Garden Update

So far the rains we have had this spring have put our garden on cruise control.  I did take the time to experiment with irrigation systems – I have 10 micro sprinklers and 4 drip lines set up but really haven’t needed to use them yet and based on the forecast I shouldn’t have to for a while.

We harvested strawberries earlier in the month and their production is just about finished.  This week we have been starting to pick some raspberries and last night I picked a dozen radishes.

The weeds are starting to win the battle so I need to squash them with layers and layers of hay.  Most of our crop is getting to the point where I can mulch between the rows to keep weeds at bay without the use of chemicals, at least we hope so.

I did see some kind of green worm/caterpillar in there last night so I may need to unleash the chickens.  We have kept them out to this point to protect the young plants as the chickens have pulled them out in the past.

New Chickens Have Arrived

We have new members for our flock!  We found them through trusty old craigslist.org.  A local family about 20 minutes south of us has started raising Easter Egger chickens and advertised pullets for sale.  We gave them a call and they loaded up their chickens and delivered them that afternoon.  Originally we were supposed to be getting 4 pullets and 1 rooster, not that we necessarily wanted a rooster but he was part of the package deal.  When they arrived with chickens in boxes, we were told that one of the pullets could not be located so they added 2 hens in it’s place.   So to clarify, we now have added 3 pullets, 2 hens, and 1 rooster to our flock of 3 hens for a total of 9 chickens running around in our back yard.

Sad to say that we recently lost Betty (the best chicken ever) and Bugbug to the predator better known as Sam, thus knocking down our flock from 5 to 3.   We still have the red stars Merk and Pfeizer and the barred rock Ballball.  We will need to spend some time with the 6 newbies in order to name them.

Birthday Trip to Kiawah Island

Yes we like Kiawah!

This trip was for Bethany’s birthday and we had a great time.  The weather was clear and just warm enough with a light breeze which allowed us to play on the beach and go on bike rides.  We stayed in Parkside Villas for the first time and our villa was great.  It not only looked over one of the lagoons, but the deck actually went out over the water and we got to get up close to an alligator that visited every morning.

Snow at last, snow at last!

We finally got snow on the farm.  The bad part is that we were all sick and really couldn’t enjoy it.  I didn’t even feel like going outside to take photos so here are some taken from inside the house.  The first is our screen porch – the snow was drifting into the screened area.  The next ones are of Campbell and daddy sledding on the back hill.  We only took a few runs as sick daddy quickly ran out of gas carrying Campbell back up the hill.

Ketchup

Time to catch up since I haven’t written anything since October…

It has been a while since the last post and I have to get used to the new look and function of the blog site. I guess different means better.

There is soooo much to catch up on.  Face Book has really cut into my blog updating, but I need to keep up everything here as well.

Let’s start with Halloween, our little pumpkin had a great time at preschool with a party and parade.  We then went out Trick-or-Treating with our neighbors and their twin girls.  It looks as if Elmo has swallowed a little boy!

Back in November we were disqualified for the “Parents of the Year Award” after our daredevil decided to injure himself.  He had to wear the cast for 3-1/2 weeks in order to heal the broken tibia bone in his right leg.  It didn’t seem to bother him, he was crawling around after a few days and walking by the second week.  He proceeded to do quite a bit of damage to the inside of his crib by banging and sliding the cast around on the slats.  He would also get it stuck under things and need assistance to free himself.  Now that we are several months down the road he appears to be good as new.  The x-rays before and after are amazing the way they show how the human body heals.

Then we had Thanksgiving…

And Christmas…

Here is a nice day in January when we took a trip to the Farmer’s Market in downtown Roanoke.  The kids always like the trip, usually includes an apple from a local farmer and a visit across the street to Chocolate Paper for a little treat of chocolaty goodness.  And yes, they have been to the Roanoke Wiener Stand.

Yes, it gets chilly here in January.  We haven’t had any measurable snowfall yet, and at this point I don’t think we are going to have any.

Mid October brings changes – Kittens and Frost

Still not quite sure if one has anything to do with the other, but we did bring home 2 kittens yesterday and we woke up to a frosty morning today.  Now we aren’t the biggest cat fans, however, we live on a farm with a barn, hay, feed, and all the other associated stuff that attracts vermin, so we need to have barn cats.  We’ll see how the “barn” part of the cats lifestyle progresses.  As for now, they are 3 months old and relegated to the laundry room as they recover from sterilization surgery.  Bethany picked them up from the local SPCA, both are female and are sisters.  They came with temporary names and our daughter immediately picked up on one of them, “Lilly”, is a calico with a pink nose.  The name for the other we did change, again it was our daughter picking the name from a book recently read – Black Beauty – so the black and tan tortise shell kitten will go by the name “Beauty” (the correct pronunciation according to our daughter is “Booty”).

Here are some pics of the newest members of the gang and the frosty following morning.  I covered the tomato plants with a protective blue tarp since there are about 30 still green tomatoes that we hope can get enough sun before a good freeze shows up.

To the Pumpkin Patch for Cows and Chestnuts

Since we were very late in starting our garden we had to take a trip to a local farm for our pumpkin fun.  It was great fun for the kids, although I think they enjoyed the cows, 2-week old calves, and climbing the chestnut tree more than the pumpkins.  This place is only a few miles from our place on US 220 south, very nice folks.

When we carve the pumpkins we plan to save the seeds for planting in the spring.  We bought 3 different varieties including a standard jack-o-lantern type, a giant (it was a small giant), and a white one.  Now if I can only get Bethany to stop eating all of the seeds.

Increase in Egg Production Jolts Wall Street

The youngsters have finally started to earn their keep with their first egg.  We have watched Ball-Ball and Bug-Bug grow over the last several months to a point where they are now bigger than the three seniors and we expected eggs weeks ago.  We thought maybe they were finding other places to lay them when they were free-ranging in the afternoons.  But I would guess that based on how this long skinny egg looks that this is their first effort.  Now we can’t say for sure which one it is from, but we have high expectations of both of them from here on out.  We anticipate 3-4 eggs per day now that they should both start regular production and potentially up to 6 eggs per day when Merck and Pfizer get started.

The egg on the right is the new one, and the egg on the left is for scale.

Sad news to pass along: Ray-Ray is in chicken heaven, natural causes.

Trip to Kiawah Island, SC

We took a last minute vacation to a place where Bethany and I used to go every New Year’s and other free weekends we had before the onset of children.  This is the first family trip we have taken and we had a great time.  The kids tolerated the 6-hour drive each way, with the help of Barney on DVD, shared a room, and got to see the ocean.  However, there was a storm just off the coast so “the sea was angry my friend” and tides were abnormally high so beach activities were limited to splashing around up to our ankles at low tide.   One good thing about the rough sea was that plenty of sea life was washed ashore for our viewing pleasure – horseshoe crabs, jelly fish, coral, sand dollars, etc.

Kiawah is a barrier island between Charleston and Hilton Head.  It has a very nice resort and rental condos.  The planning of the island has been in harmony with the natural habitats and ecosystems, as well as any I have seen of this size.  It is a very relaxing place to vacation and a ton of outdoor and educational stuff for children.

A Beautiful Summer Day in the Backyard

Here are a bunch of photos I took while we were playing in the yard…