The good, the bad, and the ugly

I love my life, really I do, but things go wonky all the time and I end up with chickens in the bathtub... I'll start with the ugly and work my way to the good so we end on a good note here.

 The Ugly:

You can just see him in there

•    Last weekend I sent Aislyn out to give the bunnies food and water. She came running in the house saying that there was a snake in the cage and the babies were dead. I ran out there (after grabbing my camera) and, sure thing, there was a snake in the nest box. It was just a medium, garden variety snake, but it was big enough to eat one baby and kill the other 3. The mama bunny was cowering in the far corner and practically jumped into my arms when I opened the cage door. Mike followed closely behind me, shotgun in hand. Then he proceeded to poke the snake with a stick, repeatedly, until the snake tried to climb out of the cage. Of course, it couldn't get out, there was an entire half-grown bunny rabbit in it's belly, but it sure tried. While it was stuck there Mike shot it. 

•  Yesterday morning I gave the Maran and Blue Amercuana chicks fresh water. As I walked away I forgot to drop the shade cloth back into place. About 8 hours later, when it was 108 degrees, 14 of the 21 babies had wedged themselves into a small corner behind a cardboard box, where there was a bit of shade, and smothered to death.The survivors were quickly moved into the bathtub to cool off and recover. I can't tell you how bad I feel about it. 

 The Bad:

Sad sad zucchini

•  Squash bugs have killed all my zucchini and yellow squash and are now working on the patty pan and cucumbers. I've pulled most of the plants and I'm going to try again in a different bed. I've heard that planting radishes all around the seedlings might help, so I'll try that.

Get a room!

•  Grasshoppers are everywhere right now. I can't walk anywhere without flushing out whole clouds of them. They don't seem to be too interested in the garden yet, but if they do decide to munch on my veggies there are enough to wipe everything out. They are also busy making lots of baby grasshoppers... everywhere I look there are grasshoppers getting busy.

We're letting it dry before we give it to the animals

•  The corn has succumbed to a terrible earworm infestation. We're going to put in a new crop in a few weeks. Luckily, the chickens don't care if there's worms in the corn and the goats like the crunchy dry stalks, so it's not a total waste. I am sad that I didn't get any sweet corn for 4th of July though.

•  Gabe has been sick. It's nothing major, just a virus, but it's awful when he's sick because he can't express himself very well. He's been sleeping a lot and Turtle is more than happy to keep him company during naptime. 

 The Good:

Aislyn, Ian, and Lily

•  I'll start with the best thing. The pool!! The Nanas went out and found us the biggest above ground pool they could. It keeps the kid occupied, which keeps the bickering to a minimum. If it weren't for the pool the kids would have to stay inside when it gets really hot out. Plus, it's huge, so there's plenty of room for the grownups too. My favorite thing to do late at night now is to go float in my ring, watch the stars, and enjoy the quiet. 

Dehydrated tomato paste

•  I have tons of tomatoes. Yesterday I stopped counting the cherry tomatoes I was picking when I got to 100. I've made a few jars of tomato sauce, lots of dried cherry tomatoes, and (my favorite) dehydrated tomato paste.We had amazing BLTs the other night and there is a big bowl of cherry tomatoes on the dining room table for snacks. 

Mama and babies

•  Miss Broody wasn't having any luck hatching out her eggs, so I took them from her and gave her a few of the babies I hatched in the incubator. After dark I snuck out there with 4 babies and switched them for the eggs. The next morning I went out to check on the little family and all seemed well. The next day she let them come out of the nestbox and explore the coop. Now they're running around after their mama and she's teaching them that the compost bin is the best place to find tasty tidbits.

Buddy likes to be in the middle of things

•  Buddy the duck was delivered to my a door a couple of weeks ago by one of the (semi) local members of my gardening forum. He needed a new home, and I have the space for him. The other ducks gave him a bit of a hard time when he first arrived, but now he's part of the group. He's a crested Khaki Campbell and a very handsome guy. I think some of the Pekin girls are sweet on him.

That's it for today. It's time to have some lunch and then go swimming. Blessed Be...

Tomatoes and other good stuff

 I got my first ripe tomato from the garden this week and more are starting to change color!! This is what I've been waiting for since February. I did share too, even though I didn't want to. I probably should have let it go for another day or 2 to get even riper, but I just couldn't resist. It was still a million times tastier than a grocery store tomato.

