Experiment, Saving The Seeds
Growing fruits, flowers and vegetables here at Swan Crossing is an interesting experiment for us all, with successes and failures. Now that the high temperatures of August in Texas are upon us we have little food crops still growing. The holdouts are watermelon, hot peppers, and some remnants of tomatoes. We covered the rest of […]
Water – Water
A few weeks ago we had a blog discussion about rainwater harvesting and we had some of the area prepped. After a considerable amount of work and planning, we now have a 30,000-gallon tank to collect rainwater. All systems are working. A few days ago we had a storm come through where we had a […]
Tomatoes and Squash ’em
Grinding up and squashing these tomatoes is such a red squishy mess. made somewhat easier by having the correct tool for the job. The Squeeze! for years people have made fresh tomato juice and sauce from tons of tomatoes with this squeezer. The seeds and skins go out one shoot into a bowl and the […]
Watermelons Are Taking Over
We planted about 10 watermelon plants and you’ll see from the pictures with the right fertilizer and watering they have gone crazy. They are climbing up the wire frames we built for the cucumbers. The cucumbers are suffering a little bit but we’re getting tons of those as well. The watermelons used the cucumbers as […]
Certified Butterfly Gardens
We are now officially certified butterfly gardens by the North American Butterfly Association wherein we provide resources to sustain butterflies and especially Monarch butterflies. Butterflies need host plants and nectar plants. host plants are eaten by the caterpillars and nectar plants provide flowers for the adult butterfly to sip nectar from. Butterflies also like to […]
Pipes
On to another project.. what is going on here? Not to keep you guessing we are building a rainwater collection system. After months of study and planing we are adding this to our tractor barn which has 2400 square feet of roof. Every inch of rain on our tractor barn produces over 2,000 gallons of […]
A Jolly Rancher Watermelon Patch
Every year it seems some plants shine more than the others. We haven’t been vegetable gardening successfully all that long. We have years of failures behind us. In 1984, living in Hartsville, South Carolina we decided to plant watermelons. The sandy soil there grows lovely watermelons if you do it right. We did not. I […]
It’s Starting
The bounty of our garden has begun. When we started this adventure 3 years ago we never grew anything other than failed attempts at tomatoes. Now after many experiments and adding some automation to our gardening, we are harvesting a ton of food and now vegetable soup is very frequent meal. We are growing around […]
Bamboozled
We had a huge stand of bamboo that the previous owner planted in a prime growing area, who knows why? It started as a couple of trees, I’m told, and then over a few years took over 1/2 acre. This 1/2 acre has very nice soil and a future spot for a high-tunnel hoop house […]
Oh Deer
To figure out what kind of critters we have roaming our 50 acres, we put up game cameras all around our property. It appears that we are offering some tasty meals for the deer and they are observing the proper social distancing. It started with one then she invited her friends for a an evening […]
It’s Starting
We are starting to enjoy some harvest from our gardens. We have had lots of kohlrabi, and now we are starting on the beets. We planted Detroit red and golden beet varieties. Here are our happy Texas 1015 sweet onions, they are a long time from harvest. We are also awaiting the magic of homegrown […]
Walk About
We take walks around our property especially Spring mornings when it’s cool. The way our property is laid out from our door and around to our creek and following it to the other edge of the property and walk back up and around is about 1.5 miles. A good walk in the morning and we […]
Cage the Cantaloupe
Another experiment, we’re trying to grow our cantaloupes vertically and we’re using wire fencing that is for reinforcing concrete. The one we got is five feet tall. A little tricky laying out the material so that it doesn’t snap back at you and cut your shirt. We put five of these large cages together. They […]
No Showers
The last couple of weeks have been very dry… good for getting things done but not so good for our young peach trees. Earlier this year we bought a 500 gallon water tank trailer with a pump and the theory was to use the creek water to water our trees. First concern was the pH […]
Spring Blooms
Look at how rewarding planting perennials can be! We planted these in our award winning pollinator gardens. Every year we add a few new plants and our plantings from years past spread too. These are the early bloomers and require little water once established. We are careful about being careful about our natural resources and […]
Grinding a Little
We make our flour fresh for our sourdough artisan bread. Here we’re grinding our rye and wheat berries into flour for today’s batch. We bought a commercial grinder that can do well over 100 lbs of wheat in an hour. The grinder works great and we have it in our commercial kitchen. We take whole […]
Monarchs are Coming
We have a big patch of crimson clover that didn’t die in the winter… what a blessing to see them come up. When we took a closer look they were full of bees and some monarch butterflies. Clover and wildflower honey is the best and looks like that is what our bees are feasting on. […]
Tree Chopper
In our peach orchard we had a lot of over growth where small trees, bushes, and terrible vines took over. We tried working this with our chain saws, tractor, and wood chipper, but the process was going to take us forever. We worked all day and just cleaned up about 20 feet of trees and […]
Cucumbers in the Sky an Experiment
Over the last 3 years we have had great luck with cucumbers and used twine for them to climb up. This year we’re trying something different.. an experiment… we tied fencing to the sides of the hoop house (greenhouse). We think this will allow the cucumbers to climb up the curved side and hang in […]
Tractor Hygiene
