Hurrah for Spring!

We spent time planting the spring garden and hope to continue today. The wind has been breezy and the original plan of putting the tomatillos down in the back plot has changed.

Did you know: I think they have to be the Princesses of the garden. Good grief! They are so fragile! I broke 3 leaves on one seedling just carrying the box from the house to the beds! I thought there is no way they will survive out on the open plains in the back. So I plunked four of them in a raised a bed along with the Sweet 100s and 1 Black Beauty eggplant. There is still room in the bed for veg expansion.

And so it starts. I still cannot bend over so Kathyrn helped us plant the potatoes while I handed them to her. (I want to be a part of this in any degree.) We have put in apprx 70 potato seeds: 1 row of Adirondack Blues, 2 rows Yukon Golds and 4 rows of Red new potatoes. 3 rows of Silver Queen corn, 2 rows Kentucky Wonder green beans. Soon there will be blacked-eyed peas going in and louffa gourds, squashes, lots of tomatoes, jalapenos, eggplant (although I am not holding out alot of hope there, they seem sickly to me. I might try it again with straight seeds in the ground though).

It occurs to me, reading this, that I should explain the rows. We have approx 50' rows, 9 of them and we have separated them into 4 - 12' sections. So although we have 3 rows of corn, these rows cross only thru two sections (75' of planted corn). and the beans cover only one section., 2 rows in one section (25' of beans. Last year we had one 50' row of beans and I thought I was going to die trying to keep up with so many green beans!) The potatoes are all in one section across 7 rows. After they have been harvested, we will plant a cover crop in this section and allow it to rest til next year. This is our rotation.

We are still eating collards, brussel sprouts, carrots, mustard greens and I must say, they are so beautiful at the moment; they are in bloom and very fragrant and the bees are moving in. You can see the yellow flowers in this shot (look past Q)(I know that's tough as she is a very pretty cat, but try all the same)(very pretty and tends to pose in exactly the location I wish to take a picture of and then ignores my calls to turn around)(beautiful plumage!)


She is my constant companion out there, my monorail kitty

I feel certain there was something more I wanted to say, but I have become distracted by the essence of Q. I take my leave.

Today's Episode Brought To You By Stu

the CROWING rooster! I have been taking photos of the strutting dude of the run for the past week because I know it is now only a matter of time and a large net before he flies the coop, so to speak. In truth, he has never tried to jump the fence or bolt past the gate. He is a good guy in every respect so why is he so-to-be history, you ask?
Well I ask myself this daily and the reason is: soon, very soon, his roosterness is going to reveal itself and he will be a large aggressive bird complete with weaponry. Think: Ninja-roo. Think: Wolverine.
I was working in the garden yesterday when he gave his first shout-out and let me tell you, the bird has quite a voice in him. Loud and clear, and complete. I do believe it was his first crow and it stunned me! I started to laugh and crowed back at him, in a question. HE ANSWERED!!!! and Kathryn came running out of the house, She could hear him all the back in the kitchen!

He SHOULD be proud. He should strut his stuff. HE IS AWESOME. I love this bird and am going to really miss him terribly. I hope wherever he ends up, I will be able to visit now and then and check his progress.

I worry now that Little Bit is going to be severely depressed when her body guard is gone. I hope the introduction of the three littler girls will give her a new meaning to life. Ginger protected her from Frick n Frack when she was smaller (than she is today) and I hope she returns the favor to the Buff Orps.

Speaking of which, did you know you can perform tricks with chicks? How about this one:

If you turn a chicken up-side down, well ok, on it's back, it goes docile. And then you can rub the little belly. Pretty cute. The feet are SO warm when they hunker down on your fist. Warm and rubbery.

Can I Hear You? Oh Yes and How

It is as though God has installed microphones EVERYWHERE and the speaker is in my left ear. Cranked to 10. Everything is amplified. It is awful.

I have just had my first coffee in 28 hours , deelish. Interestinghow the first cup is always the best cup. Unl;ess it is bad caffee to start with. THne nothing makes it get better except a fresh brewing.

