Family

THAT DAY MY YOUNGER SISTER “ALMOST” DIED?

/ helbergfarmstories / 4 Comments

This is the start of something new for my blog.  These are still Helberg Farm Stories, but they are from our family past.  I have decided to share some of my fondest memories one day a week, then current happenings another.  Hope you enjoy reading these as much as I loved living them.

This first one happened when my younger sister was 4, and I was 6 (and yes, I do remember it very well).  (F.Y.I.  my younger sister will be “D” and older will be “M”, in case they do not agree with my humor – hee hee)

It was a normal spring day in Wisconsin.  It had rained the night before, so everything was very wet (a Wisconsin natural state of being).  Mom was tired of hearing us fight – AGAIN – so she kicked us outside.  Looking around for a bit, riding became the order of the day.

Now that I think back on it all we were pretty lucky.  Our farm was eighty acres of rolling hills, woods, creek, and pond.  We also had great neighbors that would let us ride on their properties.  John’s Woods (the name we gave it) was an excellent place to ride and let the child imaginations run wild.  It was about 2 miles long with a perfect square cut out in the middle of it.  This is where a ton of our stories happened.  But for today, this one was actually up by the house.

The family garden was about 100 feet long and about 25 feet across.  We had to grow enough to harvest and process to get us through the next fall.  A wooden fence protected the two sides to the field.  We had horses but also raised beef calves and wintered YMCA horses, so we needed the pasture land for all of them.  Our riding this wet morning took us to that area of the pasture.

Mom was in the kitchen cleaning it up which included doing dishes.  The window over the sink for the dishes faced the garden and that part of the pasture – or most of it.  The far end corner could not be seen clearly from this window.  This, I believe, is what made this story most funny (for me anyway, mom didn’t think so.).

I do not remember what game we were playing that day.  I just remember the race.  There was a huge apple tree next to the long side of the garden, but on the pasture side of the fence.  Our goal was to run our horses up to that apple tree, touch it, and race back to the barn.  First back, of course, wins.

My horse, Folly, was a beautiful red and white pinto.  And she was fast!  My sister’s horse was an off-white buckskin with black mane and tail.  Her name was Highstockings because she had four black legs from hoof to knee.  Looked just like she had on high stockings (duh!?!).

pinto   buckskin

Well, we got out to the tree just fine, but on the return trip Highstockings did not make the far garden corner, she lost her footing and rolled over my sister (remember she is only four years old).  Folly, into the moment, ran straight for the barn.  I jumped off and ran to the house and yelled “D.’s dead.”  Mom freaked out as she only caught the tail of the horse making the corner, but did not see the whole fall.

barrell race horse

(yep, we pretended we were this fast!)

Mom and dad both ran out across the back yard and leaped the fence – then stopped dead in their tracks.  Not only was D. just fine, but she had the reins of the horse up to its mouth held firm in her tiny fist.  She had pulled the horses’ head down till its nose was even with her face, which was now covered in mud.  Her little 4-year-old fist was punching the horse in the nose while she was yelling, “Don’t ever do that again!” (Like it was the horse’s fault we were so stupid?)

To the day they died, my parents loved telling this story.  It took all they had not to laugh hysterically at this mud-drenched, 4-year-old little girl, punching a full grown horse (not a pony mind you, we had HORSES!) because it had lost its footing due to her stupidity on taking the corner so fast when it was this wet.  Of course, now it is one of the thousands of great stories we love to tell when the family gets together.

pony vs horse

(Ok, regular horses not Draft horses – but you get the size difference!)

(My only regret sharing these is that the amazing pictures I had saved from back then were all destroyed in our house fire in 2014 – maybe some of my extended family back there will read this and have some to share with me?  Yes, Cousins, that is a hint!)

muddy kid

(This is pretty close to what she looked like, just darker hair and a bit more mud on the face.  The puddle looked the same.)

 
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I JUST HAVE TO BRAG UP SMART FARM/GARDEN PEOPLE!

