Whats commin up?

I love wandering around the garden when its not actually snowing to look at what is popping up.

Lots of baby parsley where its gone to seed.







Tons of red orach is coming up so I don't think I'll ever have to reseed it. Now I just have to figure out what to do with it.

Fennel is greening up, and unfortunately has proved rather invasive without producing many bulbs.





My garlic experiments seemed to work. Last spring I took some that was growing on the counter and put it here and there in the garden. It grew and I took the biggest cloves from each new bulb and replanted it. Now each of those are growing and looking well.




Seeing buds on most of the fruit bushes, little pussy willow looking things on a couple of saskatoon bushes, swelling pink buds on the bush cherries, and the leaves are popping out on the elderberry bushes.







The rhubarb bush that I semi-divided is doing well. The hacked off sectioned is also growing:








The grass is starting to green up and perennials are putting new leaves or greening up too. Tons of work to do!

First loads of cow poop were purchased Saturday to get the beds ready that will have peas planted in the next couple of weeks.

In bad news, cats got in the hoop house. I let it go a little long between waterings and the cats thought it was a nice, warm, dry place to hang out apparently. They wallowed out nice soft beds. grrrr Can see some radishes were coming up but most of the lettuce was literally wiped out.

Friends

I have been really blessed with great friends. Allison gave me this amazing water bottle after I was admireing it. Mama had one like it that I was playing with the night before. I wanted a new one, but didn't want to pay $8 for something I can get for couple of bucks- yes I know its ironic that I will put down hundreds for dirt! What I love: 1. Easy drinkability. Never fails that I end up with water on me from typical reusable water bottles. 2. No straw - those get nasty cause you can't clean 'em good. 3. Counter thingy that helps you keep track of how much you drink. 4. Fun pop lid to play with! 5. It reminds me of Allison every time I use it :) I did have to bling it out a bit since Mama's is the same color...

You may notice in the background of the picture, our wall of brackets. It was so fun filling them out that we also did the women's bracket. I really liked the first round when I got to use the highlighter a lot since games were going on so often. Now its not quite as fun, especially since a lot of mine is kaput. So far someone who shall remain nameless is the clear leader...

Hummus

My first spring flowers! I've also got some wild violets blooming :)

Today I made hummus and it turned out pretty good. I want to experiment some more with the recipe, ie less tahini maybe substitute some pine nut or almond butter, add some roasted stuff?

Of course with humas its best to have fresh pita bread so I found an easy recipe and made it. I could eat it all day, it was pretty easy and very tasty. Didn't really go with the stackups for dinner but no one was complaining!

What have I been up to? Not too much. I have stopped at the plant nursery, but only once. I stopped to get some cabbage and brocoli. When I first looked down at my hands I had pansies, new seed trays, and celery. hmmm not off to a great start. I did end up with some broccoli but they didn't have any cabages so I bought some seeds. I'll see how those turn out. Its actually not too bad since it all fit into one small box.

Even though I have been scrupulous in staying away from the nursery, I have still have managed to buy more seeds in addition to my massive Baker Creek's order.... oh well. I think I have 16 or so tomato varieties. That doesn't count the two or three varieties I always buy!

What did I get from Baker's Creek? Dragon Tongue Bush Bean (dutch origin), Henderson's bush Lima Bean (don't usually like lima's but thought maybe fresh would be alright), two chinese long beans, Atomic Red carrot, Jaune Obtuse du Doubs Carrot, Snow White Carrot, Dishcloth gourd, Canton Bok Pak Choy, Mizuna Green, Corn Salad Dutch, Red's Red Sweet Sorghum, New Zealand Spinach, Anise Hyssop, Siam Queen Thai Basil, Slo-bolt cilantro, Elephant Dill, German Chamomile, Rainblow coleus, Zebrina Hollyhock, Yellow Torch Mexican Sunflower. They threw in a packet of free Love-In-A-Mist so I'll try those too.

Here is the setup so far. Yes my seed setup has grown to a shelving unit with 3 shop lights with seeds in various stages of development. Can't believe how fast some of the cukes and tomatoes have taken off. I don't worry too much about the tomatoes as if they are leggy you just bury them deeper to help with root development. But cukes won't be happy if they're pot bound... I'll have to wait and see how it turns out.

My birthday phone is up and working. Its taken me awhile to get used to the idea of having a big 'ol phone but as my other phone was pretty beat up I decided to try it out. I already lost the instruction manuel. Fortunately those are available on line!

Man it takes a lot longer to load pictures from an actual camera vs a cell phone. I think I'll still use cell phone pictures for the less important ones!

Spring!

I was going to post earlier but couldn't find the cord for my camera. Kate said she would loan me her card reader and then I realized that I can put the card directly into my laptop. Yay! course I do still want to find that cord....

Anyways here is some little tulips and daffodils coming up in my front flower beds!

Here is the same group of tulips only a week later!

