Deluge 2011

Well, it's time for the annual flood post! It all started on Monday when it began to rain. It rained, and rained, and rained; through Tuesday and Wednesday. On Wednesday night, it was still raining, and the National Weather Service issued several tornado warnings for Hickman County. So, we and our next-door neighbors (who don't have a basement) headed for shelter in the basement of our house. Since the house isn't finished yet, the basement serves as a lumber storage area. So, when you go down there, you have a great variety of seating choices - 2x4's, 2x6's, 2x8's, or 2x12's. Thankfully our stay in the basement was uneventful, and when the storm was over, we all went to bed.

Thursday morning, I awoke to the sound of water running. It wasn't raining, but it sounded like we had a nearby waterfall. When Jacob came in from doing his chores, he said that there was water running over the driveway and that Beaverdam Creek was rising. Needless to say, we began preparing for flooding immediately. With the help of some friends, we moved the cows across the road and made sure that everything that would float was on high ground. By that time, it was raining again. Two of Jacob's friends stuck around to help him pull up some temporary fencing. It was made of t-posts and polywire, and it was running right through a low spot in our pasture where the creek-overflow was gushing through. They had to wade through the water, which was about 3 feet deep, to roll up the polywire. I just stood in the rain and watched, wishing I had my camera.

After making sure all the neighbors were prepared for high water, we came in and dried off. We were praying that the Lord would protect Jacob's fence from damage. It rained awhile longer, then finally stopped. The water never got very high, and soon began subsiding. Jacob checked the fence this morning, and there was NO damage! All the water is gone, except for a smallish lake close to the creek. The power didn't even go out. It was a very small flood, compared to the ones of the past two years. The Lord protected us and our property, and we are very thankful.

Here we are in the basement with the neighbors at 11:00 p.m.

This is the water rushing across the driveway.

There was enough water for Jacob to turn photographer. He's shooting with my old camera that he inherited.

Gimli went through the water once, but he refused to come back. He jumped on the four-wheeler as if he was saying, "Take me back across, Jacob!"

This is looking down Sulphur Creek Road, close to our barn.

Jacob, playing in the road

Hoss had the time of his life. He likes floods.

Yesterday evening, I jumped up from the computer, where I was writing an essay. I ran to get my camera, and took this picture. The sky looked very strange and the setting sun was lighting up those trees at the edge of the pasture.

Now we're praying for some dry days so that the ground will dry out so we can get some much-needed planting done.

You can read about last year's flood post here. And the flood from the year before that here.

-Tricia Ann

Springtime!

It's getting really green around here, and I'm so glad! It's been dismally gray all winter long. Being from Georgia, where there are plenty of evergreen pines, I'm not accustomed to the bleak Tennessee winter landscape.

I love dogwoods!

I had the prettiest stand of crimson clover, and I couldn't wait until it bloomed. I was so disappointed when I realized that we would have to till it under before the flowers appeared, that Daddy left a little patch for me. Isn't he nice? They started to bloom this week.

Jacob's baby chicks

We've planted almost an acre already.

Here are some lettuce and kale transplants.

We're finally able to harvest our asparagus this year. It's beautiful and delicious.

The plants in the garden are all doing well and growing steadily.

-Tricia Ann

This and That

I just can't get this blog to look the way I want it to. I designed a nice new theme in Photoshop that was brown and blue. One Friday night, I decided to change out the header and the background really quick. Well, my "really quick" turned into 2 hours of wrestling with it. I finally just left it and went to bed because I had to get up early the next morning to go to the farmer's market. One afternoon last week, I tried again. After working on it two more hours, I got the header right, but still couldn't get the background up correctly. So, I gave up. I'm beginning to despise Blogger for causing so much frustration. Who knows, though...It might've just been too much airspace between the ears of this blonde user. ;) Anyway, I'm going to leave it like this for awhile.

I finally have pictures of the completed timber-frame building. I took these last Saturday when we began staining it. We've almost finished staining now, and it looks really nice.

Jacob always gets elected to perform the high-up tasks.

We've also started putting siding on the house. I think it's almost halfway done. Hopefully, we'll get the rest up in the next couple weeks. The guys are doing a fantastic job. The house is looking more "homey" now, as Mom says.

Some of our wonderful friends have come to help. It really moves faster with a three-man crew - one cutting and two nailing.

-Tricia Ann

Planting Spuds, etc.

Now that it's getting warmer, we're in the full swing of planting. It's been pretty wet and rainy lately, so we've had to hustle on the dry days to get everything planted. Last week, we planted 375 pounds of potatoes! We planted them on top of the hill this year, since the whole of last year's crop was washed away in the flood.

We have a new tractor implement this year that digs the trenches and covers them up again, which makes the process so much easier and faster. We used to use rakes to do it all by hand. Even with the aid of the tractor, it still took all day and almost half an acre. The weather was nice, and we had fun working together as a family.

Planting potatoes is fairly simple. You cut up your potatoes into pieces that have at least one eye each. Then you plant them, cut side down, in a trench and cover them up with about 6-8 inches of dirt.

We space the pieces 12" apart, using the precise method of "eyeballing". ;)

Jacob is a very talented farmer. He can talk on the phone and plant at the same time.

I'm so thankful that the Lord has given me such a pretty place to live!

We've also been setting out lots of lettuce, kale, and bok choy transplants.

I spent almost all day on Saturday planting all kinds of seeds - spinach, radish, turnip, beet, Swiss chard, carrot, etc. I'm trying an experiment with carrots, so I'll post about that soon.

CSA season begins in a month! I can't believe it.

-Tricia Ann