/ helbergfarmstories / 3 Comments

The fact that these smart people also happen to be some of our dearest friends is purely coincidental.  We love to think- outside-the-box; you know, look at a stick and see a staircase type of thinkers.  Maybe this is why we have the best close friends in the world, we all think like this.

First example, our own greenhouse.  When we (my sister and I) initially thought about our new farm life, one of the things we knew we had to have was a greenhouse.  If you have the money and the space I highly recommend getting one.  It does not have to be as big as ours, but you need a place to grow your own foods. DSCF5121

I picked this picture to show you that we did build it ourselves (you can also check out my posts from 2012 for a lot more details).  This also gives you an idea of just how big it is.  The out-of-the-box thinking here (Kudos for our friend for thinking of this) is why it is 3 feet in the ground.  You actually have to step down 2 steps to get into it.  The friend also discovered a stellar insulated siding to pour the cement into that gives it a triple insulated side wall on all 4 sides.  The reason for this (for those asking) is to keep it warmer in winter and cooler in summer – on its own – with little to know help needed sometimes in the year.

Well the friend that helped us with this is ALWAYS thinking outside the box.  He came up with a couple of amazing simple things to help on their beautiful gardens.

HAIL – a harsh topic for anyone that loves plants.  You can spend days, months, and years working on your plants, trees, bushes, lawn, gardens and in an instant – HAIL – will destroy all or most all of it – grrr!  Fortunately, (knock on wood) we have not been in the path this year (yet), unfortunately our friends have been for the last several years (major bummer!).  So, Mister Think-Outside-the-Box came up with this nifty idea:

knj garden1

He is (they are) just so ingenious!!  (deserve many, MANY more exclamation points here but my writing checker won’t let me do it – boo hoo!)  Take a good look at this pic.  Not the raised beds, not the walk ways but the top and the slanted boards.  They placed wire hog/field panels (like this):

field pannel

The hole size in the squares is about 4”x4”, some have narrower holes toward the bottom to keep baby pigs in)

All over the tops of their garden spaces.  Then covered that with a finer mesh wire like this:

rabbit wire

Some people call it rabbit wire because the square holes are smaller than the holes in chicken wire and rabbit feet won’t fall through.  These are only about the size of a dime.)

NOW HOW BRILLIANT ARE THEY!!!

Then (like the top wasn’t enough smarts), check out the boards that are slanted in the raised bed.  They also have the hog panels attached to them – FOR THE VINING PLANTS NO LESS!  HOW DO THEY KEEP DOING IT?

They just keep coming up with these outstanding ideas.  How many years have my sister and I cried over lost crops to hail damage, but we never once thought of something so simple (almost seems like it should be common sense – LMAO), but so right?  We have hog panels all over our place, mostly for fencing.  There are some that have been damaged to the point of not hanging on a fence anymore, so they are just lying around – OH DUH!?!  (OK, can’t stop giggling at myself now.)

We have seen the panels used for gardening at this angle:

field panel in use

But never once thought far enough outside-the-box to come up with the perfect ideas that they did (yes, a bit of jealousy here – but just a bit because they are dear friends!).

I know that some of you (my Blogging Buddies) have seen some pretty nasty hail this year (maybe in past years also), so I wanted to share their smarts with those of you that have the same issues with your gardens.  I also wanted to brag up how beautiful their work is:

knj garden 2

Makes you want to just grab a lemonade, pull up a chair and watch the bees and butterflies do their thing.  AND THEY DID IT ALL THEMSELVES! WOW!!  This is not the work of a landscape specialist, it’s just them and their marvelous brains (more exclamation points – can’t help it – I’m just so excited for them)!  They work hard but they also work smart.  They deserve this Kudos!

I love my friends

“SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE” – remember the movie? Now this is scary stuff!

/ helbergfarmstories / 4 Comments

OK, now I’m gonna light some people up.  Maybe it is my age; maybe it is my experience, maybe it is just my love of movies?  When I think of the word “Soylent,” I remember a movie from the 70’s with Charlton Heston called Soylent Green (click here if you want to see a trailer-best part!).