We’re working on getting rid of the impossible bamboo and digging as much as we can with our big tractor. On the front of the tractor is a grapple that allows us to dig up roots but dirt gets stuck between the grapple teeth and we don’t want to put away the grapple until its […]
Such a Beautiful Bush…
What is it? This stuff grows all over our farm and probably on the most healthy shrubs. Not only is it a bush but grows as a lush vine. Poison Ivy, it’s the worst. We’ve seen poison ivy vines that look like a tree with the vine as thick as your arm. How to identify […]
Happy Easter
Staying home over the last weeks is tough but noticing the small things can give joy. We had a light rain Saturday afternoon, we heard some places nearby had much more than rain. The nastiest of storms tend to bypass us. We get hit hard but doesn’t feel as often and I think its because […]
That Tomato Time Again
It’s time to plant the tomatoes. Fresh tomatoes from the garden are still one of the great rewards for gardening efforts. We prepped the ground by using our Land Pride tiller that we have attached to our small Kubota tractor and buckets of compost we had from last year. This adds nutrients back to the […]
Working the Front…More Boulders
The other week we cleared out the front of our driveway to open it up and make it easier to see when leaving the driveway. We had to clear about 20 feet of heavy brush and trash trees using our new Kubota tractor and our wood chipper. Both were great in making the job easier. […]
Feeding the Monarchs
My previous two pollinator gardens have been successful and rewarding Swan Crossing each spring and summer with colorful blooms and all the pollinating visitors. We have already seen some monarch butterflies this year in our existing gardens and decided to add “just one more”. This was a Swan Crossing quarantine crew affair basically, my husband […]
Rain and Quarantine Produces… Bread
What to do on a rainy day and you’re stuck at home. Make delicious European style bread. We used natural yeast that is usually considered sour dough, filtered water, fresh ground flour and a kneading technique that really isn’t kneading and no sugar. This is an all day process since it takes a while for […]
All Gardens are Beautiful … but..
When we first till our garden plots, they all look beautiful. The soil is dark and rich, our new seedlings planted from our greenhouse have a wonderful contrast against the dark brown… but… give it a few weeks and the ugly weeds start to show up. As any gardener knows, they are relentless. They want […]
Moving Out… Our Greenhouse Plants
Each year is an experiment for us, trying new techniques and new plants. We are trying something different in our hoop house and we’ll post that in a couple of days. Now it’s time to get our plants into the ground… we have a bunch of plants that we started months ago from seed in […]
Jams and Jellies
When my fellow Master Gardener Nancy Taylor and her husband Bob planned their vacation last summer to drive to Alaska from Texas last year they offered me the contents of their chest freezer. It was full of frozen figs, Blackberries, blueberries, raspberries, apricots and pears. I planned to make a jam while I have some […]
Out in the Cold, Tree Pruning
We have two orchards of fruit trees, one we call the upper orchard and the other one our lower or peach orchard which is the largest… I know… not very creative. We replaced about 200 peach trees in the lower orchard that were damaged by the wild hogs or deer. The trees in the upper […]
Doing Nothing… not quite
Trying to be consistent in keeping up with the chores outside, regular work, and adding to what we’re doing around the farm has been tough to impossible. Each day, I say…time to sit down and write about the happenings and before you know it its Spring. What happened to the time! Since we’re staying at […]
Master Gardener of the Year
So proud of my wife Marian for the work, education, and volunteer hours to get voted by her peers as the Grayson County Master Gardener of the Year! She is involved in the community and in 2019 has put in well over 100 volunteer hours promoting horticultural education, team teaching 3rd graders at our local […]
The Wild Hogs…
As you may recall, we planted nearly 300 peach trees. Many of those survived the summer without watering. For next year we’re working on figuring out how to get water to the trees. Not an easy feat but a combination of rainwater harvesting and pumping water out of the creek. The big culprit in killing […]
Bamboo… awful
The previous owner planted some bamboo near our hoop house and I’m not sure why. I’m guessing it was bamboo to stake up tomato plants. Well, it got out of control and now we have a slight problem. How to get rid of it. Its in our way for additional planting and expanding our greenhouse. […]
9th Annual Polish Feast
We love to gather our friends and neighbors together to celebrate our family’s proud Polish heritage. Decorated tables and banners in red and white of the Polish flag set a lively welcome. We celebrate in early November with a groaning table of traditional and modern fare including sausages, ham, beets, hunters stew (bigos), mushrooms both […]
Squashed Memories
I thought I wrote a blog about my crazy squash plants this summer. I didn’t, now I will. These were grown from a packet of Italian seeds given to me by a little old lady, Y’all know that old is 20 years older than your age, right? She gave me these seeds called Zucerro. I […]
What is it… tractor stuff
As we are on our journey with a larger tractor… picture coming soon.. attachments are needed to be bought for proper land management. So, with permission from my better half, we have a new attachment. Any guesses on what it is. As you can see, I’m using our smaller tractor to move it around. For […]
Texas Fruit Growers 2019
The Texas Fruit Growers conference was a wonderful opportunity to spend 3 days with professional fruit growers and world experts in the agricultural field, to learn the latest information on growing techniques, new plant varieties, plant diseases, and pests. We learned about varieties of blackberries, peaches, and raspberries. We thought blackberries were low maintenance… we […]
