Stain Removal Tips

It seems I'm forever running to my computer to google how to remove stains from clothing so I've decided to create my own post which I will add to over time so I have one place to look-up how to remove (insert stain of choice). Many of these stains will be the kind that all good homesteaders run in to in daily life.

• Acrylic Paint: Pour rubbing alcohol on the paint.  It will dissolve the acrylic. 

• Berry Stains-for stains from berries of all kinds (I've tried on blackberry, strawberry and blueberry stins): Boil water and pour over stain -watch stain disappear before your eyes!

• Blood -pour hydrogen peroxide on stain, rinse with cold water.

• Iodine-Rubbing alcohol will remove it from your skin. For linens, rub the stained area with a slice of lemon. To remove iodine from cotton or linen, cover with a soft paste of mustard mixed with water and let stand for a few hours. (My sources don't say what kind of mustard to use-if you know please post a comment!)

• Tomato Stains:
  1. Working from the back of the stain, flush with cold water.
  2. Pretreat with a liquid laundry detergent, tamp the stain, and let stand for several minutes.
  3. Rinse well.
  4. Sponge with white vinegar.
  5. Rinse well.
  6. Repeat Steps 2 to 5 until you have removed as much stain as possible.
  7. Pretreat with a prewash stain remover.
  8. Launder.
  9. If the stain remains, rub with a liquid laundry detergent, and then soak in warm water for up to 30 minutes.
  10. Launder with fabric-appropriate bleach, if necessary.
  
  

For all stains, once stain has been lifted, wash garment straight away as usual. Here's a link to a great site on stain removal: Stain Removal Guide

Homemade Upholstery Cleaner:

1 cup of warm water

1/4 cup of dish detergent

Whip it in your mixe

Lemon Aid

I've been wanting a Meyer Lemon tree for a while now. I saw some earlier this year at the big home improvement stores and passed them by thinking I could

1. get better looking specimens and;
2. get a better deal ( Iremembered the year before seeing large trees lined up at 1/2 price at Lowes)

They then sold out and much to my dismay I couldn't find any others. I sure was kicking myself.

Then I decided to get proactive and started calling the many small nurseries around here and much to my delight the closest nursery had one Meyer Lemon tree and it was 50% off because they were closing for the summer that weekend. I scooted over there and acquired my Lemon Tree - a great specimen. It's about 5 feet tall with one branch that towers about 7 feet high (I'll probably prune that branch). I was so happy to get such a nice tree and it was only $30.00!

That's where the happy story ends and despair sets in.

I got it home and then had to decide where to put it. I put it on the South side of our house figuring it would get lots of sunlight -which it did but the winds were knocking it all about and I feared all the fruit would get blown off so I moved it to the North side in a sheltered corner.

I've been blogging about my war with pests this summer. I had always thought that citrus was a bit of a natural repellent . How wrong I was. After a few days I found some leaves curled up and some kind of bug hiding within, so I drenched the tree in insecticide soap. I was vigilant in spraying it every couple of days with the soap.

Despite vigilant spraying, I found mealy bugs and aphids and grasshoppers on the tree. And to make matters worse it began dropping leaves and the remaining leaves were turning yellow. I fear I over watered it. I felt horrible -the tree was gorgeous when I got it and after it came home it was subjected to about every torture imaginable.

I decided to move my tree to the other side of the house where it would get more sunlight. I also started using a moisture meter to gauge soil moisture. I watered much less frequently which I found disturbing considering every day the temperatures are over 100. Still the tree declined. Then the grasshoppers attacked in full force. One day it was just a poor tree that had been over watered, the next it was stripped of most of its leaves and even some bark. I couldn't believe the damage.

Grasshopper damage to bark

Major intervention was in order. I decided I didn't care about organic care at this point, the grasshoppers had to go. I went to Home Depot and browsed their shelves. I was disappointed that there wasn't anything other then Sevin which even listed grasshoppers as a victim. I have Tempo in the storage shed -that will kill everything but I'm not using that in my garden. I came home empty handed and disappointed that I was still without grasshopper killer. I then stewed on it some more and opted to not succumb to non-organics. Since the Lemon tree is in a pot, I chose to bring it inside where I know I can at least keep the grasshoppers off of it.

I purchased some Alaska Fish fertilizer in hopes that some good natural fertilizer my help my struggling tree. I mixed it up as per directions and oh my. This stuff stinks. The label says it is "deodorized with wintergreen oil". Who are they trying to fool? It reaks. You know it smells disgusting when no sooner had I watered my plant with it then my dogs were fervently trying to get in the pot and dig and eat up the dirt. Great now I have to contend with them digging up the plant. I shooed the dogs off and told them they were gross.

