Engulfed by the garden

Where has the summer gone!? It feels like just last week I was planning the summer garden, now I'm overwhelmed by it.

With Keith's sister Michelle here for most of the summer, I was worried that what I had planned in the garden wouldn't be enough for three people. I did not take two things into consideration 1) We have all the raised beds completed and ready to go for the summer and 2) Michelle wasn't actually here all summer! Crap! I may have over done things a bit.

While picking green beans, I was thinking that this was the year of the Great Green Bean Explosion, but that is not quite right. It is actually the August of the Great green bean, snap pea, snow pea, carrot, broccoli, beet, turnip, onion, pepper, eggplant, zucchini Explosion.

It is looking like it's going to be the September of the Great tomato, melon, winter squash, rutabaga, parsnips, kohlrabi, plus everything listed above Explosion. To deal with this I have already ripped out 2 zucchini plants (mental note 6 summer squash/zucchini plants are about 4 TOO MANY!). These are from just one day...


But I am loving that we have had all the raised beds up and going this year! The garden as a whole is looking beautiful! We even have our drip system set up in all the beds, which means I do not have hand water any of this! Love it! Love it! Love it!




The greenhouse is a bit of a jungle. I'd better stay my small self to ensure that I can actually move around in there!



Right now, I am learning that maybe 15 winer squash plants are a few too many, same with a dozen melon plants. Maybe I don't need a whole row of eggplant plants, but maybe I do! We'll see how this all ends! I see a lot of drying, freezing and generally a lot of preservation in my future.




Now is the time for a few introductions. We have two new kids (goat kids, people!)-Franny and Snowy. And then there's Meatball, our lamb that will only be with us until October, if you get my drift.

This is Snowy. It's hard to get a shot of her since she is ALWAYS licking my legs, or really anyones legs.


Franny, full name Francis De Young, striking a pose.


And Meatball, just being adorably funny looking.


And just in case you can only think of Bear as the adorable puppy that he was, here is now and the goofy, adorable one year old that he is now.



So, who wants to come over for dinner?

Make way for ducklings!

First, I would like to apologize for the last post: it was a glitch, a fluke, an accident. And it was about 3 times longer, with a bunch more pictures and such, but somehow all that disappeared. Basically it was wallpaper, blah, blah, wallpaper. If you want to see any pictures, there are all in the flickr photo-stream on the right.

We just keep getting more creatures! This time in addition to a few more baby chicks, we've gotten ducklings. Chicks are cute, but really, ducklings are so much cuter-and bigger! than baby chicks!
   

When I left Chicks Days at Grain Growers, I thought I had 4 Pekin ducks, 2 Rouens, and 2 I have no ideas. They had ordered a random assortment of ducklings, so even the folks at Grain Growers weren't too sure what they had. After doing a little research I think I actually have 2 Rouens, 2 Pekins, 2 Buffs, a Blue Swedish and either a Welsh Harlequin or a third Buff. So that's not bad right, I'm really only uncertain about one of them... we'll see in time!




So what, you ask, are we going to do with these ducklings. Mostly keep them for eggs. The eggs are larger than chicken eggs and ohh! they make delicious, rich cakes!

We also got a few more chicks. Most of this little ladies are white egg layers (Leghorns) and two more Americanas, who lay green eggs.



We already have 2 Americanas and they have not laid an egg all winter. About a week ago, they started laying again. At that point I realized something unexpected: I had just painted the kitchen Americana egg green, subconsciously? I have no idea!



And just for fun, here is Bear and Fang taking a nap at the side door. Happy Spring!

Winter Projects

Wallpaper can suck it! edition

I keep meaning to post, but we have been a little busy with self inflicted house projects.

Let's start upstairs, in the incredibly ugly bathroom. There are no pictures of how this room originally looked-why document it!? That's how ugly it was. I thought I had some evidence of all of us taking the wallpaper down, but I can't even find those! There was Rich, Beth, Keith, me, and sometimes BJ in the bathroom ripping down paper, an inch at a time. The only room I had any help taking down paper, it was amazing! There was beige and maroon flowered paper, then a layer of paint-EVIL!-then the original layer of rubber duckies in sailboats paper. Why! Children's wallpaper-are your kids going to be 5 forever!?!

The walls were kind of destroyed, but we hired a friend to fix them and fix them he did.


