signs, of country life

Sometimes I question whether I'm really cut out for my little country life.  I love somethings like room to grow what ever I want.  The peace and quite.  The little to no traffic on my road...

I think I've mentioned before that about 16 or so of our 20 acres is leased out to a local farmer.  This year I was excited when I realized they had planted corn in our field!  Corn!  I was looking forward to seeing it grow, hearing the wind rustle the stalks and just plain having something a little different in the field.  I was worried it would get a little claustrophobic and a closed in feeling by fall.  But then I noticed how spaced the rows were on the north side and thought, "Oh, no matter what that won't feel like a wall."  Boy, was I wrong.  The corn is now high enough that you can hardly see the top of our house coming from the east.

It's hard to believe that back in mid May it, and my garden, were just short little sprouts.

Now it's catching up to the nectarine tree... and the garden is well, a bit of a walking hazard.  

Those rows that were spaced so far apart...

Have pretty much grown together.  And yep, that includes the corn... even to the north were I thought I'd be able to see "up the rows"... well it's a wall of corn too.

The corn was knee high by the 4th of July... and in the last week it went from this...

To this.  It's almost surpassed the peak of my little greenhouse!  I think it grew a foot in a week.

Now, perhaps you're wondering why I'm questioning my country girl status after 8 1/2 years?  After all, the garden is growing with just some water and weeding by yours truly.  Veggies are getting ready for canning, fruit has been made into jam.  What's more country girl than that?

The sunflowers are all over the place, turning Red Gate Farm into a cute country spot.

But I've come to realize that you can't let all this Country Living magazine coziness fool you.  Under those green leaves lurks all kinds of creepy crawly things.  And you guessed it, I'm not a creepy crawly kind of girl.  I wear garden gloves for just this reason.

I don't know if it's the corn or the heat and lack of rain this summer but strange things have been happening around Red Gate Farm.  In the prior 8 spring/summer/fall gardening seasons I've seen exactly ONE snake.  This year the count is up to FIVE... FIVE!  The first one on the way to the compost just about gave me a heart attack as it slithered across my path.  Number two?  Well it was the worst.  Let's just say I won't be wearing sandals when I feed the chickens any more and if you don't like to touch snakes well the don't feel any better slithering across your toes!

Three and four made an appearance together on Saturday, while I was snapping some of these photos.

And finally, number five was tonight while watering.

I may just need to dust off the rubber boots for the remainder of the year.  Or just take out my contacts and pretend I don't notice anything.

But I'm really blaming this odd ball year and my questioning of my country girl status on the corn.... and what really got me thinking was an old movie... perhaps you've seen it?  It's a little over 10 years old with Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix?  I was on my treadmill watching this one on Friday... in my basement, my old house kind of basement... surrounded on two sides by 16 or so acres of 10 foot tall corn.  Corn that is still growing and won't be harvested for a while yet.  The idea of rustling stalks has lost it's appeal for me.  If you haven't guessed yet, the movie was Signs.  I won't spoil the plot if you haven't seen this suspenseful movie...  But there IS a corn field involved, with lots of rustling stalks, but not from the gentle breezes of summer or fall.  And I'm keeping a glass of water handy... or the garden hose.... I'm just saying.

I think I'll be sticking to the Home and Garden channel for a while.