Poor Bedraggled Tree Prior Prior to Repotting

I was still concerned about the pot size so I chose to repot the tree this week. It was in a 3 gallon container so I thought an up size to a 5 gallon would suffice, along with a well draining media. After a lot of reading I figured a gritty mix would be good for the lemon tree. Here is the "recipe" for the gritty mix I made:

Gritty Mix

3 parts pine or fir bark fines
3 parts Turface MVP (or equal)
3 parts crushed granite (turkey or chicken grit - not crushed shellfish)
1 part vermiculite
1 part coarse silica sand
1 tbsp gypsum/gardening lime gallon of soil (1/2 cup per cu ft)
if you use gypsum instead of lime, add 1/8 tsp Epsom salts/gallon of water each time you fertilize

I wasn't able to purchase any pine bark fines so pine mulch and some pine nuggets I had on hand had to suffice -I just pulled the large pieces out of the mix. I was able to buy chicken grit at the local feed store by the pound so wasn't stuck with a 25# bag to use up. And turface isn't carried in most of my local stores so I opted for "Oil-Dri" which is very similar.

Materials for Gritty Mix

I mixed up my planting media and then dumped out my lemon tree. The roots do not look healthy -they were in a tight ball and there certainly aren't many healthy looking white roots spreading out from the ball. I broke up the ball somewhat and put the tree in the 5 gallon pot -it barely had any extra room around the edges. This size pot wasn't going to work. I went to our shed and of course I didn't have anything bigger. Now what. I looked around and decided that my container blueberries which have been struggling didn't need a pot as big as they have and they were very unceremoniously dumped out and the lemon put in their pot in place. It is a perfect size. The roots have room to spread but the container is still quite movable.

Close Up of Gritty Mix

So the lemon tree is now replanted. I still have it in my "mud-room" which has a sunny east facing window. Each day I check the plant for new growth. I haven't seen any yet but it was just Thursday that I re-potted. I should sacrifice the lemons that are still clinging to the tree and allow the tree to nourish it's trunk and leaves rather than the fruit but it seems such a shame to lose them now. I will watch a little more and if I don't see new growth shortly, they will be picked off.

Texas 4-H Dog Show

Katie and I had the pleasure of going to the Texas 4-H dog show in Belton this weekend. It was a wonderful experience all around, very well organized, lots of great Kids and of course loads of dogs of every shape and size!

Katie was the only competitor from our county, Cooke. She competed in just about everything (rally,tricks, obedience, costume, conformation, showmanship, photography and agility!). I was very proud of how well she did and how well she handled the ups and downs of showing. Her low was when Diva wouldn't potty no matter how much she walked her and then pooped in the obedience ring. Her high...I'm actually not sure what her high was, there were many. I think I was proudest of her 2nd place in the tricks class as there she was competing with kids of all ages including seniors, and she trained her dog herself! Each competitor had to perform 3 tricks with their dogs. Katie and Diva did weave through legs, skateboarding and pushing a ball with her nose (the dog pushed the ball not Katie!).

My favorite class was the costume class. This had to be the best costume class I've ever seen. The kids were allowed props and it was obvious a lot of thought went into the design of the outfits and props.

Katie and Diva ready for the costume class

Unfortunately I didn'tget many photographs as I was a volunteer and was kept very busy working!

Getting Diva Ready for Mixed Breed Confirmation

Katie and Annie getting 1st Place in Novice Showmanship

Crunchy Grass

It's the fourth of July but it sure doesn't look like it outside. It looks like late August. The grass is brittle and dry and crunches under foot. The grasshoppers have chewed the leaves off of much of the garden as well as the surrounding weeds. The cicadas are singing at nine in the morning and in the evenings, their noise is deafening . The only green spots in the yard is where hose ends meet, the little area where I dump the dogs wading water every couple of days and around the pool where I didn't quite tighten a pump top properly. That's it. The rest is just plain crunchy. And brown.

Looking like August

And it's dusty. I vacuumed much of yesterday. At 9:00 pm when I was cooking supper I still had to grab a dustpan and sweep the grit up from under my feet.

The weatherman hasn't promised us any relief. One website's headline is "Crazy Hot in Texas". They got that right. Many Texas cities have broken daily high records, not just once but several times. The USDA has finally declared Texas a disaster area allowing for many farmers who've experienced wildfires and drought devastation to seek some much needed aid. And June 2011 will go down as the third (or fourth depending on whose stats you look at) hottest June in history, with the two prior years following right on their heels. That means three of the hottest Junes in Texas history have occurred in the last three years. And I thought I was just becoming intolerant! Highs were 90 plus every day of June with four of them over 100. This weeks forecast is over 100 until Friday when we'll be treated to a cold front...a high of 97!

Happily our little homestead isn't suffering nearly as much as others. We did loose a chicken the other day and I imagine the heat played a large part in her demise. She was fine one day and then was looking poor on Saturday morning, just making tiny "uck uck" sounds instead of full throttle clucks. Saturday evening, she was gone. The sheep are going to have to start eating hay, and I'm sure the horses that are in the pasture that usually carries them almost right through the summer will soon be on hay too.