Clean Up
A beautiful Saturday and perfect weather for outside work. After a very successful experiment with our tomatoes this year its time to clean up and start planning for next year. Outside of our hoop house, we planted 25 tomatoes of various types with drip irrigation and drip-fed fertilizer which produced amazing tomatoes. Our water bill […]
Farm garden work
I’m so awkward around tools! I did have this great idea to break up the soil in my container pots. I wanted to replant with some winter friendly decorative cabbages and pansies. Here in Texas pansies will live most of the winter and into Spring. Plus they are cheering and purple and even edible! So […]
What trouble I get myself into-
I made the mistake of earnestly telling Richard that he is underutilizing the one person in this family who could have time to mow our 50+ acres. But I said I won’t do it in the Texas heat without an air-conditioned cab. Too dusty, too buggy, too hot! Cue the “tractor dates”! Richard has had […]
Red grape juice
These grapes were actually wine grapes that I cooked to make jelly. The juicer worked well to extract the juice while leaving skins, seeds and stems behind. I had so many grapes and so much juice. We drank juice, froze some, and made 45 jars of red grape jelly. It’s tasty and fruity but does […]
Tractor Shopping
We are tractor shopping and I’m taking Marian with me since she “committed” to run the tractor only if it has airconditioning. At the dealers they let her drive them. She is being a good sport about it… not sure what I’m going to owe her after we’re done. We have a couple of tractors […]
Tea Party Sweet Treats
What a special day to bring a little girl to an elegant traditional afternoon tea party with a pretty dress and her best manners. Food is most tasty in little servings with tiny spoons. Which are your favorites? Yes, I even tried a hat it was pink to match my pink shirt… I was showing […]
Tantalizing Tiny Tea Sandwiches
In our fast-paced fast food society, rarely does one have the opportunity to slow down and enjoy gardens, freinds, and food in a tranquil country setting. This weekend for the Grayson County Master Gardeners fundraiser, we had over 80 donors participate in a leisurely and elegant tea party. Fancy food, attire, and hats accented the […]
Pick Your Seat
Our 2nd annual Grayson County Master Gardener fundraising tea party. It will be a fun event and it’s already sold out. Here are some of the photos of our setup here at Swan Crossing… gorgeous.. you need to be here to see it. Posts of the food coming soon. Look at the pictures and start […]
Clearing Out
Working on clearing out our garden areas for a fall planting of color. It was way too hot these last couple of months to do anything except cut the fields. Even then it was tough to get motivated and our peach trees were buried under 3 feet of hay that needed to be cut. We […]
Fascinating or Fascinator?
I had a fun morning working on tea party hats and fascinators for the Master Gardener Fall Tea party next week. I watched some YouTube’s and gathered up supplies from my craft closet. Unfortunately, this included some aqua glitter tulle which has Richard mumbling under his breath…clouds of glitter … sparkles.. have to move now, […]
We’re soooo behind
We’re just getting caught up…with working the farm, travel, and a job that keeps things going we lost track of time. We have so many posts.
Just Peachy
Made picture-perfect pie for our guests and no one but Richard really appreciated the sweet summer peaches and near perfect crust. The visiting youngsters exclaimed, “we don’t eat cooked fruit”. … in a surprising turn, they ate the dill pickles. Their loss on the pie.
Our Garden Variety of Tomatoes
From our 50+ tomato plants, we put in the ground this spring (and babied) we have quite the variety of tomatoes….sweet and juicy and yummy. I put a plate together for some guests we’re having and they couldn’t get enough. They didn’t even add salt. My favorite summer meal is tomatoes with onions and fresh […]
We’re in a Pickle
We had a wonderful harvest of cucumbers.. once we have enough salad… now, what to do.. pickle them. We are already through our first batch of both refrigerator pickles and traditional salt/dill/garlic pickles in a crock. They are mouthwatering tasty. Every time I think about them I go to our crock and pull one out. […]
Full Bloom
Coming down our driveway from our morning walk we marveled at our crepe myrtles in full bloom… just stunning … a flower tunnel. At Swan Crossing our flowers are also all blooming like our butterfly garden. We’re thinking of adding a third one. They have been very rewarding.
Honey, what time is it
It’s honey time.. last year we sold out.. this weekend we went to each of our hives and pulled the honey frames out for honey extraction. The bees were not as productive as last year but we’re still a little early and was a very rainy season so honey production was a little low. We […]
Pie oh My
Our new blackberry vines have produced many handfuls of blackberries. A visit to my friend Nancy’s blackberry patch yielded a 12-inch bowl of glistening dark berries. I should have taken a picture! Brought them home and whipped up a huge pie in this polish fluted pie tin. It’s about 13″ round. It tempted me this […]
Mutant Cucumbers
This is from going down to our greenhouse this morning…our stuff is growing like crazy. One day of not paying attention to our garden, the cucumbers became huge it seems overnight. To our surprise, they are tasty. You would think they would get bitter. The image here is a normal looking cucumber and my glasses […]
Thanks for the Sandwich
We have something fairly large that decided that living under our house was its new home. It’s either a raccoon or a skunk. Marian wanted the skunk gone so I decided to set up a trap to catch the problem. A friend of mine asked what will I do if I catch a skunk… hmmmm… […]
Storm – Tulip Massacre
Took some pictures of our beautiful tulips before the coming hail storm. Inspired by our visit to Amsterdam visit and decided that we needed a few for our garden… the spring Texas weather is hazardous to their health.
