There’s alot going on here at The RiverRest this spring. We’ve been busy getting the garden ready, preparing the soil and starting transplants. It seems like every year it gets bigger.

We had to find ways to keep the chickens out of the garden. All of the Bamboo that Charley and Tony cut and hauled here really came in handy. We used it to build a fence around the main garden and the Potato Patch. So Far So Good. We’ll be publishing our stick fence building experiences as soon as we get around to writing it. In the meantime, here’s some photos of our new bamboo fences.

Last year we built a primitive stick fence around the new Strawberry Patch. We used sticks, limbs and twigs from the woods. It lasted the Winter but was in need of some repairs so we decided to try something new with the bamboo.

Probably the most exciting thing to happen is with the chickens. Red, one of our hens, went broody. She started sitting on a few eggs so we jumped at the chance to let her hatch them.

I’ve got many things I want to tell you all about. Like about how our dog Pearl has become an egg retriever, making Dandelion Jelly and what to do with KnotWeed. So, please bear with me. I’ll get around tuit, soon, I promise!

That’s what we call the wild Raspberries that grow around here. They are usually the first berry to ripen. There’s only about a 2 week window in which to pick them. To me it’s one of the first great tastes of summer. Tony went up on the mountain & picked us a bunch.

I made a Thimbleberry Crisp for dessert tonight. Ummmm! [Read more →]

A dear friend of ours planted a butterfly garden outside her kitchen window. The flowers bloomed and the butterflies were her delight. She told everyone about her beautiful garden and the abundance of wonderful butterflies that it attracted. It was refreshing to see someone, who in her sixties, get so excited about something so simple.

One day my mother stopped by to pay our friend a visit. Immediately she noticed that the butterfly garden was gone, destroyed, she said it looked as if a tornado had touched down and left the flowers strewn about in heaps all over the ground. [Read more →]

First Mr. McCain and now Mr. Bush are calling for the ban on offshore oil drilling to be lifted. If this is not good ole’ American politics at work I don’t know what is. Don’t fall for it; the only ones who will benefit from lifting this ban are the corrupt politicians and the greedy oil companies. This is not the answer to our problems; it will only make our problems worse. Global warming is real, both Mr. Bush and Mr. McCain have acknowledged this, so why would they even consider lifting this ban on Offshore Drilling? The answer is clear. This is an election year and they are using fear as a method of gaining support. [Read more →]

Not only is Reduce, Reuse, Recycle an important component for simple living it is an important component for living lightly on the earth. It brings a sense of accomplishment and well-being, that with this simple concept we can lessen our impact on mother earth. The footprint we leave behind will effect future generations of all creatures who will share this beautiful world, two legged, four legged, multi legged, furred and feathered. [Read more →]