Turning the Garden

We've had a spate of nice warm days. Adam is challenging his winter muscles to regain some summer strength. He's turning beds.

 The onion bed/strawberry bed was first.

 But the bed that needed reworking is one of our trellised bed. It was lined with some old tiles that didn't give an adequate barrier against encroaching weeds. Since getting a new roof, we have lots of old metal roofing that Adam can use to line the beds.

 Now that's a liner! This bed had tomatoes last year, but will have peas this spring.

 I put peas in the first section between the two wooden posts. In 2 weeks I'll put the next section of peas in.
The dogs like to help Adam. They give moral support.

 He also put the greenhouse together for me!

 I started some onion seeds, and I put onion sets into the ground in that bed.

 These seed packets were only 88 cents each. I sprinkled them into the front beds near the road. I want a splash of color this spring!

 I love the color variety from my hens these days.

 But the yolk color is always just like this:

My first daffodil of the year!

What a happy sight!

Will Spring Ever Come?

I know that, technically, Lady Spring has arrived, but it doesn't feel like it. We still have lows in the 30's! In spite of this, on Friday Adam put the plastic back on the hoop house.

 This year he added PVC rollers on the bottom edges so we can roll the sides up and cool the house that way, when need be.
Adam snapped the plastic in place with this brilliant wiggle wire:

 The four large, leggy tomato plants from the front porch were moved out there right away. I don't care if it was 38 degrees last night -- they have overstayed their welcome on the front porch!

 Adam is building a new door for the hoop house. He used the old one on the chicken coop. Chickens first!! Haha!

Our greens are slow but doing well. Can you see them in the bed? From left to right, a smattering of spinach, red kale, lettuce, and more kale.

 The peas are up and looking great, about 25 of them, too short for their trellis.

 The apple tree in the orchard is blooming. They are the loveliest blooms.

 I let my younger chickens free range today; I feel so sorry for them with no greenery in their run.

The three hens didn't want to eat. They wanted to dust bathe.

 I want them to free range, but I lost one of the young chicks to a predator about a month ago while they were free ranging. A second chick died because of its cross-beak. The third chick, Cassie, is the lowest of the low, on the Chicken Totem Pole. It's so sad. They make her sleep on the floor of the coop, on the other end, while they all sleep on the roost. I feel sorry for her.
Speaking of birds, these friendly fellows perched near us on the ferry yesterday, as we returned from the flea market.

 The gulls were particularly active. Some have white heads, and some have jet black.

 We went across the river Saturday morning just at sunrise -- the 6:15 a.m. ferry.

 Those of you following my weaves, here's the finished shawl/scarf, for sale. It came back home with me. It ended up being 12" wide and over 70" long.

When we drove into the driveway, Trixie trotted up to greet us. She was not supposed to be loose! Trixie was left in the fenced farm pasture with Ned and Baby, to play for the day while we were gone. She should have been behind that fence, but she had somehow escaped! It was horrible to think of what might have happened, but evidently she's a smart cookie, and knew to stay on the back porch waiting for us to come home. Phew! Adam was mighty relieved.

That new market across the river is wearing us both out. I think the verdict is still out, whether we will do it long term. But yesterday was good. However, this not-a-morning-person girl finds it a challenge, that's for sure!

You will probably read this on Palm Sunday, or afterward. Please have a blessed Easter week. It's time to think about Jesus, about His mighty sacrifice and His eternal, persistent love for us. We're having a Seder Supper at our church on Thursday evening, a "recreating," if you will, of the Last Supper, which was, of course, a redoing of the Passover, and simultaneously the first Lord's Supper/Communion. Adam walks us through the dinner, explaining it all, and we break half-way for our own covered-dish supper also. It's a great evening -- if you're local, please come! All are welcome at 6:00 p.m. Have a blessed week.

Good-night, Farm

It always feels to me as if the farm goes to sleep in winter. We tidy the garden beds, bring the potted plants inside, and say good-night until spring. The pecan leaves cover the grass. The geese this morning flew right over my head, honking south. I brought three volunteer tomato plants in from the garden in pots, plus a pepper plant, several mints, a basil that I hope will survive, and a lemon and a lime tree that we just bought at the nearby garden center. All are snug on the front porch, now wrapped in heavy plastic.