As I was painting this room, I kept thinking the color (pompanion pink), looked like somewhere familiar. Finally I got it, YOU are the caretaker. You've always been the caretaker. The creepy bathroom from Shining (OK, one of the creepy bathrooms from the Shining)! Not to freak out future guests, that is not what it looks like with new mirrors, fixtures, pretty much anything that wasn't nailed down.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays and Merry a couple days after Christmas! We finally have a little bit of snow on the ground here, but not really enough to be excited about. At least it's snowy in the mountains!
For the second year in a row we have had a ridiculously huge Christmas tree. This year we went out to the woods with our friends Michael and Dionne in hopes of finding the perfect tree and we did! Michael and Dionne ended up with a beautiful 12 ft tree and we managed to cut down a 19 feet 8 inch tree-just under the 20 foot limit! We had a bit of pruning to do, so the height of the tree in the house is 15 feet 8 inches-kinda huge! And all it cost was $5 for the permit to cut the tree down and a fun day in the forest!
Keith had to work Christmas morning, but Bear and BJ were ready to open presents as soon as he got home. BJ is experienced at opening presents and took his time, while Bear mauled each present he was give to open, which looked like he was having the most fun ever!


Bear's first Christmas consisted of being inside almost all day, getting tons of presents, stealing all of BJ's presents and generally being the most spoiled outside dog that ever existed and BJ got tired of all this pretty quickly. Now all Bear wants is to come inside all day...maybe letting him in for such a long time was a bad idea!

  
Even with Keith working for part of the day, we had a really nice and relaxing Christmas day. We are so thankful for all the generous gifts and beautiful Christmas cards. We hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday season!

I'll be posting a Winter Farm update soon! Stay tuned

It's finally happened!

After years and years of talking about, we have goats! On Saturday our friend and goat aficionado Nancy dropped off Cupid and her kid Valentino. So far they have not escaped!
   

This is what I know about them so far. They do NOT like the dogs, especially when they bark. They do like the chickens and seem to prefer being in the chicken pen than by themselves out in the pasture. Valentino is a very large 4 month old kid and is still nursing, which means that I don't have to start milking just yet. Also, Valentino loves to have close ups taken:

 

I haven't quiet won over Cupid yet, but hopefully she'll grow to like me.

 

And are you thinking what I'm thinking: is that snow on the ground? Why yes it is! It started snowing in the mountains on Saturday and it's been snowing down here in the valley all day. Looking at the forecast I'm not sure when it's going to stop, maybe by this weekend or maybe by May, we'll see!

This is both Bear and Fang 3's first snow and they both seem to be enjoying it!

Bear is trying so hard to convince me to let him in. Obviously he's not wet and dirty.

We have some interesting days ahead with learning to milk and all. I'll keep you posted!

Buh bye, black sheep

Oh, lambs. Today you take you final walk into the sunset. No more lounging in the shade. No more getting stuck in the chicken coop. No more ramming me in the back of the knees or stomping on my foot so hard I thought you broke my toe.

Let's remember how cute and little you were!

Slowly, you got a little less cute and a lot bigger.
 

And now you, the Ram (aka Testicles), drive me crazy! You're so big and ram me so hard. I wish you would just stop it! And when you stepped on my toe and it was bleeding and swelling, I called for your head on a platter! Well, by this weekend you will be in my freezer. I know it sounds morbid, but I don't care!
 

While I say all of this, we are planning on getting more sheep (ewes not rams!) so we can have our own little flock of sheep.

I will miss them and I do look forward to getting more sheep. I also hope that the lambs are as at peace about becoming kabobs as Robert is!

Brothers

Am I getting close to ending up on one of those animal hoarder shows? Since Keith just informed that we are to get no more puppies or kittens, I can't help but fear that is my fate.

First, we (I) adopted Fang III at the end of June. He was this adorable, cuddly 8 week old kitten that I just couldn't say no to. Besides, Fang II disappeared in late April and we had to face that he was not coming back. He lived a full 17 years, and he only spent one of them with us, but I still miss him! Fang III, or his getting longer everyday full name, King Purry Fangston the Third, is now king of the garage, front porch and garden and getting braver everyday!

 

And I thought I was done collecting animals for the summer. But no! Then I meet a dozen puppies a couple of weeks ago and fell for one of them immediately. Bear stood out as the gentle giant of the gaggle of border collie/mini Australian shepherd mix puppies. I have spent the last two weeks convincing Keith that we desperately need an outside dog and we now have one! We brought Bear home this morning. He from farm dog stock and I hope that we can keep him busy enough to be happy here!

BJ is amazingly being wonderful (so far!) , while Fang is a little trepidatious. As I say that they all are taking naps in various places on the front porch. It's adorable overload here! They are the cutest set of brothers anywhere! There ya go! Just another addition to our little bucolic utopia