Soylent Green movie poster

When it came out in 1973, it was a freaker.  What a great story line, creepy, but great!  Of course, about the same time, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes came out too (see the previous post) which was a really wild freaker movie.   The whole concept of screwing around with food started coming to light.  This, for me, was the first time I started taking an interest in what goes on (or into) with my food.  I was about 15 then, and we grew our own food on the farm.  Some things like sugar, coffee, flour we bought from the store.  But everything that was possible to grow in Wisconsin.  We did and then preserved it for the year to come.  We saved our own seeds, took our own cutting, and knew what we were eating.

Not anymore.  It’s a scary world of food out there now!  Hybrids, GMO’s, can’t save your own seeds because they won’t grow or because you may be stepping on some corporate’s toes.  REALLY??  How did we come to this?

A company has created a food and used the word Soylent in its title.  I don’t know if they are too young to connect with the old movie, or if they just thought this was a really good idea?  Either way, I just don’t know what to make of it.

They sent me a “request to follow” on tumbler.  Before I agree to any requests, I go and take a look at them.  Well, those of you that know me and know about our farming/gardening methods know that we are “natural” promoters.  We like to do things the normal, natural way with our gardens.  Pull our weeds by hand, use companion planting, save our own seeds, use natural pest control measures – no chemicals allowed here!  So for this company to want me to “follow” them is kind of stupid.  They have chosen to follow me, I’m sure, for marketing reasons.  Trying to tap into a bigger audience.  However, I am thinking that they did not read my fine print (which is actually normal size and ALLL over the place) on my/our decision to be natural in our methods.

They are pushing “Soylent” as a way to feed more people (hmm??).  How about if we teach more people how to grow their own?  Give a man a fish, he eats for a day, kind of thing.

scared fishNow, I’m all for live and let live; this is why I do not usually talk about this type of stuff (along with politics or religion), but they contacted me first.  So, they gave me the opportunity to dig into them (something I love doing – research!!).  They have some good products listed on the back of their bag:

soylent powder

HOWEVER, soy is one of their key ingredients.  As much as I love tofu, I also know that a majority of the crops are now grown using GMO seeds (Go here and check out the info for yourselves!).    So I either do not eat it or find something that is organically grown (even this I have issues with, but that’s another story).

So, unless there is some type of zombie apocalypse and I have no other choice to feed my family, I will not eat people, GMO’s, clones or any other type of un-natural type foods.

  • I will dig in my weedy dirt
  • Create my own compost to throw on my weedy dirt
  • Save my own seeds
  • Grow my own food
  • Process it in as many ways as possible to preserve the freshness
  • And enjoy the fruits of all my hard labor.

I also choose to do the following:

  • Share with my family
  • Share with our friends.
  • Teach others to grow this way
  • Help those that want to learn this method.
  • Encourage more to grow naturally

If you want to follow me, friend me, pin me and request me to do it back; you better have your ducks in a row because I will be digging!

ducks in a row

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…AND GOD SAID, “LET THERE BE LIGHT…oh I was just kidding!”

/ helbergfarmstories / 3 Comments

There are very few things in life that scare me. Severe, sneaky storms are one. I am thinking that when God said “Let there be light,” he was looking at one nasty monster! This is how it goes…
It’s a nice warm summer day. A gentle cooling breeze is blowing. The sky is a beautiful color blue with a dotting of clouds. The birds are flying and singing all over the place. A butterfly gently floats from flower to flower competing with the bees. Then it begins.
The clouds start to thicken. The breeze picks up to a bluster. The blue sky is now only viewed slightly on the far east side of the sky. The clouds start to turn from fluffy white to Halloween shades of gray. The insects disappear (how do they know?).
The wind has now grown into a mighty whip, snapping off small branches and peeling back any loose matter on or around buildings. They sky now almost black with the fierce clouds swirling in all directions. The birds are fighting hard to find shelter from what, they know, is coming.
Then, suddenly everything stops…you look, you listen, you do NOT breathe. In the distance, you can see it coming. There is now a sheet flowing from the black clouds to the ground and its heading right for you. You run to shut down any non-essential power spots. Chase all the critters you can round up into the barns. Cover as many plants as you can with what used old sheets you have in case this monster is carrying hail with it.
Deathly quiet! Ping, ping, ping…a few raindrops on the metal roof. Pinga da pinga da ping ping ping – bigger rain drops and more of them. Now the gathering beast is close enough you can hear it roar. It sounds like a cross between a train racing down the tracks and a scraper on a winter windshield, and you can see it coming right for you.
The challenge begins. Did I get it all turned off? Is everything as protected and covered as possible? Did I forget anything? Do I still have time to tie down one more thing? The answer to all of these is usually no because it’s too late to do anything if you want to.
Now all you can do is sit and watch and pray.
The monster is here!

