Fall Garden

This week we planted the fall vegetables in the new part of the garden. We put in lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, carrots, sugar snap peas, beets, onions and turnips. Some of them have already started sprouting, I can't wait for the lettuce.  It's been really cool in the mornings so it's much nicer to work out there before the day gets started. 

We also started harvesting the apples. It pretty much took all day yesterday to pick and wash the ones that were ripe. We're not sure what kind of apples they are, maybe golden delicious or pippin, they're greenish yellow, a little tart but not too tart. It doesn't really matter, they're pretty good! What a bonus, we didn't even know there was an apple tree here when we bought the place. 

The pears are starting to ripen too, I haven't had one that I thought was fully ripe yet, though. The lady that used to live here stopped by a couple of weeks ago and said the man who she bought the house from used to get his whoopings under that tree!

Here are some photos of outbuildings around Hurdle Mills... and some horses. There are so many cool old farm buildings around here. 

A Trip to the Courthouse

We wanted to do a little research on the history of the house before Aaron went back to school, so today we went to the Person County courthouse to do a little digging. We didn't find out a lot but we did find out the house & land were sold at auction in 1937 to D. Long for the sum of $9482.55 for the homeplace of J.R. Rimmer and 177 acres. Mr. Rimmer died in 1933 and his wife died in 1936, after which their heirs sold the property at auction on the courthouse steps. We couldn't really tell but it seemed like there was some kind of dispute which the court settled by auctioning off the property. 

That was pretty much what we were able to find out at the courthouse. Then I did a little searching online and found out James Rimmer was born in 1855 and that would have made him 32 when the house was built in 1887. His first child was born in 1888 which sounds about right too. I also found out his dad was a Confederate infantryman and is buried up the road, and he shares a distant relative with David Koresh of Waco fame.... friggin' internet's amazing isn't it?

The garden is just about winding down for the summer so we're getting it ready for fall planting. Aaron dug up another big plot doubling the size of the garden after he got back from a much overdue visit to California to see his Mom & Dad and the rest of the family. It seems like they had a really good time, sorry I missed it!

This year was a really good year for cucumbers and we had so many I made dill pickles, which was surprisingly easy. They came out pretty good, they tasted like the kind you get in delis in the big barrels. I made 20 and they're already gone.

Last night I noticed these flowers out by the wooded area in the back of the property. I'm not sure what they are but the plant is shrub-like and it's got leaves like a mimosa tree and delicate golden flowers.