The Official Framboise Manor Potatoe Planting Day of 2016!

what a beautiful day for the Official Framboise Manor Potatoe Planting Day of 2016!

AAAAAAND - it's friday the 13th and a full moon. if you hear howling tonight - that's not a wolf, fox or coyote - that's me screaming from the hottub - thanking the Lord, the sun and the moon for a perfect potatoe planting day!

here's 40 tires, double stacked but only filled to one and a half. 200 potatoes were planted in these tires....200 potatoe seedlings whose genetics go back 6 yrs. we have saved and used our OWN potatoe seeds all these years. what a feeling!

my friend PP loves our tires. and he loves the great use we get out of them year after year.

yesterday late afternoon - the sky was brilliant!

here's dawn this morning - it promised a perfect day!

for breakfast we had our protein shakes, played cards, hottub dipped, did some of our stretches and then planted all of our potatoes - woohoo! breakfast was a vietnamese/kymberified soup - using home-canned broth, pineapple juice, a ton of lemon juice, a ton of garlic, a ton of ginger, cut up tomatoes, fresh mint, ground cumin and ground coriander. with our own chives and our own hot pepper for garnish.

talk about blow your head off, clear your sinuses and give you tons of energy to go have a great day!

jambaloney gathered some old weathered sticks from just around our yard.

then he ran them through mulchdura (named so because we have a 1980's chevy vandura, we call our truck truckdura, we call our sucky little boat boatdura - but we still call our canoe bob's special because it is a bob's special and canoedura just didn't seem to work!). anyway here is mulchdura:

he's pretty gorgeous no?

here's the mulch he makes from dead trees and brush around your yard/land.

look at this beautiful mulch!!!

kids - you know how hindsight is 20/20....and when you start off on an adventure and you plan and feel confident that you have thought everything through? well, when we landed here in 2010, after years of planning, we knew we needed a truck, we knew we needed to have several backups for our water, we knew it wasn't going to be easy but we thought we had planned for and had thought of everything that we would need pronto.

and now it's 6 years later and we finally have mulchdura - something we should have invested in when we first got here! our land is full of dead, fallen trees, brush, old blackberry bushes, old raspberry bushes, old and dead weeds....all of which can be run through mulchdura and not only can we now mulch all of our beds to keep moisture in and weeds out....mulchdura also has a fine setting so that we can aerate our soil! oh hindsight!

another pic of 40 tires planted with 200 potatoes for my friend PP. he likes it when i mention him in posts and he loooooooves tires!

in other daily news at the Manor....the tulips are all coming up!

i have no idea what kind of tulip this is - but it is bright yellow on the outside and a deep orange on the inside.

back to mulchdura - jambaloney filled a tractor tire with mulch lickety-split.....this mulch has a special purpose....

tomorrow we will weed and mulch our strawberry hugelkulture.

mulch not only keeps weeds down and holds moisture....it degrades every year and adds nutrients to your soil. we'll be making mulch for all of our beds...and the mulch is extra special because it comes from our land!!!

a funny Framboise Manor story for you - because we live in the middle of nowhere, when we order anything from the internet, we get phone calls from the local deliverers asking us where we are, how to get here....and once they get here they seem a little freaked as pirate jambaloney heads down the driveway in his bandana, dirty work clothes, knee-high rubber boots and always gives a tip. it's the tip that freaks them out the most! anyway, we were expecting a delivery since last week - UPS kept changing the date of delivery and we just rolled with it....we're starting to expect it now. but today a delivery man showed up and pirate jambaloney went down to get it. it was delivery for me and they are stunning!

you are thinking diamond earings right? a tennis bracelet? an Hermes handbag perhaps? laboutin shoes? well you are getting close.....

no, i received these 2 incredible beauties in delivery today:



TWO Umberto Eco books!!! be still by racing heart! i told you how much i loved anything Eco in this Leibster Award Post here. i looooooooooooove Umberto Eco!!!!

so kids it looks like there will be much of this in the next few days, weather permitting. sitting in the hottub reading my new books!

jambaloney is working on his contract and we will be having a late dinner  - spaghetti of lobster. i hate doing anything to lobster other than just eat it right out of the shell - but jambaloney wants it and what jambaloney wants - he gets!

then a late supper of chicken drum sticks that have been marinating all day in soya, rice wine vinegar, brown sugar more ginger and garlic than should be legally allowed - and get ready for it - cape breton's version of single malt scotch whiskey? i know...crazy eh? i'll let you know how it turned out in tomorrow's post.

for now, i have to be quiet because the man is coding and when he is coding - he goes in the zone and needs to focus. not a hard thing to do when the windows are open, all of the different birds are chirping, and the only vehicle we have heard in the last week is the delivery guy today.

we know that we live in paradise, and that good food and small little pleasures can keep us entertained for life. we have nothing but good wishes for all of you, too.

and Ed - stop calling it lunch! sending love to you all!