monster storm

So far, no hail – you finally breathe a bit.  The winds pick up, and the empty bucket you left by the pump starts rolling across the driveway – dang, ya knew you forgot something!

Since it is just a heavy windy rain, you start watching the clouds.  Which way are they moving? Is there an end in sight yet?  Are they bunching up anywhere?  Are there any white streaks (sure sign of some dangerous heavy hail)?   Then everything stops!

No wind.  No rain.  No birds. No sounds at all.  Once again you are looking up (praying a bit harder now), “Please no twister, please no twister!”  You begin repeating this over and over again as you watch the clouds steadily sucking together into one spot in the sky.  Are they swirling in a circle?  You watch.  You wait.  You listen.  Then…suddenly…just as fast as it started up…a glistening ray of light breaks through the black mess.  Let there be light!

let there be light sky pic

My sisters and I survived a very close encounter with a tornado when we were all very young.  Took out the machine shop, the back end of the garden, our tree house, and a few other areas, but missed our home.  We were only about 20 feet from the back door (where stupid me was watching it take out the tree house till my older sister dragged me to the basement spouting some not-so-nice words-lol) to the tree house.  I have been fascinated by them ever since.  I can relate to the movie Twister.

The funniest part – I love a good storm!  A steady rain puts me to sleep in a heartbeat.  The clouds are a never-ending display of life and movement.  And, if lucky enough, a booming thunder makes me jump a foot to prove I am still alive (lol – sick I know).  The only part the really creeps me (other than the twister) is the lightening.

gentle rain

I love watching, what we call, heat lightening.  It’s the kind that just flashes up in the clouds – beautiful!  The other kind I only like to watch from a distance.  I have seen it strike straight down and split a tree, knock out a transformer box (no, not the Alien Robot Transformer, the kind that supplies electric to a specific area.), and kill a cow.  I hate driving in them too.  Huge fear of it hitting my metal car and I get fried.  (Big push for wearing rubber sneakers right now! Hee hee)  I know this fear is silly, but a couple more people in Colorado recently died (idiots on a golf course – AGAIN – you would think they would learn… Lightening storm-head for shelter! Duh).

lightening

Oh, and we get double and triple rainbows out here – woo hoo (didn’t in WI).

double rainbow

 

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I HATE BEING SIDE-TRACKED!

/ helbergfarmstories / 6 Comments

I used to be able to plan things. I can’t anymore. My resolution this year is to put more laughter back into my life. Now who would have thought that could be such a hard thing to do? My family, by nature, is made up of a bunch of class clowns. Our parents (because of my grandparents I’m sure) make sure that we were raised with a sense of humor.

I have been trying desperately to “go with the flow” of things this year; that’s not working either. Too many things are causing me to be side-tracked. Uninvited, or better, unexpected circumstances. Example:

•The fire across the street on an extremely windy day.
•The kid from another state broken down in our driveway.
•Getting sucked into helping a broken-down kid (for two months now – grr).
•Child uprooting their life – AGAIN.
•Hot weather – wet weather – cold weather – dry weather – windy weather – no wind weather – ALL IN ONE WEEK.
•Grasshoppers from hell and barn fowl that would rather dig up my potatoes than eat them?

