Sweating and shucking...Louisiana summer!

Yesterday I truly believe it was 142 degrees outside.  At 7:00am I went out to feed the chickens and I was seriously wringing wet when I got back inside.  Here in Louisiana we really don't have a spring.  It goes from freezing cold to blazing hot overnight...it really does.  And the humidity here is just unreal.

While we may not have a spring, one thing in Louisiana we do have is CORN and lots of it.  While mine is still not ready to pick, my good friends down the road picked theirs and brought some down yesterday for us.  Yall, living in the country fits me so well because I just love the mentalility of the people out here.  Yesterday morning before church I got a call that they had picked a bunch of corn and wanted to know if we wanted some.  Being my first year to grow corn I jumped all over the generous offer because who knows if I will end up with a single ear in this blistering heat. But the dilema was that on Sundays we spend the majority of the day at church and at my parents house swimming {which by the way is really the only thing you can do here...did I mention 147 degrees}, so I didn't want to take corn that I knew I couldn't tend to.  She assured me that the corn would be fine because it was so hot outside {somehow that preserves the sugar}and that....get this....they would bring it down to me on their way in from church becuase how about they picked the corn before church and put it all in the back of the truck and then went on to church, truck full of corn!!!!  How hilarious is that????  And as promised my good ole friends Garrett and Aline came down and left me a big ole humongous bag of corn on my driveway!!!  When we made it back home I was so excited I shucked corn in my swimsuit on my patio and didnt even care!!!

And you may or may not know, when you shuck corn you better be ready to boil and store it or you have just wasted some corn.  My grandmother boils her water and then goes to pick the corn with a pot of boiling water by her side...that is how critical it is!!!  Well, maybe that is overkill but it sounds so urgent doesn't it???  We boiled our water, and brought in our ears and we boiled corn and ate corn and boiled corn and ate corn.  We put a bunch away and I even froze some cream style just in case my corn doesn't do so well {again...blistering heat yall...blistering}.

And even the chickens think that fresh corn is way better than canned corn and totally worth the work!!

If you are going to be shucking you some corn any time soon, this website is EXACLTY the perfecto directions for storing it.  It is verbatum how my grandmother does it...minus the 10 gallon bucket of boiling water in the corn field.

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

.....how does your garden grow???  Apparently Mary is not a south Louisiana girl because while she is busy with silver bells and cockle shells, I've got this going on...

Real garden growing!!  We took one section of our 3 acre property and began, what will hopefully become, a garden retreat for many years to come.  While we have always had a "garden" we really never had the space to create the size or style garden we really wanted.  Now that we have the space and have laid the ground work, maybe after a few years we will have the sanctuary we dream of.  In la-la-fairytale-land it would look something like this...

photo via Southern Living

Photo via Southern Living

For now, here is what we have done...and it has been soooo much fun.
There is just something about being outside with your hands in the dirt that
just makes the whole world float away.

First we painted our "raised bed boxes" that big daddy boy built for us.

And while we painted he tilled up the ground.

Then big daddy boy filled the boxes with good dirt and horse manure (yummy) 

and made 'em all level and stuff (nothing important or fun)!

And after many weekends spent outside, a farmers tan, and a serious need for a mani pedi, 

here is what we have.  Im so sorry Mary, Mary, but we have no silver bells or cockle shells, 

but I do have tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, snap beans, lima beans, purple hull peas, 

bell peppers, 4 rows of corn, muscadines, and satsumas.

And check out my "orchard" in the background.  Big daddy boy says one day it really will look like an orchard...Im hopeful!  We have peach, pear, and plum trees!!!  We still have to build our picket fence around the entire garden and plant a rose garden around the girls play house (that is what that white thing is in the middle there...please forgive me, I just assumed that of course you would know what that was...ha).   I will keep you updated on how my garden is growing!!