Project – Bridge to Peach Trees
We started on this project many months ago… the property we bought has about 6 acres that is across the creek. The only way to get to it was across our neighbor’s property and a very roundabout way… with their permission of course. This couldn’t last and we started to plan to build a crossing […]
Hyacinth Popsicles
pictures of these lovely hyacinths during False Spring because now they are bulb popsicles
Spring… Maybe…
We pruned our second orchard where we have about 70 trees that include peach, pears, apples, plums, and figs. We had to do a hard prune before the season really started and fertilized. The very warm weather got the buds coming out and today we’ll spray dormant oil to keep the bugs away in spring […]
Pruning the Trees in the Cold
We have 350 peach trees that we need to prune before they are no longer dormant. Marian and I decided to head out this weekend and tackle the cold before the rain starts. This is quite the chore, bending 350 times to make the right cuts. My back was quite sore but the fresh air […]
Bees a Buzzin
The weather has been warm and this time of year is dangerous for the bees. When it warms up they leave the hive looking for nectar and pollen and the problem is there really isn’t anything blooming for them. They expend their energy looking and the hive can die. Check out the video at the […]
Mystery Project Done and It Doesn’t Look Like Much
Finishing up the mystery project… planting 350 peach trees. This project took a bit of time getting it done since the field was getting flooded and wet from weeks of rain through Christmas and the New Year. The picture of the orchard isn’t impressive since you barely see the twigs in the ground but its […]
Chilly in Texas
Woke up this morning… what is this white stuff?? Very brisk wind moving around things we don’t have tied down. The wind cuts through everything and just a couple of days ago we were in short sleeve shirts. This is Texas, all 4 seasons on the same day. Go out in the morning with a […]
Mystery Project, Part 1
We have embarked on another project on our new 12 acres which has about 1000 feet of creek that flows most of the year. I think there is natural spring somewhere on the property… I need to see if I can find it. The first step is to do some measurements and properly mark where […]
Rainbows over Swan Crossing
Just a few minutes ago, I was standing outside enjoying the fresh air and a slight drizzle started. I looked up and there it was… took up the whole sky almost a complete circle. Hard to get a good photo of it.
Caroling +
What great fun tonight with our neighbors! Our first annual Christmas event. We used our buggy all decorated with twinkling lights, ribbon bows and even added real sleigh bells! We gathered up our goofiest Christmas hats, Marian’s is a mermaid tail with added lights and lots of Christmas Spirit! Then we pulled it around the […]
A-Caroling we will go…
I picked up a buggy off of Craiglist for touring folks around the farm… it is great fun. We had to drive for over 2 hours to pick it up in East Texas. For the season, we added some lights and decorations and plan to try it out towed behind our tractor to go caroling […]
Decorating for the Holidays
When we got married we had really different ideas of what a Christmas tree looks like. Richards’ family had breakable European glass baubles on a live tree. My family had artificial trees put up after Thanksgiving and covered with homey handmade ornaments. Our first Christmas in 1980 we were just poor newlyweds and that tree […]
The Last of Fall
Well, it’s cold and winter is truly here. Here are the last of the colored leaves out the picture windows and here is Dog cat (Richard’s name for him) Fang ( my name for him) I think Zack has a name too! He is fluffy with a winter coat. Here is Zack working removing trees […]
Not Bok – What does that mean??
I was so proud of this glorious bok choy! A huge bouquet! I am beaming, I took it in the house, cut out the mid rib and sautéed the ribbons of green, it was very tasty. We ate it in salads, we ate it in soup, then one day the bok choy formed broccoli heads! […]
Romaine – No Scare Here
Guess whose romaine is safe… Food Safety Alert: Outbreak of E. coli Infections Linked to Romaine Lettuce Ours is organically grown in our own greenhouse.. very tasty! So we’re getting less worried about the food supply as we grow our own food plus we’re very careful about our diet of mostly vegetables. We have kale, tomatoes, onions, beets, romaine, […]
Spring Bloom Promises…
Part of being a good gardener is believing in Spring. The leaves have barely fallen and we are already in the midst of spring plantings here at SwanCrossing. We are planting native Texas wildflower seed by the acre, crimson clover seed to enrich the nitrogen levels in the soil and for the bees. We had to […]
Polish Heritage Celebration
Last week was the 100th year of Polish independence and every year around this time we celebrate Polish Food… why… because it is way tasty! and my Tworek heritage is Polish. This feast requires weeks of planning and prepping. It starts about 2 months prior with our own sauerkraut that is handmade in our commercial […]
New Farm Limo
We’ve been super busy and fallen behind in updating our goings on at Swan Crossing. Since everyone that visits wants us to give them a tour of the old wagon trail through our property, our bees, greenhouses, creek area, our fruit orchard, the old general (we think its the oldest tree in Grayson County) and […]
Busy Saturday and Wonderful Neighbors
A few days ago, Marian posted me showing off my new hip waders…well I put them to work. Our neighbor called and said that he just bought an industrial backhoe and wanted to give it a try making a creek crossing. Our creek separates us from about 10 acres of our property where we are planning […]
Flooding and big Boots
As shown in these photos a huge tree fell into our creek here at Swan Crossing with the heavy record rainfalls of October 2018. This has provided us an unintentional dam and some head scratching! It was too big to move with our tractors. Richard had decided to get himself some hip wader boots and […]
Filling up my little green house!
