framing fowl -daily living

[Quail_Antwerp]

Wow, you have had one very busy weekend! but you accomplished a good bit!

Tough choice - or for me it would have been - letting all your chickens go, but kudos for making hard decisions!

 

[Dace]

Wow you really have a jump on things!

Sorry to hear about the chickens but sometimes we just don't get everything we want. I think you mad e a good rational decision.....there will always be time for chickens later when school is done.

 

[framing fowl]

Music to my ears, I heard thunder for the first time today. Oh, I just wanted to jump up and down and sing and play out in the pounding rain. Lightning as well AND my first crocus blooms. I've seen others around town but not in my yard until this morning!

 

[justusnak]

Thunder... Lightening.... rain....
I love spring...but NOT the thunderstorms!! It was a doosie here today as well.

 

[Farmfresh]

I love a good thunderstorm. We usually go sit on the front porch with a blanket and watch if it is a real doozy!

 

[framing fowl]

Sold the hose reel I picked up while urban foraging last winter on CL for $10 a couple of days ago!

We are so blessed! A couple of months ago when it was really slick, a pizza delivery guy hit my husband's parked truck at our house. We invited him in and MyT Man struck a cash deal with him to handle the problem rather than turning it in to his insurance. He didn't have the money but promised to repay us in two weeks. He passed the Julie test so we agreed. For 2 months, I've been teasing that Julie didn't like him, just the smell of his pizza and that he really should have failed the test. Anyway, yesterday he showed up at the house with the cash. We had already agreed that if he ever paid us, we would give it back to him for being a man of his word and because others have helped us out and we knew he was struggling financially. Anyway, within two hours someone dropped off a wrecked truck in our driveway! Totally out of the blue! MyT Man will be able to part it out for almost the same amount of money. Sometimes the randomness of blessings just amaze me.

 

[framing fowl]

Been busy in the garden lately and filling out paperwork for scholarships and going back to school. Life seems a little quiet here without the chickens but still know that it was a good decision for now.

Found a $20 in the parking lot of the grocery the other day. I don't know why it was such a struggle to make myself turn it in but it really was. My brain said that some rich college kid probably dropped it and would never miss "daddy's money" and would never be back for it and boy I sure could use it. My heart said, it's not yours turn it in, no ifs and or buts. My heart won out and when I went back yesterday, the owner had come in to pick it up. I sometimes don't know why I even share this stuff except that for me, it is part of my journey in faith and SS.

Okay, on to fun stuff! I'm doing square foot gardening for the first time this year. So far I've got in the ground 8# (squares) of broccoli, 6# of red onions, 8# of carrots, 1# of radish, 6# of celery, 4# cabbage, 2# lettuce, 2# spinach, and 14# of snap peas. These are all just putting the seed in the ground. Then I started enough seeds in the greenhouse for 36 tomatoes (paste and salad), 12 zucchini, 8 cukes, 18 spaghetti squash, 8 cantaloupe, 4 other melons, 20 peppers, 8 basil, 4 oregano, and 4 cilantro. Then I'm going to succession plant more spinach, lettuce, and radish one square each week. My thyme plant came back and I need to divide that up and I need to divide a sage plant that I bought at Home Depot yesterday. In April, I'll put in 10# of green beans. I'm really excited to see what this will do for our pantry and storage this year.

As for the flowers, the crocus have come and gone and the hyacinth are currently blooming, next up... tulips!

 

[Farmfresh]

Wow you are clicking along in the garden! The only thing I have planted so far is kohlrabi. I love hyacinth! I have planted it several times and it always seems to frost bite around here. Finally I planted some wood hyacinth and just gave up on the big beautiful ones.

 

[framing fowl]

What a lovely Easter, it was 80* out. Back home in Montana, they had snow . Church was lovely and then it was off to get an Easter lily to bring as a gift for our neighbors who invited us to their family dinner. Yummy... bbq smoked ribs, smoked turkey, smoked pork tenderloin, corn, dressing, beans, salads, mmmm.....

Walked the dogs tonight and found 2 amazing things! I've never found a lucky clover even though I always look and tonight I found two. One right after the other. Made me so happy! I'm pressing them in the yellow pages under landscaping and lawncare Apparently my grandfather who was an arborist found them all the time.

Garden Report,

In the ground: peas are up, radishes are up although it was a 2 year old seed pack and I only had about 50% germination so I went back and reseeded the first square and did one more. Broccoli and cabbage up, onions doing good. lettuce & spinach up, planted 2 more squares of that, possibly 1 celery but not sure. Planted cilantro and oregano seeds.

Greenhouse: 1 pepper up, all of the basil and a couple cukes up. Still waiting on tomatoes.

Trees: everything blooming and putting out leaves, lost my fig tree. It was starting to leaf out and then we had 1 night where it went down to 30*. Didn't give it a thought and that was enough to kill it apparently. Really bummed because those figs were so delish last year.

Fruit: raspberries & blackberries looking good, blueberries leafing out, 1 variety of strawberries blooming already, the other variety growing like crazy. Grapes starting to show signs of life... need to get cracking on their supports. Kiwi vine coming to life.

Flowers: hyacinth starting to wane, had 2 red tulips burst forth today! Peonies coming up, I forgot that someone gave me a new one last year and I have no idea what it will look like!!! Wisteria should bloom in maybe 3 weeks? I got it last fall so this will be my first spring with it! Planning on putting sweet peas along our front fence from seed next week. Then some asters, zinnias, and as soon as our neighbor gets his new privacy fence up, I'm going to try hollyhock from seed. Hostas starting to emerge.

I've had so much sun, fun and fresh air this weekend I can hardly think straight!

 

[framing fowl]

Got some more stuff posted on CL this weekend. We ended up selling the rain barrels because MyT Man was convinced that we wouldn't be able to sell them this fall if we end up moving... I wasn't convinced and would have liked to use them this summer for the garden. Sometimes you just have to grin and count up their good points!

Got the beans in, planted hollyhocks along one of the front fences and sweet peas along another. Then threw some purple zinnias and red English daisy seed in the front perennial bed. When we designed the front flower bed, we chose everything red, white and purple. It also had to be scented, attract birds, bees or hummingbirds. We'll see what those seeds do. I've been meaning to plant them for 2 years and it's now or never I guess!

Wisteria blooming is heavenly. This is my first year of enjoying it because I just put it in last fall. I think it smells like purple Angels singing! I've been sitting in the swing under the arbor a lot this weekend!

Today was a major paperwork day. Things like notices from insurance company that rates are going up, medical company that needs calling because MyT Man's new wheelchair still isn't here, $30 free offer from Amazon.com that needs reviewing to make sure it's legit, college paperwork...

Just popped a batch of homemade banana bread and muffins into the oven from a recipe of my Great-grandma's.

Oh, my fun for the weekend was being bad, skipping church to go to a baseball game... ate a hotdog and nachos, clapped, cheered, and got totally sunburned