ooh sunshine...

I think maybe now we can dry out from the rain alittle. I worked in the garden today and planted some tomatoes that i had gotten Sunday when my hubby and I went on a date , mainly see Fast Five.....their will be a sixth one. It was excellent with a lot of action, by the way , would go to see again if the movie ticket price was better and more reasonable. I planted rhubarb, I have never planted this before , but at Lowes they had it 1/2 off and thought I would give it a try and see. I also planted some zucchini seeds and lettuce seeds in the mud no less.

I took my walk today with mom and checked out some irises down the road , along side the road, found some more purple and some brown/ red in color ones. and planted these as well. I so love irises and would like to get some of every color. i would like to plant some in the shape of the American Flag Red , White and blue, I think it would be so pretty. I have not seen no red ones though, or blues one either. mom is suppose to get a magazine with nothing but irises in there , so I am waiting for that.

My oldest daughter is in Jefferson City today on a school trip, touring the capital of our lovely state. Every year the local school takes the eighth graders to tour the capital. This year is the final trip for the eighth grade classes to go, from now on it will be only the fourth graders, in which they went this year as well.

We still have not seen any out of our little Chihuahua, Princess, who has been missing since last Wednesday. I think that somebody picked her up or the coyotes got her, since we do have a coyote problem here . we soo miss her. But I will still keep my eyes open for her, maybe one day I will know what happened to her . She disappeared just like her daddy, Jake, who was really old and didn`t have any teeth. Well I am go for now... and enjoy some more of this sunshine...what a beautiful day !!!!!!

garden is started.....ducks,chickens

The past few days, it has been beauitful outside, alittle windy at times ,but the weather has been superb. Today after picking up both girls from school, I started the garden. I have always been told that things that grow under ground, like onions, radishes, potatoes are to planted on or around St Patty`s day. So I planted four different types of radishes, some onion sets ( still have more of them to plant), turnips and some cabbage plants. I know cabbage grows above ground, but I wanted to include this now as I planted one cabbage plant in the middle and four rows of radishes out to each corner of the raised bed and am planning on getting me some pansies to plant in the bed as well. The radishes usually don`t do that well for me, but hey I keep trying them...I so love radishes. I have one whole bed of onions sets, will have to add another bed of them, as I kinda got more then I need and I will probably be giving some to my mom as well.
I planted a cabbage plant last year that the cabbage worm got, hopefully this year will be different. This will be the first year with turnips, so I will see how that goes.
I think I will have to add another bed or two in order to get some tomato plants as well., of course I want to plant some peppers and corn. I don`t think I will put the corn in a raised bed this year. I put corn in one last year and it didn`t do that good for me, so I am gonna try something different this year.

I need to get the incubators up and going as well, but I just can`t get motivated this year, maybe it`s because the hens are in full swing as of yet. The muscovies have not started laying at least not that I am aware of , I have not found any nest and I have been looking and watching them alittle. The cayuga ducks have not laid as of yet either. On the chicken side of things, the welsummers have not laid yet, the silkies( one pair) I get an egg every other day, some of the cochins are laying as well, but not all. A few of these hens are a few years old, so I do need to hatch a few of these out and keep and not rehome them either that or try and get some more hens in the colors I am looking for; red, buff,golden lace,birchen ....oh heck I like all the colors of cochins. I sooo love the cochin breed. I do have one standard cochin ,black in color with no rooster as of yet.

gearing up for spring.. ..other ramblings

Yes , I finally bit the bullet and couldn`t stand it anymore looking at all the seed packets. I got some , just a few. I am also trying to think what I want to grow in the garden this year as well. of course, they will be green onions...( Oh , how I love green onions), tomatoes, yellow squash and zucchini ( they did good last year, alot). I am planning on trying to grow two different types of pumpkins , of course jalepenos and radishes ( didn`t do great last year), and turnips and corn ( didn`t do well either). I have planned on putting the corn and radishes in a different spot, hopefully I will have better luck this year.
The seeds I have so far are as follow: Radish-Early Scarlet Globe,French Breakfast,Sparkler White top , I am gonna look for some white ones too.: Turnip - Purple top white globe; Garden beans ( green beans) Contender( bush); Jalapeno M; dark grren zucchini; early Prolific Straightneck squash ; Cantalope ( daughter choice); Jack O`lantern pumpkin and Small sugar Pumpkin. It looks like I am gonna be busy planting
I tried working in the beds today, but it is just too muddy still yet. I did clean out another two chicken pens today and put the manure in the one of the beds. I think I am gonna try and get another two beds up and running for spring somehow. I might have to use rocks to go around the beds for now, in which their is plenty of here on the farm.