We have all been busy working on the little greenhouse. Zack’s been building an exhaust fan to carry away excess heat. This is crucial most of the time in Texas, here we are in Fall and the temperature in the greenhouse was wilting the tomatoes this afternoon! We started some beet seeds that we can […]
Fancy Afternoon Tea – Grayson County Master Gardener Fund Raiser
A charming group of gardeners and friends braved the elements on a rainy fall day to enjoy the delights of hot tea, pastries, and tiny sandwiches of the 1st annual Grayson County Master Gardeners fall fund raiser. The vintage floral tea cups, saucers and plates added an elegant air to the afternoon tea. Many of […]
What to do…. rainy days…
So many things to do around the farm and the rainy days are good for just sitting around and looking at our trees and the raindrops coming down. This is looking out our master bedroom window.
Making Sauerkraut … the old fashioned way
We have several old world crocks that we use to make our sauerkraut the natural way… we hand cut each of the cabbage heads and shred them and the only thing we add is salt. Its critical that you have the right ratio of salt to cabbage weight. The next thing is keep the temperature […]
We’re certified… for the critters
Certified Wildlife Habitat! Texas Conservation Alliance and National Wildlife Federation. We’ve been working hard making habitable places on our farm for the wild critters. We created areas for water, nesting, green areas etc. We see all sorts of wildlife coming to visit anywhere from foxes, roadrunners (our fav), bunnies, many many birds that provide us […]
Busy busy…
Today, finally I have some time to get some things done around the house. The woodland path to the cabin is finally mostly fixed. A little more work left but most of it is done. The fence to the barn was a mess. The gate couldn’t be attached and finally after adjusting the hinges we […]
Raining and what to do…
…time for an adventure. Lets see what the creek we have in back is doing. Mud everywhere and good thing we have 4 wheel drive on our Kubota side-by-side. Zack and I went for the ride and Marian was afraid to go. Rain was blowing sideways as we drove down the path, but everything was […]
Dog Cat – Ignores me
(see video) My dog-cat that follows me everywhere is ignoring me… crazy cat. We’re sitting on the deck here watching the sunset in the cool of the night. So quiet and peaceful listening to the chirping birds… and who creeps up … Dog Cat jumping on our chairs and climbing up using my leg as […]
Gardener on tour–Seattle
Seattle was sunny and beautiful for our three day getaway trip. We did a bout tour and ate fabulous seafood. I loved taking these pictures of lush plantings that are different than what you see here in Texas summer weather. We took a ferry to Bainbridge Island across from Seattle… eating at a small cafe, […]
Garden Bling extraordinaire!
In Seattle over the weekend and …. Ahhhh… Chihuly Museum in Seattle, How I love thee! Let me count the ways. As a color, glass, texture and gardening addict this was my bliss. I enjoyed all my moments spent here. From the cleverly curated and brilliant lit inside spaces to the wonderful garden installations, it […]
Bigger – Crazy Gardening Fools – What is it?
We’re at it again… some pics on the construction of something bigger…
Early Morning Butterflies Galore!
This first year of our butterfly garden is a success! Check out our video below… 100’s of butterflies Many of our plantings are perennials and should return even prettier, year after year! We have seen both caterpillars feed on our host plants and butterflies on our nectar plants. Here are some pictures from our National […]
Wildflower Honey …from flower, to bee, to thee!
Our lady bees did fantastic work all Spring and Summer making delicious honey from the wildflowers we planted on our 47 acre farm here in Whitewright Texas. We started out with a few hives here at Swan Crossing and now we have 7. It was a tough early Spring with odd hot and cold temperatures […]
Who is this masked turtle?
On the edge of our property, calming strolling into the doom of traffic around the bend in the road wandered this handsome and very shy fellow! He has bright orange blotches and a pale golden olive green shell. I think he is the three-toed box turtle! I tried catching a picture with his head out.
Early Morning Stroll
Early morning walk on Ball Road. This is the road our ranch is on. We love our neighbors, such great folks, we don’t see a lot of other traffic out here in the country. We can watch our neighbor’s goats, listen to cattle, watch the cats that Miss Helen has been feeding and often see […]
The Scent of Late Summer
Begging worked so well for figs, and then my friend Rebecca Yavner offered up the remains of her peach tree, ripe for the picking on Friday afternoon. My son Zack relentlessly pleaded for peach pie. Summer homemade peach pie it is the warm sweet smell of summer. We donned our chigger gear and ventured off […]
My Cat Dog
It doesn’t matter, my cat-dog is right by my side. I can be in the garage cleaning and there is the cat sitting on top of my car. Or decides to jump on the bench next to me… he doesn’t understand I’m allergic to cats…. or… maybe he knows and he’s there to torment me. […]
Sweet Figs From Sweet Friends – FROG Jam
If you are lucky enough to have some Texas friends with excess figs, you might get some if you start shamelessly begging as soon as you notice their tree! If they are kind hearted, that is. I was gifted a couple of gallons of ripe figs, I cut the hard stems off, and whiled them […]
Summer Bloomers
When it is so hot, summer full sun, and no rain, it’s interesting to see what will still bloom here at Swan Crossing. These red yuccas are native to West Texas, They are still gorgeous and continuing to give nectar to our resident humming birds.You know how tough they are when you seem them planted […]
Salsa Power
Ripe tomatoes and peppers and onions from our garden included in this super fresh tasting raw power salsa. I chopped red and yellow cherry tomatoes , green bell peppers, poblanos and jalaens as well as our own onions. Vibrant colors and a super tomato taste showcased in this raw dip. The tortilla chips are only […]
Blackberry Pie next Year
You have to really love blackberries to plant and water blackberry vines that will maybe fruit next Summer. I do love them. 25 plants and three red berries! I used to pick them as a girl in Tacoma Washington off of the wild vines in the alleys.