I am hopped up on Vicodin, my new best friend, but I amy only taking half thet ablet so that's okay. No intentionj of prolonginh htis. Interesting to note how my next pain and shoulders don'thurt as much as ususal either. I'm sort of liking that.

I don;t remember much except the coldness of the room and the anesthesai going in. AFter that, I woke up with a sore thraot andthe sound of my heartbeat in my head. That's interesting too. I can hear my heart beat in my ear, noe. I wonder if this going to be cpnstatnt. THe humming in not as louf as it had been,. I wonder if that iis permanant.

I didn't get he nasuea I was warned I might... yea@@@@! adn Lathyrn made a deliscius chicken pot pie from scratch with Julia nd the Pionseer Qoman. I din't care how my thrait hurt, Iwas hungry and it smelled good and I ate it2 and fell asleep.
I woke to my banign the headbaord with my arm. and man that was painful to my ear. and John's. He got back to sleep brcasue he has been awake since 3 am yesterday and din't nap after we got back. I lost the wager tha twe wouldn't be out before 3.. WEe were home by 3 I think.

Anyway, it's all good and I hoe it lasts.

More Gardening Goodness.

I whined the other day on Facebook that a whole day had come and gone with my not having a thing to show for my existence. However the same cannot be said of yesterday.

I began the day on the quilt below....

My aunt did the piecing and will be here next week so I'd like to have it ready for her return to Houston. Each square has a different quilt design and I think I might take photos of each one to remind myself when my imagine turns to dust and I don't know what to draw on another quilt. I do this to myself.... get all excited about quilting on the machine and then draw a blank as to what to stitch on the top. Luckily, Patsy Thompson has lots of great ideas from which to springboard and I found another machine quilter, Leah Day, who taken upon herself the task of coming up with a new design each day for 365 days. Very inspiring.

I think I might set up a quilttop with simple 5" blocks and practice some of the designs she demonstrates on her blog.

After coffee and the newspaper, John said, "let's go burn!" and we did. All the remaining piles except the huge one that CAME with the property are all gone now. It was a good day for burning. AND I got to drive the tractor for the first time. Talk about GOOD! No, not me, I am lousy at that driving but the tractor is FUN!

Once the fire became totally manageable for one person (I'm talking 3 hours later), I headed back to the house to transplant the seedlings we started 3 weeks ago. These would be the 2nd set of the staggered plantings, but I wonder if they will catch up now to the 1st set. Below you can see the center two trays are the 1st sets and the outer two trays are what I planted yesterday.

And I have certainly gotten my technique down pat this time around. No more washing of the roots to "save" a plant. This time I will snip out the lesser of the two seedlings in each pot. I shall be ruthless.

Additionally, these will not have the stress of being in moldy pots so they are bound to jump and grow quickly. I have been taking the 1st sets out each day to enjoy the sun but man they got a little wilted yesterday. The raised bed garden is really beautiful now. The mustard greens are in full bloom and the bees are having a blast. Nothing else is in flower here yet so the plants are loaded with honey bees buzzing. They haven't bothered me.

Rooster Stu is a hoot. I love that big bird and am going to start carrying my camera everyday out there to shoot him because one day very soon he will have found a new home. His spurs are starting to grow but still no crowing. And he really is beautiful. I should ask the lady who gave the chicks to us if she would want him back with her flock.

I have not been sewing much but I did manage to crank this out:

Yes the image is blurry but I did not realize it until I had uploaded it to the computer. I'll get a better shot later. In the meantime, what is it, you ask? It is the center block (quite large, too) of what we at Sharp Needles refer to as Leslie's BOM. I skipped ahead of the routine in order to be certain I had enough fabric in the Christmas project to get that one completed. And I am glad I did because the individual pieces are larger than you might think. Now I must do the same with the other 5 quilts I have in the makings before I go back and proceed with the 16" blocks. I have sewn 5 of those blocks each. It's getting there.

Here is the February Mini-BOM from Bright Hopes Quilting:
Except Easter falls in April this year. Oh well.

