Visiting Noccalula Falls

We spent an afternoon at Noccalula Falls a few weeks back and I thought I’d share some photos.  We always enjoy visiting this park on the few occasions we make it to Gadsden, Alabama.  They have an animal habitat, the historic water fall where Noccalula met her end, and a historic village.  I remember as a child visiting this park for Sunday picnics with fellow church members.  It has always been a fun place to visit. 

http://noccfalls.homestead.com/



Noccalula Falls

The Little Train in the Park

Animal Habitat



Spring is Here

Strawberry plants we planted last spring.

Spring seems to have arrived here in North Alabama. The weather this time of year is a little crazy. Some days we have warm spring weather, then a cold front will move in. When the cold front moves in, we are either cold or having violent stormy weather.

As we have enjoyed the beautiful weather, we have felt the need to plant seeds so we can replenish our supply of home grown food. So far, we have planted cabbage, buttercrunch lettuce, tomatos, basil, cilantro, sage, spearmint, banana pepper, and jalopeno pepper seeds in seed starting containers. We have also bought some wood to start some container (or four square) gardening for our salad vegetables this year.

One seed starter planted.

We are planning our larger garden spots as well. We have decided that we will probably need at least four or five rolls of pinkeye purple hull peas, two rolls of rattlesnake beans, two rolls of okra along with squash, tomatos, and cucumbers at my parents’ garden spot. We would like to try growing some sunflowers and pumpkins this year as we enjoy eating their seeds and pumpkin pie too. We would also like to find somewhere in our crowded gardens to plant corn.

The new rooster with the hens

Spring has also brought changes to our chicken coop. We have been getting two eggs most days since fall. With warmer weather, we have been picking up four or five eggs most days. My son noticed that two of our hens were trying to sit on their unfertilized eggs. So, we went looking for a rooster last week and bought one for twelve dollars. Maybe in the next month or two we will see some chicks in our coop although we will have to give up our fresh eggs for a time.

We also know that springtime has arrived, because Spring Revivals are taking place in churches throughout out county association and the surrounding counties as well. So far, I believe I have heard of three children being saved since the revivals began. I just pray we will continue seeing God work in our little churches.

A Visit to Arab Historic Complex in Arab, Alabama

Rice Church

Recently, my family visited Arab Historic Complex which is behind Arab City Park in Arab, Alabama. This historic complex has restored building from within the community and a museum. It is like a little town and is quiet peaceful. The old schoolhouse that sits on this property is called Hunt School House. My grandmother and some of her siblings attended this school. One of her brothers even helped with the restoration process. I thought I’d share some pictures of the buildings that are within this historic complex.

Hunt School House
Elvin Light Museum, a General Store, and a Quilter's Cottage

Our First Field Trip this Year, September 3, 2011

As the Summer heat is showing brief signs of fading into a cool Fall, my dad decided to take my two teenagers on their first field trip for this school year. This field trip did not take place within the borders of beautiful Alabama this time. They traveled a little north into the edge of Georgia and on into Lookout Mountain, Tennessee.

They visited Point Park A Chattanooga and Chickamauga National Military Park. A lot of battles took place across North Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee during the Civil War. Point Park is located where the Battle of Lookout Mountain or the “Battle above the Clouds” took place. It is a beautiful park fill with Civil War history and a little family history for us. One of my great-great-great grandfathers’ fought in the Battle of Lookout Mountain, and another great-great-great grandfather fought at nearby Missionary Ridge and was captured there. So, to say the least, this was a good history lesson for my family.


There is a museum nearby where you can look at pictures and Civil War memorabilia. They also have a gift shop where you can buy souvenirs.


On the road home, my dad stopped at Sequoya Caverns and Ellis Farm Homestead in North Alabama. They did not go into the Caverns, but they did visit with a peacock in the parking lot and a duck that followed them around the place. So, all in all, my two young’uns had an awesome outing with their grandpa.

Still Harvesting and My First Attempts at Canning

Well, as HOT August has advanced across the South, we haven’t had any rain in weeks. Our plants have done fairly well in spite of the lack of rain although they are kind of drying up. If we had more rain, I believe our squash would have continued producing well, but they had slowed down some. My husband finally just turned them under in preparation for the fall garden plants. We were getting a little tired of squash although we love squash.


We have to water our tomatoes most nights because they have just started ripening. The cucumbers are still producing in spite of the lack of water although the leaves are drying up a little. The green beans are finally coming in some although they seem a little tough, and I wonder if that is due to the lack of water. Our pink eyed purple hull peas are still producing as well. The corn has been eaten by the deer. They knew that they would be fully ripe last week and paid a visit to eat as much as they could. Since the cornstalks were down on the ground, our friendly visiting skunk decided to eat his share while we were picking butter beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, and peas. He literally ran us out of the garden last Saturday although I think he was more afraid of us than we were of him.