Pioneer Day at Swan Crossing
July 24 is Pioneer day. In Utah it is a day honored and celebrated with parades and fireworks. My family was Utah Pioneers on my father’s side. Today I would like to honor the pioneer immigrant spirit of Richard’s family. In particular, his grandmother Antonina Dubiago Zarski. I was blessed to know this brave, artistic, […]
Never too Hot For Watermelon
108 degrees and up this week and next too. Only home grown ice cold watermelon can quench the heat in scorching North Texas this evening. The culmination of planting, waiting, watching and watering, we are finally slicing into our own Swan Crossing watermelon! IT was red and juicy and truly tasted better than any store […]
The Almost Birthday Surprise… its finished
Those who have been following Marian’s birthday surprise guessed many things once the concrete pad was poured. And here it is…
Sourdough loaves
I baked bread today and made these sourdough, honey and sesame loaves. Its a plan for the future to have steam ovens here at Swan Crossing and make artisan European style breads. We bought some commercial ovens, then found they could not be covered to propane (after everyone involved assured that they could be. new […]
Bee Fantastic
After a rough Winter our bees have had a happy and productive Spring, we were so encouraged we put in some more hives, and hope for an increase in honey production next Spring, These bees excelled at pollinating our fruit orchard. The first years after planting we were advised to pick off the fruit and […]
Quick Pickles
A friend of mine got a load of Swan Crossing pickling cucumbers and made very successful pickles in a matter of a couple weeks or less. He said they are way tasty… I’m yet to try one. The recipe the recipe he used is the following: Servings 1 quart Ingredients 2 tablespoons kosher salt 1 […]
Smoothies from our garden and Beyond
This pile of luscious fruits and vegetables are headed into our morning fruit and veggie smoothie; chock full of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and sunshine from our farm. The left hand side is our home grown beets, cucumbers, carrots and Kale and the right is some purchased fruits. Chop into large chunks and whir around in our […]
Birthday in the Making – Good Guess – Cats
We’ve had several guesses on the what is being built anywhere from a basketball court to a helicopter landing pad … but looks like its a cat nap pavilion. Maybe a tad too big but they seem to like it.
Butterfly Effects
After being inspired by the Grayson County Master Gardener trip to Hagerman Wildlife Rescue in North Texas we started planning our own butterfly attracting gardening. The place we chose needed a gnarly ugly cedar tree entwined with a scrubby redbud tree removed. We rented an excavator and hauled it out. Then we had some nice […]
A Birthday Gift in the Making
I don’t think it will be much of surprise to Marian my birthday gift to her since there was a big concrete truck in the driveway …. any guesses?
Butterfly Attraction Part 2
Here are some pretty plants that butterflies love, perennials and annuals that we have planted in our butterfly garden at Swan Crossing. These are the ones that are surviving the transplanting. Most are still small, but many of these will spread. Full Sun Lovers, All! Perennials: Tick seed, Blue mist flower, Stonecrop, red yucca, vitex, […]
Cat on the Prowl
This is one of our adopted cats… they showed up one day with her buddy and they are like dogs. They want to be near us anywhere we are. They follow us down to the greenhouse, the venue, the garage just to be near us and lay down … crazy cats. I’m allergic to cats. […]
Watermelons …
Our watermelons are taking over one side of the greenhouse where we planted them as a whim. They’ve gone nutty and the problem is we don’t remember if we planted the smaller round ones or the big ones. I guess we’ll see. They should be ready in the next month or so… lots of tiny […]
Crunch Time… update
Our garden is growing like crazy we put the cucumbers on strings attached to the top of our greenhouse so they can climb and … climb they did. Kinda neat to see the cucumbers just hanging there ready for the picking. We’ll be planting buckwheat in the coming weeks for tillage and soil improvement outside […]
The Red Baron… Our Neighbor?!??!!?
Our neighbor across the street has his own registered runway and is building a Red Baron replica plane. I don’t remember what scale it is but he’s been working on it for several years. Every time we get over there we visit the hanger and see the progress. Currently he’s in the painting stage and […]
Wild Flowers for the Bees
We started in November/December figuring out what to plant for our bees. We focused on Crimson Clover and a variety of wild flowers. Texas Blue Bonnets are not well liked by the bees. We prepared a few acres by scraping the ground and cleaning up. It is rewarding watching the bees work the flowers also […]
Prickly pest!
There are so many varieties of cacti Native to Texas and some can be randomly dropped by birds. They can spread and become a real nuisance. But today it’s blooming its prickly heart out! So beautiful, I don’t have the heart to dig it up today!