I have started to research goats and their care and am thinking about getting a couple, don`t know how that will work out this year though. Our fence is just barbed wire for the most part . I think baby goats are so cute and enjoy looking at the picture over at granny best and at tonia`s and others.
I am still working on my afghan , I think it will be queen size and have not done any other blocks as of yet, but have done other rows on it and let me tell you it is getting heavy just turning for the next row. I have also made a couple of grape doilies that I plan on trying to sell this spring when all the swap meets start happening in this area, and farmers market which is in March. I am so looking forward to them and hatching baby chicks and baby ducks.

I have been toying with the idea of getting rid of my cayuga`s, but have not let go as of yet. I would like to keep the hen that lays the black egg, yes a black egg it is what the cayuga`s breed is known for besides ,the beautiful color of black and when the sun hits it shades of green and purple surface, but still not for sure on the idea. i know I do have extra drake, in which he is not pure cayuga, I think maybe alittle kaki cambell or mallard not for sure. The main drake is not pure as well, he has a look of being mixed with kaki campbell or mallard as well. I am not planning on getting rid of my muscovey , I so love watching them talk and fly, even though when they start laying it is like Easter egg hunting, lololol.
I guess that is enough rambling on , I will go for now.

Wanting to rush things....

I went to town today and lo and behold they had seeds at the local Wally world.....Flowers and some vegetables....you know the seed packets that cost only 20 cents....ooohhh how i thought about getting a few....Pumpkin, yellow squash, Zucchini...plus a few flowers seeds. Needless to say I looked on the back and seen I couldn`t plant them until March/April.....darn-it.....they shouldn`t temp me like that..... I am waiting patiently I swear. I didn`t get any of them..not to say I didn`t want to. Ooh I do need to do some gardening...Maybe I could start cleaning out the beds and cleaning out the Chicken Coops and adding that to the beds. It will be warmer tomorrow ....that is what needs to be done. Maybe that will get my need for playing in the dirt for now .....until the spring planting time begins.......ahhhh I can`t wait

R u ready for spring?....gardens

I am so ready for spring to come. I have been watching Victory Garden and am anxouis about digging in the dirt, planting vegetable seeds,...just seeing green on the ground instead of brown grass. Seeing the flowers around here bloom...... Oooh how pretty are the irises while they are in bloom, I have several different colors of them...purple, white which are so lovely..., yellow...............ohhh poo, it is only the first part of January. not April, May or even June. January is not the time to be diggin in the dirt, for one thing it will be frozen probably or so cold the fingers would wonder what I was thinking......

I guess I will have to wait till then. But it is so hard to wait for springtime......

I am gonna try and grow pumpkins this year in my garden, I would like to try two different kinds, but I don`t know if that will work and am thinking about growing some more gourds again as well...they make beautiful bird houses....as well as the normal things such as green onions, tomatoes and squash. This year hopefully I can expand my rasied beds to maybe a couple more beds, but I will have to wait and see how it goes. I use raised beds because of the rocks, in which we have plenty of here on the farm.

rain, rain ...oh how I love rain

It has been rainy here today, Of course I had to work, all I wanted to do is sleep ,which is a good thing to do if you caught a cold and worked a 5 day stretch and only 1 day off.The creek that runs thru the bottom part of our land ( all of 2 -3 acres ) is running swiftly.Our gravel road is very muddy and wet.......Wait a minutes I think the sun is trying to shine , still cloudy but the sun is trying.March winds are here.I am glad I got out my onion sets out last night, I forgot to check if the rain had drowned them. I sooooooooo lovvvvve green onions ,fresh from the garden . One whole little 4 x 4 raised bed is gonna be nothing but onions.Last year my raised beds were 8 x 4. I decided this I would make the beds a little smaller ,so maybe I could keep up with the weeding.Which is probably wishfull thinking.So far I have three little 4 x 4 beds, one has green onions, The next has an old barbeque grill in the middle and tulips in that and tulips around it. I am thing of planting some beans so the vines can grow up the legs of the grill and Put artifical flowers in the grill once the tulips have faded out.I don`t know what I am gonna plant in the last one, I still need to get more landscape timbers and cut them down and put more dirt in it.
I am picking up the rocks and trying to build a wall with them, hubby don`t think it will work ,but I don`t know I am gonna try we will see how it turns out.