This is going to be the second ripe tomato of the year

Small Red Cherry tomatoes are almost there

I got rid of the blossom end rot I was fighting on the Romas

Beefsteak

My German Green tomatoes are blooming

 Aside from that I've been getting tons of summer squash. The patty-pan are the best producers so far, but the zucchini are doing pretty good too. The yellow squash are just doing so so. I've made squash fritters (they were amazingly yummy), squash pickles, fried squash, sauteed squash, squash in soup... Well, you get the idea. I got a great recipe from my great gardening friends at The Easy Garden Forum for a summer squash chocolate cake that I'll be making and feeding to Ian (aka: Mr. I Hate Vegetables) to see if he likes it.

Lily likes to help harvest 

The rest of the garden is doing well too. I've harvested okra, radishes, wax peppers, and pickling cucumbers which, along with some squash and some tiny onions, all got made into pickles. It was my first try, but everything worked the way it were supposed to and they look pretty.

The pink ones have radishes in them

 The winter squash are starting to produce little fruit and one watermelon plant has a teeny tiny melon on it. The corn is also starting to get ears, which means we'll have plenty of time to get another crop in after this one is done. Peppers and tomatillos are also doing well.

Itty bitty watermelon

Winter squash (it's about the size of a baseball now)

An ear of corn starting to develop

Wax peppers

 In other garden news, Mike has enlarged the garden enough to add 16 more watermelon hills. He just mowed the area as short as he could and then dug up the hills and added bunny poo to each one before planting the seeds. We might also put some corn in this area this year, if we can get the tiller fixed or borrow one.

The new watermelon area

 On the animal front, I hatched out 13 new chicks last weekend and they are outside in the brooder. One of my Buff Orps has gone broody and is sitting on 6 eggs, so I'll have more chicks in a couple of weeks. The rabbits are getting bigger and we should be able to process them in a couple of weeks. I lost 2 of my ducklings to a predator this week, it happened during the day and both the dog and the cat were in the house, so I'm thinking a hawk. Now we just have Duck, Goose, and Jill, but I may be getting some Pekins this weekend to add to my flock. And our kittens are adorable and into everything these days. I may have a home for one already.

My favorite is the black one in front

They're hoping I have treats

Here's all 5 ducklings a few hours before Duck and Jack disappeared

Looking for trouble to get into

Miss Broody (since I don't name my hens all broody chickens get called Miss Broody)

 That's it for now, I gotta go check the tomatoes for hornworms and maybe fold the mountain of clean laundry that's trying to take over my living room.

 Blessed Be...

Visitors

 We have had visitors to the farm in the last week...
 First my father in law and his wife came from California. It was nice to have them here and the kids were so excited to see Papa and Wavy. They got to tour the garden and meet all the animals. We didn't really DO anything, but we had a great time hanging out and catching up. Gabe was especially sad when it was time for them to leave, and now keeps asking to "go to the airplane, go to California."

Papa and Gabe

Papa and Ian, discussing literature

Papa and Wavy brought the twins some books

  Then my grandparents drove up from Lincoln to go to my cousin Amanda's baby shower in Ft Worth. The plan was for Papa Davis to drive Grandma here on Sunday and then us girls would go to the shower, while Papa stayed here and hung out with the Mellor guys and little Lily. On Saturday afternoon I was in the kitchen, thinking that I had the rest of the night to finish the blanket I was making for the baby when my grandparents drove up. I freaked out, thinking that I had the day wrong, and ran to get dressed. It turned out that THEY had gotten the day wrong, the shower was on Sunday, but that meant that they got to spend the night and we had a very nice, if somewhat unexpected visit. Papa told me about his Mama's garden when he was a little boy and how she would cook squirrel in gravy and pour it over biscuits. Grandma told me about living in Selma, Alabama during the civil rights movement and how she saw the Selma to Montgomery march from Great Grandma Davis' front porch. Sunday we drove up to the baby shower and had a great time. Papa stayed here and learned how to find all his favorite old Westerns on Netflix.