These, from a distance, may not seem like much, but when they are hitting all together at the same time – ENOUGH ALREADY! Time for a really – REALLY – deep breath…

HAPPY – HAPPY – JOY – JOY

snoopy n charlie brown happy joy

I have decided to fight back at all my “Unexpected’s” starting today!  So I, Rachel Helberg, do at this moment initiate the following rules into my life (again):

1.More Laughter.  This will be brought about by the following:

  • Stop longer during barn fowl feeding time and actually watch all the baby birds at play.  We have both baby chickens and baby guinea birds.  They are all in a variety of colors, and some are now old enough to chase bugs – NOW THAT’S FUNNY!  Try not to laugh when a couple of chicks are chasing a grasshopper that is almost as big as them.
  • Pick off one of my new fresh tomatoes and instead of bringing it in for processing, sit down and gobble the whole thing all by myself.  Let it squirt out and drool down my front (it’s my farm shirt anyway – already dirty – lol).
  • Watch the wild barn kittens play whack-a-mole with each other on a wood pile.
  • Stop and look around more – there are so many great things to see and laugh at and will be missed if I don’t stop to enjoy them.
  • Stay up till after dark and look up – remember what stars look like?!?
  • Get the water squirt guns out more and nail my grandson before he gets me (ya, usually don’t get this one right – lol).

2. JUST SAY “NO”… to the following

Life suckers.  These are the people that slowly suck the life out of you.  Unfortunately, they are usually hooked in before you even know they are attacking.  They approach you so gently, innocently, and sneaky (was going to say sneakily – but I don’t think that’s a word?).  Before you know it, they have you doing all kinds of things you really do not want to do.

  • I don’t want to drive you somewhere because you are too lazy to walk.
  • I don’t want to run you around because you lost your license.
  • I don’t want to give you our food because you blew all your money on a tattoo instead of getting your own food.
  • I don’t want to wait on my laundry because you don’t think to finish yours.

The above are just examples of ways I get “sucked in” to doing stuff because I am (so I’ve been told) too nice.  This becomes a major emotional conflict for me.  I want to believe and follow the “do unto others” scenario, but there are now too many others in life that are completely unfamiliar that statement.  So how do I turn it off?  AND – do I want to turn it off?  We have seen that there are good people out there, and hope we are in that group.  But how do you spot the “Suckers” and stop them before they drain you into vampire-ism (you know – lifeless).

 creapy face

3. More Self Meditating (NOT MEDICATING – although that’s a thought too – hee hee)

I did have a ritual in the evening that I developed in which I took 1-hour before bed to just sit quietly and contemplate nothing.  I KNOW – SOUNDS CRAZY RIGHT?  Not really.  It is very relaxing and refreshing at the same time.  I listen to myself breathe, thinking about purple cows (this trick is from a very good family friend).  Try it – there is no such thing in the world as a purple cow, so you really have to focus to try to picture one.  This little trick manages to push back all the jumbled mess I had rolling around up there from the day and force it to drift away.  (FYI – one bit of helpful info before you try this – – – make sure you write down any/everything you need to remember for the future.  If you don’t it may slip away from you – lmao – yes, happened to me a lot until I set a notepad beside my meditating area – duh!)

Hopefully, these three little changes will bring back my laughter.  My sister has been helping a ton with our Friday Night Game Night.  We started this for my Grandson.  It is our special family time to just play games.  It doesn’t matter what they are as long as we are doing it all together.  The current favs are Yahtzee and Trouble.  Have to admit that a couple of beers and a game of Yahtzee can be very therapeutic.  Especially when you start bringing up stupid things from your past like “how did we survive being kids?”  Now there are some funny stories….for another day!

biker on pink bike

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Just When You Thought It Was Safe – New fire?

/ helbergfarmstories / 10 Comments

Two years.

It has just been a bit over two years since our devastating fire.  Now this:

DSC_0001

At 12:35 it was just the County workers – white truck and the orange truck behind it.  There was a fire in the ditch right by the white truck.  This space is between an off ramp (behind the red fire tanker) and a looping on-ramp (by the orange county truck).  Two workers were trying to put it out.  The wind was more than about 20 MPR from the southeast.  Right now you are looking to the southeast from our front porch.