Adam wants to make concrete leaves year-round. Since the elephant ear leaves and hosta leaves are nearly dead for winter, he's making plaster "positives" -- a plaster cast from which he will make a clay mold. Then he will use the mold to make many leaves this winter. Here are some of the plaster positives he made yesterday:

 

Aren't they delicate? The veiling is very fine. I'm eager to see how the actual concrete leaves turn out from these impressions. Here is a much larger elephant ear plaster he made:

 A lovely, large mushroom popped up just outside the chicken coop:

I finished writing my little children's book, "Punkin and the Littlest Mouse" into one of Adam's handmade books. I left room for lots of little illustrations. Now I'm beginning to sketch them in. Here are a few examples:

It's a simple book, and I'm no illustrator, but I do think books for small children should have lots of pictures. I'm not up to complicated images, but I will add as much as I can. Punkin is my crazy Ameracauna hen. She's not nearly so sweet in real life as she is in this story, haha!

Adam continues to attempt repairs on our roof (really the eave) and after that, the ceiling. It's rough going. He succeeded in stopping the leaking along the very edge of the ceiling, but not entirely in stopping the leak in the middle. So up he went again on the tall ladder to rip off the repair he'd done, and pull down the gutter (gulp - yes), and go at it again. He's out there now. 

I went out to check on him. He showed me the roof's edge -- the metal is rusted and crumbling off. It's quite discouraging. A new roof is not something we can afford, so he will try to use metal pieces slipped underneath to reinforce the edge. It's something that must be attempted and done if at all possible. In my mind, this damage to the living room ceiling is the only thing that might still make the house not viable, and not able to be sold, if we ever wanted to sell it. Plus -- of course -- I don't really want even the smallest of drips from my living room ceiling. He is wonderful to keep after all the many projects that call on him, on this farm, small as it is. It's cold and windy out there today, but he's willing. We're both getting to an age when outdoor work in the cold and damp is hard on our bodies.

Well! On a happier note, Thanksgiving is coming, with a beautiful community service and three of our kids coming home! Philip, Kara, and Julia will be here next week. I'm so excited! They get to meet Trixie!

Trixie says, "Happy Thanksgiving!" She is learning how to be a good dog just as fast as she can.

We Are Diggin' Fall!

As I mentioned before, Adam has been push-mowing this big field. The tidy piles look cute, but that tall stuff on the left/top of the photo? That's the chest-high goldenrod weeds he still has to tackle. Thankfully, a friend with a tractor offered to bush-hog the rest of it for us. He came today.

Today I reminded Adam it was time to check sweet potatoes. They've been in the ground since mid-June. Sure enough ...

 

That's only 5 plants' worth. There are many more to dig. Yay!! I love sweet potatoes. I wonder how long it will take me this winter to tire of them? I think I need to find a good sweet potato pie recipe.

For lunch today, I made some avocado dip with a few things off the farm: egg, a few last tomatoes, and beautiful cilantro:

Our self-seeding cilantro is just lovely:

And my newest hen Autumn laid her first egg this morning!

 She's just a teenaged hen, so her first egg is small. It's on the left, below. Next to it is one of Punkin's eggs. Punkin is a year older. Hens' eggs get larger as they grow older; however, they lay less often. Your "jumbo" eggs in the grocery are from older hens.

Adam continues to lay thick mulch on our house beds. It's like putting the plants nighty-night for the winter.

 A wonderful addition to our farm this weekend is this nice extension ladder that we bought from a friend for $50. It's so good to have it; now we can begin to work on our house eaves/roof/leak. 

 We've had no rain in weeks, and everything's quite dry. But the sky is darkening today, and the clouds are billowing, and it feels like rain. My poor mum (from last year) is trying hard to bloom.

 Yesterday afternoon was nice enough outside to sit in the pecan orchard with the dogs. I've been picking up pecans every day. It will be a banner year.

 That's Ned's head. We looked out over the big field and listened for geese. He and Baby wrestled and competed for my hand. They're just playing.

I have a good friend who's a potter. We both sold our wares at the music festival in Oriental on Saturday. She pulled out this exquisite chalice -

She offered it to me as a gift because it had a hairline crack. Wow! I just love it. It looks like fairytales and Tolkien's world and tree nymphs. I put a small candle in it today while I painted.

That's it from the farm. We're still drying loofahs and picking green beans and wondering how the white potatoes will do. But right now, things are pretty good on the farm.