And of course the garden isn't doing so well. The grasshoppers have pretty much devoured the vegetable garden (even the egyptian onion tops have been mowed down to the soil). The flowering plants that have been so valiantly growing despite the heat are beginning to droop.

Obedient Plants wilted at 8:00 am

There is a bright spot within the garden. For several years I've been trying to get a plant called "Poliomintha Longiflora" or "Mexican Oregano". I was successful this year and planted one in May. It has rewarded me with blooms since planting. It is literally covered and has been since I planted it. A plant well worth planting! I hope to take cuttings off of this beauty just in case it meets some untimely demise.

A close up of the poliomintha longiflora flowers

Pardon me for not deadheading first, here's the whole plant!

2011 Year of the Rabbit, I think not!

This is supposed to be the year of the rabbit. But then again this is from a Chinese Zodiac calendar, not a Texas calendar. I do believe that if we were going by the Texas Zodiac Calendar you'd find that this is the year of the Pest!

Not until I stopped and really looked around myself, did I realize just how bad the pests are this year.

The Ants: The first battle I waged was about a month ago was with ants. Every day I'd find a steady stream milling about on my desk. And if I left a glass of water or an empty juice cup...it was ANT Partayyy!

I put an end to their capers with my bottle of Orange Guard but unfortunately though that stopped the ones already on my desk, it didn't stop the search parties that came looking for their brethren. Right outside my office window was a huge prickly pear which I was in the midst of removing. I could finally get in behind it to see if I could find the source of the ants and I did find a trail. I sprayed those with my Orange Guard and my problem was no more.

Squash Bugs: I've already posted about finding these pests in my gardens (link to previous post) . Be forewarned: Do not and I repeat do not give them a chance to get the upper hand! These garden pests won their battle with me. I believe I discovered their presence once too much damage had been done. So if your little squash plants suddenly start wilting, inspect them closely for these pests.

Houseflies: Living on my farm I'm used to having flies in the house, it's a part of life and I put up with it. I keep a fly swatter handy and go on fly killing rampages from time to time and that takes care of it. I don't use any fly sprays as I have a Hahns Macaw in the house and birds are particularly sensitive to pesticides.

This year the house flies are just plain ridiculous. My swatter can't keep up. Swatting flies is now an actual chore I've assigned to my DD. We literally swat scores each day only to awake to double the reinforcement troops. I'm so tempted to vacate the house and spray...

Fleas: Each Spring my dogs usually pick up a flea or two. Annie and Selena must be allergic to them because if they have just one flea on their body you know about it. They practically tear their skin off with the scratching. I had to start the spot-on applications unusually early this year . I also have to repeat them much sooner than I normally do ( I can usually get at least a month between treatments but I've already done them at least 4 times and it's only the end of June!

Ticks: Ticks are the new pest on the block and I'd really like them to leave. Over the years I might have found maybe one tick a year on the dogs, they really haven't been a problem. Ticks are supposed to like moist ground so what gives? We're experiencing the 3rd driest summer on record and were just pronounced a disaster area by the USDA because it's so dry, so why are these pests surfacing this year? I think it's because it's the year of the pest.

If I hadn't just put Advantage on the dogs last week, I'd just buy a flea/tick spot-on product -but I really hate to double up on the poisons. It's bad enough putting it on every 3 weeks let alone twice within a week. Yesterday I picked off about 1/2 a dozen of these pests off of my dogs. They really gross me out and with the all the diseases they carry they need to leave-now.

Yesterday I searched for organic tick remedies. I found quite a few. The one I made follows. I chose it because it's the simplest and I had all the ingredients on hand and wouldn't leave the dogs stinky and greasy:

Homemade Tick Repellent:

2 cups of water

20-25 drops of peppermint essential oil.

Mix well together and spray on.

I put some on the dogs yesterday and they did smell lovely! I can't smell it on them today so I imagine it needs to be reapplied fairly often.

Another herbal remedy I will be trying for repelling ticks is Rose Geranium Oil and its sister oil Palmerosa . I didn't have any of this oil on hand to try it straight away but it does sound promising. Supposedly just a few drops on the dogs collar is supposed to repel them. Here's the recipe for making this repellent:

2 TBSP vegetable or nut oil (almond oil contains sulfur, a repellent itself)

10-25 drops of Rose Geranium Oil (or Palmerosa Oil)

Combine in a glass jar. Shake to blend. Makes 2 tablespoons. Shelf life: 6 months.

Application: Dab a few drops on skin or clothing making sure to avoid eyes.