DSC_0001 (2)

See the red “Wrong Way” sign to the left of the truck?  At 12:45 the flames traveled that far, the two workers were working backward going up the hill when it hit a thick patch.  The flames went over their heads; I dialed 911, and by the time Dispatch said; “What’s your emergency?” it had jumped the road (off ramp from I76) and was heading our way!!

My seven-year-old grandson was here with me as I was talking to dispatch.

“Someone needs to get here fast – these two guys alone are not enough to handle the fire with this wind!” Pretty sure my voice was shaking.

I love our fire and police persons in this county!!  They were here within minutes and used their vehicles to totally block the fire from leaping to our home/farm.  Yes, I was scared to death all over again!

An Officer came up and said that we needed to get out.  Can’t I told him, just called my sister and she’s on her way here.  He said ok, but be ready to leave at any moment.  It was all I had to hold back the tears.  We just got our home back!  I was not prepared for all of this to happen again.

I told my grandson to come with me.  We each took a duffel bag, and I grabbed an extra for my sister.  I told him to pack some clothes in it and anything he valued most.  Pretty sure his computer went in before his clothes (lol) (FYI – mine went in after my clothes – lmao).  We got the essentials packed up and ready to go.  My sister got home and did the same.  Then we watched and waited.

DSC_0005 (2)

It quickly moved from the southeast toward the northwest.  If not for the for the road, the fire trucks and the quick work of our public servants; I’m pretty sure we would have lost the home and more this time.

The place where the flames are in this pic is just a bit to our north – our neighbors cow pasture.  He has several cows with calves in there.  There is also a huge barn with hay, a couple of wagons and some of his equipment.  I told all of this to the Police Officer and gave him the neighbors name.  He said he would pass along the information and try to contact the owner.

DSC_0006

Several of the trucks, men, and a couple of tankers went up into the field – Thank God!

Now that it is all over, and I have calmed a bit, I drove past our driveway and looked over the field.  The fire got right up to his trailers (you can’t even see them in this pic due to the heavy smoke), and his first pen fence – but our guys got it!

Moral of this story:
Always pay attention to your nose – it was the first thing that alerted me to this mess!
Note: Our fantastic guys hung around for hours after making sure ALL the hotspots were out – I am so thankful for them and their quick response!  Kudos people!!)

heart full of love

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LOOK, LOOK, LOOK…

/ helbergfarmstories / 12 Comments

We (it runs in the whole family) have a bad habit of taking in strays of all kinds.  The worst is plants!

The last five years we have been nurturing several ground cherry bushes that we purchased at a local auction.  A greenhouse grower in Nebraska was going out of business.  He brought a ton of trees and bushes to our little local auction (it may look small, but they get buyers from all over the world – via online networking).  Since we are small, chemical-free, farmers; of course we had to check it all out.

We bought four of the sad looking things.  One died the very first year.  The other three apparently loved the spots we picked out for them, they survived.  Well this year we received a very thrilling surprise:

ground cherry 2

A GROUND CHERRY!  Woo hoo!

Now this might not seem like much to most of you, but to a chemical free small farmer – it’s HUGE!  It is a sign that we are doing something right.  Now, the funny part…

ground cherry 1 6-20

The largest two of the three remaining bushes only have one cherry each?  The third one has several cherries on it.  According to my sister, “They are yummy!”

I guess we must be doing something right on our little piece of heaven.  The bushes were dried up sticks when we bought them, and now they are amazing!  They have always been a pretty bush (you can see the deep greens and maroons), I just never thought they were strong enough ever to produce fruit.  Surprise, surprise!

I know a lot of you may not see the joy in this, but anyone that has been, is or aspires to be any type of grower will appreciate the significance of this miracle.