Saturday I was pretty productive so today I'm tired and have a headache.... Anyways I did some laundry, cleaned the kitchen blinds (I like blinds but cleaning them is so icky that I'm not sure they are worth it!), planted my hoop house, got 3/4ths of the stump garden cleaned off, covered the roof and another side of the chicken run with wire (ran out of staples and patience to finish the last side), cleaned the bathroom, did some dishes, straightened here and there, prepared primary lesson, and played on the computer and watched some tv.

Forgot to say what I planted cause I'm sure you're dying to know... I tried various lettuce mixes, couple kinds of spinach, some radishes, beets, and parsnips. Might also try some brocoli and cabbage in there. Sarah asked last time what the water bottles were for. Its to help regulate the temperature fluxuations, ie the water will warm up during the day and keep it from getting too warm and then give off that heat at night to keep from getting too cold. Seems to be working so far although our temps have been pretty mild.

I got a new shelving unit so I can start more seeds this year and hopefully save some money that way.... I now will buy another light fixture and some more starting boxes! I'll post a picture when they are all fixed up, but I can tell you it already looks better then the chair set up I've used in the past :)

As I mentioned, I got some tv watching in yesterday. Kate bought the complete set of "As time goes by" which is a cute british sitcom. We have watched lots of it this past week! Last night wasn't feeling too well (maybe dehydrated?) so made some tea and then decided to serve it in style. Yes its still sitting here today while I type this. Do you like cream and sugar or lemon with your herbal tea?

And of course we had biscuits with our tea.

Happy spring to you!

Ducks

I saw some Rhoan/Khaki campbell ducks for sale on KSL classifieds (which is one of my favorite places to look for stuff). I wasn't sure about this cross as the add said they hadn't started to lay. Yesterday I finally decided to ask about them. Don't know what took me so long. Even with the coop mostly in planning phase, Ducks could've worked. Ducks aren't as picky as chickens so I could make due with even a box in the garage at night for them.




Anyways the seller got right back to me (which doesn't usually happen) and said that they had just started to lay everyday for the last 3 days and aren't sure they want to sell them.... maybe for twice as much. Then a few minutes later he sent another email that his wife had decided she wants to keep them.






I thanked him for getting back to me and said if he didn't mind I had questions about raising ducks. He was nice enough to get back to me. I really appreciate the info they gave me, mostly about if you have ducks and chickens you have to keep the ducks out of the chickens' water.




I also wanted to post some valentines from Hannah and Natalie that I put on my door at work. Natalie also sent a sparkly name but I felt I had better leave that at home.

Presidents Day

My presidents day was awesome. Mostly because I was going to have to work and then didn't. So I spent the first half of the day in my pj's! I read lots of farm/homesteading blogs (I want some icelandic sheep now) and such. Here is a hillarious video called "The Bridge Of Peril" that makes me laugh.



The rest of the daylight hours were spent a bit more productively.



I set up my spring hoop house.... hmm could use some more water bottles. Also the plastic sheet was too fat and not long enough so maybe I'll need to buy a new one. It looked ugly so I didn't take a picture.



I can tell its been a long winter when I got tired just turning over one bed, sawing up 10 rebar pieces and chopping down the rest of the main garden. .... ohh my aching back! Now just need to chop up the flower beds. I also planted some bulbs we were given in the fall. Hope they make it cause I do like tulips.











This feral cat has decided that he isn't that wild cause he likes to be scratched. Sometimes he remembers that he is wild and will get scared. I think getting Pongpong fixed made him even more friendly. The other 3 are still not very friendly but gradually get closer. Nangua is still not fixed. I think she had more kittens but she is too quick for the cages. When its warmer (and her possible kittens are able to be without her), I'll try again.









The evening was spent again less productive but I did get some laundry done and started some more sprouts so I wasn't a complete lazy bum.





This is my mini tray sprouter which I really like. I keep it under the heating vent in the living room as its warmest there and they sprout really fast.








Yes this is a different combo of sprouts then the previous picture.

action shots

Iwas in a bit of a bad mood yesterday but not sure why. Maybe cause I got some bad news from work. Maybe because I took a short nap (generally a mistake for me), maybe cause I stayed up late the night before and woke up later then I meant to. Maybe because I didn't eat breakfast or lunch, just grazed. Anyways it was a good Sunday our sunbeams were good and after church there was chocolate which is always good so really I shouldn't have been the least bit ornery.

I even did a crockpot meal of pork, onions, and shrooms so there wasn't much to do besides mashed potatoes, cornbread, and reduce the gravy. I think I like beef better then pork in this combo btw.

Anyways here is another camera post:

Thorpe got a new "Monkey" for christmas. He always goes right in and gets his new lovey every Christmas morning and is probably the most content of anybody with what Santa brings.






I used Thorpe to try out the sport or action features of my new camera. I can scroll through these fast on my camera and watch it happen. I don't know how to do that on blogger, but maybe if you scroll down fast you can see it in action?

Group 1

That was fun, maybe I should try more frames per second? Second Try:

Ok got the timing wrong on this one. I'll try throwing the monkey this time

Hmmm no real action here either. It was late and Thorpe was just not into it. This last series continued with Thorpe picking up his monkey and laying down. I think he was done.

"Its late people. Just let me love my monkey in peace."