GRASSHOPPERS: I battle these guys each year but this year all I can say is Wow. I didn't realize just how many there are out there until I actually really opened my eyes and looked. My butterfly bush is covered with them and I mean covered -scores of them on one single plant. My remedy of choice is to squish them, but these guys are smart. I've never seen such fast grasshoppers, catching them is a feat unto itself. Annie, my dog helps as much as she can as she considers them a delicacy but her stellar efforts don't even make a minuscule dent in their populations. I've starting free ranging my hens but they haven't quite grasped the principal of foraging for themselves yet. I found a recommendation for a product called "NOLO" or "Semaspore" which is organic and takes down the larvae of the grasshoppers -it isn't a miracle solution but it allegedly it will reduce your grasshopper populations overs time. I intend to try it

.

It's trying to get me!

Mealybugs: I'd say these guys were cute if they didn't devour my plants. I saw my first mealybugs on my brand new Meyer Lemon tree. They are little white fluff balls - I wish I'd taken a picture of them before squishing them and spraying the tree.

Aphids: I thought I'd finished this post but another pest while watering my meyer lemon. I haven't yet ID'd it but I'm sure it's part of the aphid family. It posed before I zapped it with my insect soap.

Can any of you ID this pest?

Chicken Run

Egg white and chocolate our two game chickens given to us in April seem to be what I call "welfare" chickens. I've nicknamed them "Useless" and "Useless Too". Why do I talk about them like this you wonder?

Well I got these chickens as laying hens. All seemed OK -not great the first couple of weeks. They laid about 6 eggs in two weeks -not super laying numbers by any means but I figured they needed to settle in and get used to life at our farm.

Then they stopped laying. I blamed it on their quarters, we hadn't finished their chicken tractor yet and had to use a dog x-pen and dog carrier as their temporary home for a couple of weeks. Meanwhile we had some hard rains and the chickens got wet. I wasn't about to blame them for not laying under those conditions.

Then they moved to their new chicken tractor and still they didn't lay. But I gave them the benefit of the doubt- afterall they had moved twice in less than a month. Finally we found an egg or two in the tractor and we thought all was well.

Then things heated up in Texas. It seems these chickens don't lay when the temps are above 90 degrees nor do they lay when it storms. In Texas conditions are either stormy or hot or both about 75% of the time. I won't be counting on these two chickens for my egg needs much longer.

I was going to put an ad on Craigslist offering two free game chickens (my dd would never forgive me if we ate her first chickens), but then I had an idea! I've been battling bugs and pests in my gardens as I do every summer -what better to demolish the grasshopper population then a couple of chickens?

This morning I opened the coop. Chocolate instantly took off running (her wing feathers haven't grown back in sufficiently to fly). She ducked under the horse fence and kept on running. Wild thing. I figured she was gone forever. Egg White meanwhile came out and wandered around, then ducked through the electric fence pen where the sheep are. I didn't think anything of it until an hour or so later, when I look out to see Jasper, the pyreness puppy chasing her. She beat a hasty retreat under the fence and then hung out for the afternoon. I think Jasper was only trying to play but he could have killed her in a heartbeat if he had got hold of her.

I just went to put Egg White back in the coop and thought I should at least make an effort to find Chocolate. I looked into the horse field and there she was poking about. I climbed the fence into the pasture and maneuvered past where she was and then approached her. She took off to hide under some Cedar bush. I grabbed a stick intending to beat the bushes, but then the horses came to investigate what the commotion was about. They scared her out and she took off running toward the fence and the coop on the other side. She ran along the fence line looking for a spot she could duck under and found one, only to find Jasper on the other side. He didn't do much but she took off in the other direction-right towards the coop. She ducked through the fence and jumped into the coop.

With a grin I closed the coop door and thought Day one free ranging done! I wonder how day two will go?

Safely back in the coop for the night

Garden Bounty or not...

This year I planted: Squash, Zucchini, Cucumber, Eggplant, 3 Varieties of Tomatoes, Fingerling Potatoes, White Onions, Walking Onions and Potato Onions.

I am sad to report that despite my valiant attempts to save them, the squash, zucchini and cucumber have all succumbed to the squash bugs.

It's too hot for the tomatoes to set -and according to Neil Sperry many gardeners in North Texas are suffering the same fate with their tomatoes. At least I'm in good company.

I will be harvesting the fingerling potatoes next week -it looks like the plants are succumbing to the heat. I'm trying the bucket method with them and just used store bought potatoes as my starts. The plants have grown well but I'm not sure what's happening below!

My harvest this week consisted of about 2.5 #s of Eggplant, 4 cherry tomatoes and not quite 2 #'s of onions. The onions were a disappointment considering I planted about 50 sets. The eggplant is doing well. It loves hot weather and there is no lack of that. I'm worried the squash bugs will attack it now that they have run out of actual squash plants to eat. Something has been actively chewing it's leaves but so far it's withstanding the assault.

Eggplant Harvest-they not the most beautiful specimens but hopefully they will make good eggplant ziti