Garden shame

I've avoided posting partly because the state of my garden is sad: planted late and already struggling with weeds. But no more hiding! Blemishes and defects revealed.

The small garden doesn't look too bad except for the stunted sizes and weeds on the outer rows.

The big garden is in serious trouble. The carrots and peas are overrun with grass and germination rates are not impressive. The beans in the middle seem to be doing the best.

Shallots and onions are what I began with on weeding. With my back troubles, I can only do so much before having to stop...and it's not enough.

My mom's potatoes are easily twice as large and already blossoming.

Luckily the earthboxes are doing well. Of course, that's what they're designed for so it doesn't say anything for my gardening abilities!

Flowers

Because they're beautiful.

Mom's yellow peony 

I love ornamental kale

My first delphinium - Wow!

Finally hacked out most of the weeds

Hostas are some of my favorites

New chicken coop

Saturday was very exciting as the shed I ordered for a new chicken coop arrived. The old one I built myself is really too small for the flock and this one will be plenty big. I have to make some changes before they start using it: insulation, nest boxes, roost and a pop door. They were all happy to be allowed back into that section of the pen again.

Today was not so pleasant with wind, thunder and rain. Thankfully we didn't get any of the tornadoes near us. One town farther south got hit very hard.

That time of year

I try to take a picture when the crab apple tree blossoms every year and today it is starting to get serious about it.

Plums are finishing.

Cherries are exploding in scent!

The wall o'wood

It's been absolutely gorgeous weather lately. Although the flip side of that is the looming spectre of drought. We could definitely use some steady gentle rain.

uh oh

During the long time (about 2 years) that I was trying to get rid of the big aquarium, we took apart the library table to park the aquarium in that space. The table top was stored in the basement and the legs stayed in the library. Now that I told the person who never picked up the aquarium that they were out of time and the new owner got it I want to reassemble the table...so where did I put the bolts???

There was a case of a rabid feral cat about 20 miles away so I wanted to make sure ours were up to date on their shots. Wow, Trigger is not a fan of car rides; he howled all the way to the vet.

I was going to pick up some straw bales I found on craigslist but all the strings had rotted through and it was just too much hassle to try to haul loose, old straw. Instead I got some more compost from the farm for the little garden. Now to get the neighbor over with his tiller and I can start planting!

"T'ain't dead"

I'm still here! And doing okay now. Quick update: about 6 weeks of near crippling night time back pain - much better now; I just have to be careful not to overdo and I'm feeling fine.

Thursday, April 9, at noon the eggs in the incubator began hatching. 24 hours later and we have 16 beautiful healthy chicks. This was only about 50% hatch rate but I'm not sure why, maybe the rooster was overwhelmed with keeping up with 28 hens? Anyway, I'm happy with 16.

So cute! I had 5 broody hens but all were determined to set in the wall-mounted nesting boxes so I took the extreme measure of removing all the boxes. Only two hens stayed broody on floor level, the other three gave up and rejoined the flock. Last night I took two chicks out and put one under each broody to see if they would adopt. Cloudy did fine, but I couldn't find Twinkie's chick today and was afraid something had got it. Then, on my latest egg gathering I saw the missing chick...with Cloudy! Cunning hen had stolen it away and was contentedly purring. We will have to see if she is so greedy with 14 more.

Spring is fully here and it's looking to be wonderful.

Good news: I get my car back tomorrow! It's taken a lot longer than expected.

 I don't normally take a camera out to the chicken coop when I lock it up for the night, but sometimes something happens that is too good to resist.

The evening bath

My homemade dustbath is made of ash, diatomaceous earth, and sand. I'm not ever sure who this is but she was raising a cloud. :)