Memorial Day…2nd Annual
We’ve been behind in our posts… so much going on. Weeds and grass are taking over argh… We had an awesome time with our friends and neighbors sharing each other’s company on our 2nd annual Memorial Day pot luck. Such an incredible amount of food and BBQ brisket. We had over 50 of our neighbors […]
The onion journey…to soup
The journey to my favorite French Onion soup … Marian always reminds me how she doesn’t like onions. This reminder is anytime and anywhere where onions are seen, smelt or even the suspicion of excessive onions. Sooooo….this was a huge sacrifice for her to help me process and cook the onions, add the broth and […]
Tiptoe through the Tulips
For Mothers’d day (early) Richard gave me this once in a lifetime experience to visit the Keukenhof Tulip Gardens while they were in bloom. I took a bus tour on a very rainy day. There were still hundreds of buses and fellow tourists out in the garden with our umbrellas. There were Tulips and […]
Shrubberie of Paris Gardens
Taking the Grayson County Master Gardener class has sure changed the way I look at plants when I travel. I now notice the shrubbery and trees, not just the flowers.I learned the term, understory, for the shrubs and plant that grow under trees. Look at all these different leaf shapes and foliage colors, some have […]
Swan Crossing Wildflower Gallery
Spring has plenty of new wildflower color at Swan Crossing. We sowed over 3 acres of wildflower seed last fall and are starting to see the beautiful new flowers. The flowers are alive with bees and butterflies, just as we had dreamed, we hope for a continued showing of new colorful surprises through fall. We […]
Butterfly Plant Magnet
I went to visit the Hagerman Wildlife Refuge to learn about Texas Native plants and tour their wonderful butterfly garden. I learned so much! One of the interesting thing was all the butterflies, bees and birds that are supported by trees already on our land such as; hackberry, chinkapin oak, Texas red oak, redbuds, Maples […]
Crunch Time
These are our first cukes from our garden. We planted two varieties in the raised bed bags, pickling and English style seedless cucumbers. I wasn’t sure which this would be? The winner is…English! It tastes great, not bitter at all and super crunchy too. These are so expensive at the store, now for less than […]
My roots are Showing! Grayson County Master Gardener
This Spring has been eventful and a learning time for me. I decided to join the Grayson County Master Gardeners. There are 10 weeks of concentrated horticulture classes and many hours of volunteer hours involved in this.I have really enjoyed the classes, taught by passionate experts in their areas. I have always enjoyed biology and […]
I Have a Tuber
Today we began the potato harvest, lots of red and yellow jewels buried under the dark soil. They taste amazing. We harvested some onions to put with them. It makes us feel like real farmers! Small successes. Each of these potatoes has a different texture and flavor, they were both exceptionally creamy. The yellow skinned ones […]
Living like a Local
Apparently, if you are tall, blond and wear this hat in Stockholm, people will start asking you questions in Swedish.we went to see the Vasa Museum and enjoyed the sight of a recovered ancient ship. I found the models of the painted decorations very interesting, and also the piles of ground stones and minerals used […]
Last leg… Zurich
Our last leg of our journey which includes our food research and especially in Zurich the Swiss chocolates. For purely scientific purposes, I had to try each of the many different chocolates to find the perfect one for our kitchen. I can say that this research took quite a bit of effort. Zurich was very […]
Where in the world…
If you said Sweden and more specifically Stockholm…you win. Visiting this wonderful city where people are friendly, open air markets and water. This is a major port which the Vikings used as a stronghold to control ingress of traders and bad actors into the inland waters of Sweden. The sun is up at at 4:30 […]
Canals and Tulips – Amsterdam
In Amsterdam and the photo is looking out our hotel window… Marian wanted to be here to visit the tulip gardens. What a wonderful city and easy to get around. As you can see from the picture it was rainy. Asking people in this part of Europe about the rain and the answer you get.. […]
Ahhh…April in Paris
This week we are on a trip to Europe. Today we are in Paris spending time on food discovery, plant discovery, and other time just walking around and taking in the sites. I think this is the 4th time we’ve been to Paris in the last couple of years. We get great ideas on how […]
Makes me wanna cry…
This is the first of our sweet Texas onions (1015 Sweet Onion). Here I am in Paris (France just in case there some confusion) eating my favorite French onion soup. Our onion harvest will produce over 600 onions.
Walk around the property… wild things…
Marian and I took a morning walk around the property seeing what is coming up. We have 35 acres where most of it is wooded and rolling hills. We are close to having our crimson clover blossom, maybe another couple of weeks . I see their stalks and the beginning of flower heads. There are […]
Buddies…
I try to take a walk in the morning either down to the greenhouse or down our street. Mostly peaceful except for these baby goats that wanted attention this morning.
Litter Bug – Litter Bug
When I was a very small child my mother taught me a song called the “Litterbug Song”. I have taught it to my children, I asked over the years but most friends were unfamiliar with this song. My mother loved Earth Day, she was very committed to the concept, when we were young she embroidered […]
Culinary Herbal Annuals.. that time of year
I always buy culinary herbs and get them in the ground as soon as possible in the Spring. Herbs are some of easiest of all plant types to grow. I got mine in the ground this week and look forward to cooking with them soon!