Me, Daniel, Amanda, and Grandma (I made the little purple blanket and a tiny hat for the baby)

The parents-to-be

 In between visits I got some things done around here. We started to get blight on the potatoes, so we quickly dug them and burned the infected plants. That gave us a big empty spot in the garden that Mike has filled with watermelon. (Expect a post on Mike and watermelons in the near future.) We are getting some summer squash and there are tons of tomatoes on the plants, but none are ripe yet. 

Potatoes and green beans

Summer squash fritters with green onions and parsley

They're taunting me...

 I dried some herbs in my yard sale food dehydrator and put them in pretty jars.

Basil, Tarragon, and Celery salt

 We have lots of babies on the property... ducklings, rabbits, kittens, and a new bunch of 13 chicks that hatched over the weekend. I love baby animals.

Duck, Duck, Goose, Jack, and Jill with Lily, Aislyn, and Ian

This may not end well for poor little Smudge

One of the kittens, the kids call him Socks, for obvious reasons

Bunnies

Chicks in a hat

 That's all the time I have today. I need to go pick some squash and green beans for dinner tonight. Blessed Be...

Garden update

Okay, I've been a bad blogger again. It's been nearly 2 weeks since my last post. Things have been busy. Between spring cleaning, a family party, work in the garden, and a bout with head lice I just haven't had a chance to get in a blog post.
 Now that I do have some free time I'll update y'all on the garden. My herb garden is doing great. The tomato plant that I put in there already has tiny tomatoes starting.

Tiny tomato

Tomato (on the right), tomatillo (center), and dill (left)

I did have a bit of a caterpillar problem, but I picked them off and fed them to the chickens

Herbs

  The big garden is doing well too. Mike finished adding dirt to the last of the raised beds and I got them planted this week. We also added another 21 hills for watermelon.

More hills for watermelon

 The potatoes are doing incredibly well. They started flowering last week, and the flowers are so pretty that I didn't have the heart to cut them off. The red potatoes have purple flowers and the white potatoes have white flowers. The yellow ones haven't bloomed yet, but I'm wondering if they'll have yellow flowers.

Potatoes

Potato flowers

When you scrape back a little dirt from the base of the plant you can see the potatoes forming

More baby potatoes

 My radishes should be ready to start harvesting in about a week, my carrots have finally sprouted, and the parsnips and salsify are getting bigger tops, so I assume their roots are growing as well.

Radishes and carrots (which you can barely see because they are teeny tiny)

Parsnips (left) and salsify (right)

 The cabbage is starting to form heads, so maybe we will get a harvest out of them before it gets really hot, but I'm not holding my breath. My artichokes are also doing well, I'm hoping to get a few buds off of them later this summer.

Cabbage, you can probably tell that I have a caterpillar problem here too

Artichoke

 The tomatoes, tomatillos, and peppers out in the big garden seem to be happy. They all either have flower buds or have actually started blooming. I did lose a few plants to the wind this week, but I'm working on staking up the others with cedar branches.

Lots of tomato plants

Tomatillos are blooming

Peppers and tomatoes

Flower buds on one of the pepper plants

Stakes, now I just need to tie the stems to the branches

Also, even though my birthday isn't for a couple more weeks, I got 3 lovely presents this week. My dear friend Mary's mother sent me an adorable bag made from a feed sack. It's perfect for a trip down to the creek for swimming, as it easily holds a sheet (for sitting on), my camera, a book, and maybe a snack.

New bag

 My grandma brought me an egg basket. Up until now I have just been taking a plastic bowl to put eggs in, or even worse, my pockets. It's always bad to lean up against the counter when you have a few eggs in your hip pocket.

Lily and Boris helped get the eggs today

 And my wonderful husband bought me a new scuffle hoe. I've been pulling weeds by hand for weeks now, and this saves me so much work. I don't know how I gardened without one before this

My new hoe

 On the chicken front, both of the Black Copper Marans chicks died, so I'm down to just one Blue left. The last quail drowned itself in the water dish. But all the others are doing well, and I moved the 6 biggest chicks out of the brooder and into the coop yesterday. They are sticking together, but not really having any trouble with the big girls today. Miss Broody is down to just 2 babies ( I think the others may have been trampled by goats) but she's taking great care of them and even attacked Boris when he got too close to their hiding spot.

The big kids, out exploring their world

One of Miss Broody's babies, checking out the compost bin

The babies, scratching for food

 Anyway, that's what's been going on here. Hope everyone has a good week and, as always, Blessed Be.