Temple Bar

My grand daughter and I took a day trip yesterday to Hendersen, Nevada. We took a side trip to Temple Bar on the way, a 60 mile side trip but it was worth it. This is Lake Mead and we ate breakfast looking out on the water. It was a beautiful day. From my place to Las Vegas it is 89 miles. This is really not such a distance to have city shopping. I buy my moisturizing cream from Trader Joes. I know some people have issues with Trader Joes but this moisturizing cream is reasonably priced and made from many natural herbs. It seems to be the only thing that helps my skin on my feet when it starts to crack with the weather changes. I bought a years supply plus some eco friendly laundry soap and some shampoo and olive oil. We had lunch before leaving Hendersen in a huge mall at a Chevies. I had the most wonderful enchiladas I've ever eaten. They were artichoke and mushroom enchiladas with creamy green sauce. I hope I can make them something like that because they are wonderful. Walmart in Henderson had all their plants 50% off so needless to say I bought some trees. A Meyer lemon and meditarianian orange, two for $20 nice trees. I also got two large palms for $9 each. Love those trees.
We also visited the little town of Chloride with all it's old mining rustic charm. All in all we had a very nice day trip and she got a break from the great grands. They were all happy when we returned with a few treats.

Ben and Sara, my grandson and his fiance, my soon to be grand daughter -in-law, hamming it up in my living room. We had a great visit and she's a wonderful down to earth girl. That's a bag of Dorritos in the chair beside them. We played cards on the back porch and had some great buffets in Laughlin, they scouted around the country and went bowling. Wedding is planned for January.

This is the first harvest of the verma compost. It's been just about a month of the worms working on the shredded junk mail, garbage and peat moss that has produced this beautiful black stuff. It is full of eggs so I am letting it sit for another month before I harvest again. I'll start new beds for the baby worms and then use the compost in plantings. If all these eggs hatch I should soon have many, many worms working for me. These were the euro worms . I still have a bin of the red worms to harvest. I will be looking for more old ice chests for homes as these are insulated and work well. In the egg bed I have added ground up chicken scratch and cornmeal to feed the babies . This is quit a large ice chest full of the harvested verma compost. Great project for good soil.

These little guys are the ones who make the wonderful verma compost.

The Worm Guy

I got my earthworms today and found this video about worm farming.

This is Purslane, a weed. I knew it was an edible weed and the bathtub behind where I usually grow my salad greens is full of it. I have been feeding it to the chickens. Yesterday on one of my groups someone posted an article from Men's health magazine called 10 foods you're probably not eating but should. One of the foods was Purslane, this weed. The article said, " Purslane has the highest amount of Omega - 3 fats of any edible plant. It also has 10 - 20 times more melatonin an anti- oxidant that inhibits cancer growth. " The lights went on, I realized I couldn't grow salad greens in the heat but here nature was providing me with the perfect salad right in the hottest months. My chickens are probably laying low cholesterol eggs because I have been adding this to their diet.

Wagon load of watermelons. I had a hard time picking up the big guy. Now I have to figure out how I'm going to fit it into the frig. I've decided to keep this one to save the seeds for next year. It must be 30 or more pounds. I also found a split one that the chickens got. The smaller ones I'm going to share with the neighbors as I have all ready saved seed from this variety. It seems like watermelon, squash and any of the guord family like pumpkins, cantaloupes do well here. My swiss chard has done fairly well and okra does good. I didn't plant enough tomatoes so that will be a much bigger project next year as they appear to do well but the few chickens I have loose are helping themselves faster than I can pick. While doing some chores in the garden I got to thinking I might just sow some broccoli seeds in among the watermelon plants and see if the shading from the plants will help the broccoli grow.
It's starting to look like Luchia's eggs are not fertile as they should have hatched. I looked back over the blog and it was July 29th when the 4th egg was laid. She began setting 2 days later. Gestation time is 23 days. Sigh. Poor Luchia, she's been so faithful for no reward. Perhaps the boys are too young or just respect their mother too much to engage in fertilzing eggs. I guess if I want to be a producer of peacocks I'm going to have to bring in new blood.
It's 8:30 in the morning and I came in my head wet with sweat after working a couple hours weeding and in general little farm chores. It's been a long hot summer.
Nice page for a desert garden. http://www.desertrootsfarm.com