter through fawning season. Just a bit to help them out and to be able to watch them out the back window. Just a little corn once daily. After seeing this thread about ticks I knew I had to show and tell. I put out the trail cam for one Evening feeding. We have five consistent does each evening that show up. Different deer seem to get effected in different places on there bodies and you will see that we have one that has very little. This doe is at least 7 years old. How do I know? Look at her front right leg in the knee area. She is a cripple and her knee is really screwed up. She is almost club footed from dragging and babying that leg. She is also a good mother and generally has twins and one year triplets. Last couple of years with the dry weather and the disease spread by midges most of out does aborted or lost there fawns early. Two of these deer have so many engorged ticks on there ears making them so heavy they droop.

Not only that Ronnie the ticks you won't be able to see will take one bite, get drunk and fall off as they will not be able to hang on

Can you just imagine a coffee grinder in the foxglove color? BilletHead

Black Bart, I like that Justin. Thanks Ronnie! tho1mas,the Mrs. does 4 to 1 mix plus a couple drops of Goodmans pure orange per gallon. BilletHead

Hummingbirds! A couple of weeks ago we were going through almost a gallon of sugar water a day. It has slowed down a bunch since they are nesting now. When they raise there youngsters and bring them in it will be crazy again through Fall. They will drink well over a gallon a day. We went through over 50 lbs. of sugar last year and I think we will top that this year. We have four feeders out now and will have eight before it is over with. Here are a few shots from two weeks ago. I accidentally deleted the best picture of one flying upside down, BilletHead

Great looking gardens everyone! Again the BilletHeads have ours going. Started plants indoors early tomatoes, peppers and some lettuce. Tomatoes did not do worth a darn and peppers did great. So we had to buy some tomato plants. Did one of the larger beds with all lettuce. Like you Ness we had greens coming out our ears. Finally picked the last of it and tilled it under to make room for more tomatoes. Had some problems with critters eating the tomato plants. Did a bit of fencing for the ground dwellers (bunnies) and since squirrel season has opened I have picked off five. I have a 10/22 with a full floating fluted bull barrel on a Hogue stock. Tack driver. Fife for five head shots and then I messed that up trying a longer shot. So much for my streak of not missing. Mrs. Cooked the first two grays that were young. Some olive oil heated up hot and then she threw in some fresh rosemary and got that toasty. Added the tree rat and browned it then covered and let it simmer in the juices. I will tell you it was the best tree rat I have ever had. Ok now to pictures, hope to not bore you all but we like to share as you all do. First time trying broccoli , Some views of maters and peppers, After about four to five years our asparagus is doing well for the poor ground we have. Between our patch we planted and the wild we pick it has been a good part of our meals. Here is a purple variety the size of my thumb, I made a blackberry patch last year. It has and is going crazy! Gooseberries doing good too. A couple different varieties. I know my thumbnail is dirty, been working in the dirt, As if we don't have enough trees on our two acres I planted more. Have a friend who gifted me some chestnut seeds. A blight resistant and Chinese types. I planted the seeds in 4" galvanized flu pipe to protect from tree rats and mice. I did 14 plantings with 100% sprouting. Two years later I dug up some and transplanted around the yard. Here is a couple from the original bed planting. Some over 4 feet tall now in the blight resistant ones. I need to do something because the deer are browsing off the tips and leaves. Cages I suppose but that's a lot of cages? Last but no least the flower garden. We like mostly native stuff. Around and under a dogwood in the front yard we have butterfly milkweed, pale purple coneflowers and coreopsis. Mrs. dug just a few of the coreopsis last year and look how they took off this season! Finally some of the orange butterfly milkweed getting ready to burst out, A pale purple coneflower starting to show and a foxglove for the first time, may have to buy more of these. We like, BilletHead

There is no truer of a statement right there Scott!

Scott, Mrs. BilletHead read what you said and blushed and replied no one has ever said anything like that about me hahahahhahaha BilletHead

Thanks guys, Lancer here is the deal. BilletHead