Hmm? You wonder, where's Hummingbird Hills Homestead. Well, located in Central Illinois. It's our little patch of land. My husband's late wife dubbed it Hummingbird Hills and I added the Homestead part. It's been a busy week here trying to keep on top of stuff and then we have had the extreme heat.

Work on the vegetable garden is ongoing. We fenced around it, but apparently bunnies or something still figured out a way to get in and proceeded to munch on a few of our vegetables. Not all our seeds germinated which was a disappointment. But, things are starting to grow. I've replanted a few things. We enjoyed a couple of ripe tomatoes...a bit early, but a nice treat. We've had lettuce and radishes and green onions so far. The radishes are finished, unfortuantely, they were super. The green beans have started over since something ate all the tender leaves off of them. I had started two celery plants from the bottom of a stalk and whatever ate them as well as two bell pepper plants so it has been work trying to figure out how to keep things from being eaten.

I resorted to cutting the top and bottom off of juice bottles to put around some of the plants. Not pretty, but hopefully effective. I restarted another celery plant and hopefully it will get a chance to mature. I replanted some things that didn't come up, hoping it was the weird weather we had earlier. One cucumber plant is really going to town, so I'm hopeful we will get lots of cucumbers. I like to make relish besides eating the cucumbers raw. 

Sadly the weeds have been abundant. I've been working on filling in this flower bed with lots of perennials, but ther eis this invasive vine that I pull it up and the next day it reappears, even if I got the roots. I told DH it would make a great horror movie if this thing got really huge; it could take over a city in a matter of days! 

In good news, I bought a box of wildflower seeds at a Dollar General this spring hoping they would come up since they are supposed to be flowers that hummingbirds and butterflies like. It seemed like it took forever, but the plants are up and there are even some blooms! 

We've had some other projects going on here as well. But with the extreme heat, we are not overdoing it. I'm watching the wild black raspberries because I'm thinking they will be ripening at some point. I made jam with them last year and would like to do the same this year. 

I read an interesting book that I checked out from the library. It's called "The Feast Nearby." It from 2011 about a lady who was divorced and lost her job and moved to what was to be a vacation cabin which became her home. She talked about living on very little, foraging, bartering, and canning. The author's name is Robin Mathers and she worked for the Chicago Tribune before losing her job. She included recipes. She is way more resourceful than I am, sad to say. But it was an interesting read. One thing she talked about was supporting the business people around her such as farms. 

Well, guess I should get on my work clothes and get busy!

This was planned over a year ago, but DH and I took a cruise to some of the countries on the Baltic sea. This was his third cruise and my second. We paid for everything associated with the actual cruise ahead of time so no big surprises. 

I've been to England, but no where else in Europe. DH has never been overseas. It was both exciting and scary for us. We started in Stockholm. We did spend money there going through the ABBA museum and a museum for a Swedish sailing vessel that was made in the 1600s and went down 15 minutes into its maiden voyage. And of course our meals while there. But other than that, once we were on the ship, our meals were taken care of. We did pack some granola bars and carried those on excursions and a bottle of water to save money.

It was both exciting and scary to hear the guides in some of these countries talk about how they were under Russian rule and how much better life is, even if things are getting more expensive. There was some fear in their voices as they quietly discussed what is happening in Ukraine and how they are also fearful that it could happen there. Most were old enough to be around before 1991 and their country getting their freedom, so they don't want a repeat.

It was an amazing trip. I'm Christian and I love old churches and cathedrals and we went through quite a few. In Poland, one cathedral even did a short organ recital for our excursion group. The food on the ship was fantastic and I'll admit it, I over ate. 

Was it money well spent? In my mind, yes. Did we have the money to spend? Yes, we've been saving it just for this purpose. So, it was big spending, but now back to trying to save.