The County Fair

I love old-fashioned county fairs. Ours is tiny with no fancy commercially-scented buildings or toxic anything. Lots of natural air mixed with the farm-fresh scent of cow shit. If one takes their time, seeing the whole thing every booth and barn takes about thirty minutes. It's definitely small.

The art building is often nearly empty every year which is disturbing. I have in the past entered artworks, but truthfully, I don't like being judged as if I'm in grade school. This year I dabbled in two new art forms: glass-on-glass mosaics and painted rocks. I like displaying them for fun. I didn't realize one could enter the fair under a Q category and not get judged.

Due to my ignorance of the process, I thought I'd get clever and volunteer at the fair. I offered to be an art judge. This way I could enter and not be judged! Then I discovered painted rocks aren't considered art, they are "hobbies" so I ended up being judged anyway. My one mosaic I entered was a challenge to hang, but it did end up in the art building and not judged.

Judging was fairly non-toxic since it takes place the day before the fair. I checked to see if the building superintendent wore perfumes or if there was another judge. I realized they had no idea what I was talking about so I prepared myself with an escape route just in case.

No one is supposed to be in the building while the judge is judging, but people were milling about, looking, talking. At one point I kept passing a table and smelling something not-so-good. Finally I took a closer look and someone laid an opened bag of moth balls on it. Eeeww! I definitely have a keen nose for chemicals! I threw it in the garbage and placed plastic over it. Near the end of my tenure, the superintendent invited a herd of children to help her post the ribbons and the stench of toxic stink permeated the air. I couldn't wait to get out of there and survived with only migraines and nausea.

Still, it was a very interesting learning experience. I'd like to do it again only next time I'll request the building is closed during judging.

And I also won blue and purple ribbons for my painted rocks!

Summer Projects

I didn't have many summer projects this year, but I think that is really good since most of the summer it either rained or I was exhausted. I think it rained at least once a week which makes it really difficult to get outside painting done!

In the past two years I painted my house which I admit was crazy...and exhausting. However, as I was informed, I saved about $10,000 doing it myself. Hooray!

This year I had to do the house trim on the dormers which I completed early in the summer and paint the garage. I prepped and cleaned it last year but was just too exhausted to get it done then. Once again I armed myself  with gloves, overalls, goggles, and a respirator which can be very hot and uncomfortable in warm weather, but necessary.

So beautiful. Unfortunately with our wet summer and now that the fall thunderstorms have begun, I didn't get to the back. I'll save it for next year. No one looks at the back anyway, it was done in indestructible oil-based paint, and it has no damage so it can wait. It also needs new fascia boards so that's also on my list for next year.

Saving the Apple Tree

I can't believe the summer has come and gone already!

Last year, I realized too late my apple tree had some kind of disease. The limbs were literally rotting before my eyes. Raccoons would climb it and fall out of the tree because the limbs would break. I was in a panic, but figured if I couldn't fix it, I'd have to remove the whole tree. I read this was my fault. The year before I doused it with rabbit manure tea too early in the spring and with all the rain and damp created a nesting area for bad bacteria. Oh well. Live and learn. I'll never do that again!

I went to the local organic gardening center and asked what to do. They gave me a recipe to treat the tree and add nutrients, expensive nutrients. I bought Neem Oil, Fish Fertilizer, and Sea Crop to mix and spray on the tree once a month all winter. That Sea Crop is made from ocean minerals and at $40 per quart it's GOLD! The Neem Oil is nearly as expensive. I also sprayed the cherry and Italian prune trees just to be safe. I was really afraid the disease would spread as it normally does through fallen leaves and spores.

Then a friend of mine told me to paint a mixture of baking soda and molasses on the trunk and affected limbs. She didn't know why, but I assumed molasses is high in iron and baking soda neutralizes fungi and viruses. I worried rodents, raccoons or opossums might want to eat the bark. Later I was told deer LOVE molasses and are attracted by the smell. Do you blame them?? Thankfully I have a five foot fence around my yard so at least the deer weren't tempted to nibble.

I'm not sure which of the above remedies worked, but the apples are much better than last year. Bigger, hardly any blemishes or bugs, but fewer which is better anyway since the weight of too many apples is hard on the limbs. Bigger and fewer is usually from good nutrients. And so tasty!

The bark and limbs seem to be healing. I keep wondering if it's my imagination, but then I remembered I took photos last year to share with my friend.  Is it my imagination?

Last fall:

This fall:

Are the welts closing up? And the trunk seems to be healing:

It seems to suck up all the molasses as it doesn't sit on the surface, well, either than or the critters are licking it off!

Unfortunately, it didn't seem to do anything for the cherry tree which has gotten worse and I think the nutrients were too much for the Italian prune which only produced four prunes this year (one of them was hanging over my fence...the postman stole it...grrrr!) compared to 2500 prunes last year.

I'm going to invest in some more supplies and continue to treat the apple and cherry trees this winter and pray this disease doesn't get to the Italian prune. So happy to be able to save the apple tree.