Weird Trees or Marker Trees
Marian read a very interesting article about Indian tribes in our area and other used trees to mark things like best river crossing, drinking water etc. These trees grow in unusual shapes based on how they were bent over as saplings and also the age of the tree that can be traced back to a […]
I can dig it…
We have a pipeline going through our property and they are checking some of the pipe and had to dig up the new pipe they laid down last year. I decided to take a look. It’s amazing how little topsoil we have in some places and much of this rock stuff called caliche we have. […]
Wow… just peachy and nectariney
Marian and I took a walk around our orchard of fruit trees we planted last year and it’s amazing how much was on the trees. You saw earlier our post showing the fruit tree blossoms and the bees working the flowers but didn’t know a few weeks later these trees are working their hearts out […]
Remembering the Tea Party
There are very few simple pleasures that compare to friends and pretty tea party foods, reminiscing about our recent event here at Swan Crossing. Each place setting was unique. Vintage china and teacups, each with their own history. Several types of tea in charming teapots. Each place setting had unique vintage china and ooh la la […]
Purple Goddess Tree
Well, not really, it’s just this crazy wisteria vine that took over an entire old tree in Denison,Texas. I Had to pull over and take a picture! Bee friendly, of course. I heard a story that in Georgia an aggressive wisteria grew up the porch of an abandoned house; across an upstairs balcony, through an […]
My Fair Ladies
I’ve taken the opportunity every spring to visit the Luscombe family farms on Foster Crossing Rd., in Anna, TX. This is really my dream of having a heritage family farm ,in a family for hundreds of years ,each one with a unique business or hobby outlook. I love Foster Crossing Pecans, I always buy enough […]
Sexy Farm boots…
Not sexy at all! But they do fit and I love them… If you have the trio of boot fitting issues that includes extra wide feet, high instep and hefty calves like me, just try to find a waterproof farm work boot! I’ve looked everywhere and started giving up. Plus it needs to fit over […]
Garage Sale Find … Old Texas Recipe Box!
Imagine… grandma in the kitchen trying to figure out what to cook for Sunday dinner flipping through her precious recipe box. Many times treasured recipes pass from mother to daughter. Unfortunately, with many things they are now found in a garage sale where no one knows the worth of these generational collections. I found this […]
Traditional Herb Planting
Every Spring I go nuts for fresh herbs and collect up all the interesting varieties of annuals I can find at nurseries. Here at Swan Crossing a few of my perennial and biennial herbs came up despite a cold winter and alternating hot and cold Spring! Survivors are parsley, pineapple sage, garlic chives, lavender, and […]
Outrageous Rainbow!
The big storm that went through on Friday was a typical big Texas storm but the leftover was the fantastic rainbow… it was the most bright and intense rainbow I’ve ever seen. This is photo is looking up the Swan Crossing driveway. See video below… If you look carefully enough you’ll see the second rainbow over […]
Excavator Madness…
We rented an excavator a few days ago to remove stumps and a clump of trees where Marian is thinking of putting a small greenhouse for starting seeds and miscellaneous things. Maybe one of those fancy glass ones. As you might have seen we already have a 100′ x 20′ greenhouse on the way back. […]
Meet the Old General
We have named this giant Chinkapin Oak on our Farm “the Old General”. It is many hundreds of years old. It is the oldest and largest tree on our property. We had an arborist come out last year and prune for continued health and longevity! He predates the Civil War.It is huge you can not […]
Spring Feelings at the Flower Show
Nothing like a sea of bulbs to remind you to think Spring! When I first moved to our home at Swan Crossing I eagerly awaited the spring bulbs that I expected to start blooming. Well not so much…. but perhaps they are being eaten by the possums; or armadillos, or deer, or rabbits, or raccoons,because […]
Gorgeous Terrariums at the Philadelphia Flower Show 2018
My Aunt Susan made terrariums when they had a resurgence of popularity in the early 1970’s, and i have always loved them. She had special little tools, miniature shovels and scissors on long stick handles for working inside of long necked bottles. These terrariums at the show had the same tiny plants but most seemed […]
Swan Crossing: Growing from Seed
We have many different seed adventures going on here on the farm. First we planted wildflower seed last Spring, nothing much bloomed last year, they may come up this year. Then we planted a mix of Red Crimson clover and Texas Wildflower seeds this past fall. we raked the ground where the pipeline came through […]
Front Doors with water reclamation Philly 2018
These door displays from the Philadelphia Flower show 2018 demonstrate creative water saving features, How many can you see?
Plants Without Soil
These great educational displays featured windows filled with plants that were growing without soil, air plants, hydroponics, etc.
Not Whitewright Texas!
This is what everyone outside of Texas thinks I grow in my yard! Hahaha!
Spring Blossoms and the Bees
Our fruit trees are in full spring bloom and the bees are busy doing their pollinating work. The wild pears on the fence row also have a sweet smell and blossoms galore. Folks hate the pollen on these Junipers but the protein filled pollen and the first purplish weeds “hen bit” are the first easy foods […]
Dallas Quilt Guild Show 2018 Tree of Life Theme
Here is a quick slideshow of all my favorite quilts from the Dallas Quilt Guild Show 2018, some with closeups of details. Its fun to get inspired by the many interpretations of the theme, Tree of Life. Some quilts displayed were very abstract and some appeared to be displayed only with no visible trees. Our […]
Zack Modeling Greenhouse Robot
Zack Tworek has been working diligently creating a unique solution to our hoop house water management. This simple looking box actually has a sophisticated computer that will control water, temperatures ,sensors, fans ,solar panels, etc. Circuits tested, installation next. Way to go Zack!
Water Surprises at Philadelphia Flower show 2018
The first thing you see is this tropical rainforest built into the conventional hall with a huge multi-story waterfall feature! The pipes were faux painted to resemble bamboo. It was covered with ferns, orchids, palms, flowers and other tropical plants.
Our Blog
In our blog we provide you more detail about our sustainable farm life, our journey on artisan breads and fermented items such as sauerkraut and pickled beets. These are excellent probiotics, nutritious, tasty, and made using old world techniques. We look forward to your visits Richard and Marian