I do not think my sisters, and I will ever outgrow taking in weak, pitiful, unusual things (our older sister prefers straggly, stray scrawny cats – she strives to feed the world’s critters – lol).  In the long run, I think this is good.  Every once in a while, it provides me with proof that it is the right thing to do, such as these bushes.

silly cat

 

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What Is That Doing There?

/ helbergfarmstories / 6 Comments

My Grandson is brilliant!  Ok, on most days.  However, he was helping me weed, and I stepped in to check something and here this “Grandma come look?”  I couldn’t drop what I was doing so I just asked him to wait a minute – my mistake (ok, now in retrospect, maybe this is my fault??!!).

He comes prancing in all excited, “I found a ladybug flower!”  I quickly (now I’m still not looking at him) correct him, “No Honey, you mean a ladybug ON a flower.”  He then instantly shoved the flower in my face and said: “NO – It’s a Ladybug Flower!”  I’ll be darned; he was right:

6-15-ladybug poppie 4 Front Side

6-15-ladybug poppie backside  Back Side

Now the really weird part – WE DO NOT GROW THESE? LMAO!!  I was shocked (and that doesn’t often happen anymore) – “Where did you find this and why did you pull it out by the root?”

He said he had to show me it, and that is why he pulled it (luckily it came up root and all).  Here is where it came from:

6-15-16 where ladybug flower pulled

In the corner between these three bricks- I still can’t figure it out?  However, I quickly put the plant in a tall glass put in about a teaspoon of sugar and a touch of root starter.  I’ll be darned – it’s still growing:

poppie still growing

It has three more pods getting ready to open?!  Now the true test:  I have heard that you cannot transplant poppies.  I have a perfect spot I want to put it in outside (hope it will flourish and have babies – hee hee), so I’m gonna shove it in the ground, give it some good top soil and see what happens.  Wish me luck – it’s just too pretty to let die!  And “ladybug flower” was just too cute!

 

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ORLANDO – IN YOUR HONOR:

/ helbergfarmstories / 5 Comments

I made a vow to be funnier and bring more laughter into my life this year.  But the Orlando thing is just one of those things that are hard to bring a gentleness too.

WHY?  That is all I keep asking is “why” – what is the sense of it?  SO – for all those lost in Orlando and more for all those who are grieving, I give you my fresh, living, uncut flowers as a token of my thoughts, prayers, and verification that life goes on.  Some days it is hard to see, but you will get through this with the help of family, friends and those of us that feel your pain.  God Bless!

(These are all things that were blooming on the morning after – just for you!)

6-11-16 new volunteer flowers6-11-16 new volunteer flowers2

6-11-16 wild weed 2

20160605_092400

allum 1

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May these gentle reminders of life bring you a moment of peace!

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Can You See Me Now?

/ helbergfarmstories / 6 Comments

It was a warm spring evening (have to start this like some weird scary novel).  My sister and I were enjoying our relaxing moment when we spotted it!  Then we spotted “them” and ran to investigate further.

So you see it?

HB moth 2 6-10-16.jpg

They move like a stealth fighter. Fast, bobbing, weaving, one moment there, the next gone.  Here is a better shot:

HB moth 1 6-10-16

A Hummingbird Moth – actually two of them on this honeysuckle bush.  We spotted them just as the sun was disappearing, at first we thought, it was a hummingbird.  But it is a bit early for those cuties.  So this was pretty cool.  It was really hard to get these pics since they dart about so.  My sister said I should just sit still on the ground by them.  I was covered in dirt and filthy from working in the gardens all day, and my shirt alone looked like this:

my filthy shirt 6-10-16

So I did, and it worked.  Guess you have to look and smell like a plant before they will sit fairly still for a photo opp?

Oh, and F.Y.I. – I like wearing oversized men’s tee shirts in the summer, but I have to pin up the neckline, or everything goes down the shirt (weeds, dirt, bugs you name it).  So this is what you are seeing.  No time to sew, just pin it and it works.  In a couple of months I will have torn and trashed this shirt to the point of no return, so no biggy.  AND – no I am not a neat prissy gardener!  I get down and dirty into it.  My good bugs like me this way.

Happy Spring Gardening!

 

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