I have been canning pickles. This has been my first attempt at preserving cucumbers, and it has gone better than expected. I have a home preserving book with more than 400 recipes, but as I looked on the isle of the local grocery store for spices and canning supplies, I saw all kinds of pickle mixes which makes the job of canning pickles fast and easy. Since the vinegar in the pickles is so acidic, I just used a water bathing canner to seal the lids on my canning jars. So far, I’ve canned about 37 jars of pickles; sweet pickles, kosher dill pickles, and bread and butter pickles.


We have about two rolls of pink eyed purple hull peas this year and have planted a third, late roll down the middle of the corn. We have had enough to eat mainly, but we have gathered enough at times to be able to freeze about 8 quarts or rather 16 pints of these wonderful peas for my family in addition to the 6 quarts my mom was able to freeze for she and my dad.


As the tomatoes have just started coming in, we really haven’t done much with them although I have made about 3 pints of salsa and eaten a lot of tomato sandwiches. Umm, good! Hopefully, we’ll be able to can some stewed tomatoes for the winter. They are always awesome in soups.


We have begun our fall garden in the midst of all of this harvesting and the lack of rain. We have planted some late tomato plants that I had started from seeds. We have planted more squash seeds and turnip green seeds in my parents’ garden. At home, we have seeded some cabbage in preparation for them to be put in the garden as soon as possible. This coming month should be an awesome time to plant broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, cabbage, turnip greens, carrots, and radishes. I love gardening!

Busy With Harvesting and Other Things

July and August have certainly been a busy time for us here in North Central Alabama. The gardens have been producing. Revivals are in churches everywhere with us seeing more saved for the Kingdom of God this year than I’ve seen since my growing up years. We’ve also had more sick amongst my cousins so this has meant visiting the hospital at least twice a week as well. I think everyone is on the road to recovery now though. So I thought I’d take a breath and write a little on the blog.

We have had squash, squash, and, yes, more squash during July and now in August. We’ve had enough rain that they just continue producing when I thought they would just go ahead and die. We’ve had fried squash, boiled squash, broiled squash, squash dressing, vegetable casserole with squash, green beans, and corn, and my teenagers’ favorite, squash fritters. We’ve shared with my parents, sister, and grandma. I was hoping to see my sister can some squash relish, but I haven’t talked her into that yet. Maybe she’ll give me the recipe, and I’ll have to do that myself.
We’ve also had an abundance of cucumbers. I love cucumbers, and I think I eat at least one a day. We are getting so many that even with sharing amongst family that my mother is talking about us making some pickles. She had told me that they never made them that much when she was growing up, but I think we might give it a try soon.
The pink eyed purple hull peas, bell peppers, Alabama black butter beans, Dixie butter peas, and Kentucky wonder pole beans have all started producing as well. I thought that the rabbits or deer had eaten almost all of our Kentucky wonder pole beans, but we are still getting a little bit of green beans a couple of times a week. We’ve had all kinds of critters eating our plants at both gardens. My parents have had a skunk that visits for the last couple of years. It likes to eat the pears that hit the ground below the pear tree which is located close to our squash in the garden. One evening we were out picking late, and my husband noticed the skunk behind my son. We just continued picking, and it finally moved on without spraying us.
We would like to be canning and freezing, but with sharing with family and planting a late garden, we haven’t yet harvested enough to put up for the winter. My mom mentioned that next year we might need to think about planting four rolls of pink eyed purple hull peas and maybe more than two rolls of green beans so we’d have plenty to put up. Our rattlesnake beans and Kentucky wonder bush beans haven’t yet started producing although the rattlesnake beans are blooming like crazy. Maybe in the next couple of weeks we’ll be able to freeze some peas, put up some vegetable soup, and can some green beans. That would certainly help us save money on vegetables this winter.

It Finally Rained and Our Garden is Growing Good

The last time I blogged about our garden it hadn’t rained in Alabama for quiet a while. Folks around here prayed for rain, and now it’s rained almost every day for weeks. The plants are looking great; so are the weeds and grass. We were able to till between the rolls at my parents to help deal with some of the weeds, and we’ve had to weed in between the plants as well. Morning Glory, trees, and many other weeds have tried to overgrow our gardens.


I have finally figured out which two vining plants are growing in our garden; Alabama Black Butter Beans and Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans. There for a while we didn’t have a clue, but they definitely look different.


Our oregano didn’t ever grow from seeds. I think someone had commented that they were difficult to deal with sometimes. So, after trying to grow oregano from seeds a couple of times and not succeeding, we went ahead and bought some pretty healthy looking oregano plants from a local seed and hardware store.


We haven’t harvested anything yet, but our plants are looking pretty. Some have some blooms so we know that will happen in time. We planted peppermint on one side of our garden. That side doesn’t seem to have that many bugs or ants. We’ll want to plant a lot more of that in the future.