Coming Up Going Under (and not in Australia)

I have scheduled the ear surgery for next Wednesday. Soon I will know definitively whether or not my hearing loss is due to age or disease. yippee.

I had the pre-op appointment yesterday. The only real worry at this point, besides absolute knowledge, is anesthesia. That and the trachea tube. When one reads the list of possible complications, like broken teeth, one pauses and ponders...."is this a good idea?" I have been under once before but have no memory of the tube down the throat part so I rather doubt that occurred back then but it's gonna happen Wednesday. yea me! Thank God they put it in and take it out AFTER the gas takes effect.

So why am I doing this? Because not hearing is more unbearable than not knowing the future. I can't hear you. I CAN hear certain things but not murmurs and not the wind unless it is howling. I never realized how softly we speak in America until I found myself begging people to repeat themselves. Endlessly. That and please turn down background noise. It creates such a din with this added bonus of ringing and pinging in the ear. So much fun!

But enough about me.

We had a house full of people this past weekend with some notable exceptions and they were sorely missed. That DID leave more beer and shrimp for ME but.... I did miss having them with us as we tripped down the wormhole of reminiscing. And we played this fun Viking game called Kubb which the girls gave us for Christmas.
That's Cheri tossing a Pin at the guards... the idea is each team of 2 stands on either side of the field with 5 guards lined up and the King block in the middle. Once your team has knocked over the guards on the other side, you take dead aim on the King and it is NOT as easy as you might think.
Especially not easy when Q thinks she is part of the game and comes barreling in to "help". She's hiding now at the edge of the blueberry bush nursing hurt feelings because she kept getting yelled at.

Here is a wide shot that shows how far away the guards stand in the field.


I had to add this last one because you'd think Vickie was aiming for me. HAhahahahah.... hey! Wait a minute!

It's a Rooster

sigh.

I really thought I could wish it into submission. Don't you just hate it when reality sets in. (you know,.. I DID notice that NOT ONE of the voters thought It was a hen. Thanks. So. really..... I am the only crazy one out here) When you are forced to move out of that comfortable zone of sheer denial, and the world makes you see truth. Clear white undeniable truth.

It's a rooster and all that comes with it. (except the crowing for some reason; no noise.) (yet)

My pretty little friend out there has numbered days left. That makes me very sad. A little angry too. I didn't want roosters for this very reason. I fall in love with the creature and become so attached to it. All the conjecture (on my part, ok ok) has been proven false and I face only the question of what to do with him.

And truth be told (oh heck, why not!) Little Bit isn't exactly out of the woods yet either! Yeah yeah, It mounted her last week but what the heck does THAT prove? He is still young and stupid. He runs into the fence when Kathryn walks near, so he is beautiful but not smart. (BTW his tail feathers are turning blue and green!!!!!)

Now, the next burning question: what about the little ones?

That red arrow shows an area of concern. One has the beginnings of a comb before the other two!!!! If any one of them is a rooster, I am right back in the same Ground Hog's Day. Are they really pullets, AS ADVERTISED!!!!! or did I get snookered AGAIN!?

Has it Been A Week?

Take a gander (Bah!) at how big they've grown!!!!

Just kidding. That size is due to the angle from which I shot the picture. This is what they really look like:Strike a Pose! Madonna, eat your HEART out.

Last week, I could hold all three in the palm of my hand. So they are much bigger but have a ways to go before I release them to the coop-mates.
And our guests were amused to be sharing the bathroom with them, or at least they were gracious and made me believe that this was okay and not a complete breach of host etiquette.

And to up-date you on how things have progressed since the transtransplanting fiasco, here are 3 shots of the plants we started a month ago (and almost killed last week);

It would appear that all has been forgiven and they are happy in their plastic homes. We see third sets of leaves popping out so that's a good sign. And the Ag Center called back to let me know that the mold will probably not affect the efficacy of the plants.
Tomatillos are doing very well. They are the ones towards the back on the right. All the seedling in the orange trays on the left are the repeats.

The two here on the left are actually older than that pot on the right so go figure. Not at all certain how that has come to pass. Maybe plants, like people, grow stronger with company.