Replacement Crop

Mr. Fox has been especially cruel to us this year. In 2 hauls he took us from 13 chickens down to 4. We close everyone in at night, but the fox must have been coming just before we got home from work.


Last year we had a couple hens disappear. We didn't really know what happened to them until one day we saw a fox creeping around the back yard. We thought it was a one time loss. Then one morning we had a big pile of feathers in the yard. The fox got our best rooster ever, Buffy. That one was the worst because we found his body in the woods. If your going to kill my chickens, at least eat them.....Then Pigee.




As much as we like letting everyone free range, enough was enough. We built a ramshakle run off of our ramshakle coup. I have no problem letting them out in the yard if we are around, but otherwise they stay closed in. We were lucky enough to find someone who was thinning out their crop of hens and we able to pick up 2 barred rocks, 1 buff orpington, and one light brahma. Our survivors are one arucana, 1 guinea hen, and our light brahma rooster. So we are back up to 7 birds, and that should so us just fine.

Beet Salad

I don't think that I had veer really tried beets. They are currently one of the few things doing well in our garden....guess they don't mind the non stop rain. In fact, they are huge. I harvested a couple last week, wrapped them in foil, and baked them in the oven for an hour. Sliced them up, served them with some lettuce (from the garden), blue cheese, and a citrus vinegrette dressing. Next time I will just use a blue cheese dressing (the vinegrette stunk)..........good stuff.

Rainy, Dreary June

June has been a tough month here on the homestead. Nearly nonstop rain and lots of loss..........Looking forward to a new month with new starts and hopefully some sunshine.

BLOOM

=

Wish I had more time to post. Things are crazy around here. End of the year at school has the kids nuts....thank god we only have 2 weeks left. I will be teaching summer school this year so I have been busy designing my lesson plans. Also been writing lots of applications in hopes of getting a science teacher position for the fall. I hate the application process and some of the questions you are asked to write about.
Haven't had enough time at home to get all of the veggies planted yet. Tony did rototil the back garden, so it is ready. Flowers are starting to bloom..... the iris are almost ready. Need to do a lot of weeding and fill in the bare spots.
The Subaru is broken down once again, so I need to figure out what is next for it. The fox killed 7 of our chickens and one of my angoras died unexplainably last week. Bummers.
I need to get ready to head to work at the hospital.....wish I could play outside instead.

Weekend in Vermont

We spent last weekend in Vermont to attend and celebrate Tony's cousin Caitlyn's graduation from University of Vermont. His family rented a log home in Shelburne which about 9 of us stayed in. The drive out was great as we spent a lot of time going through the white mountains. Unfortunatly, I didn't get any great photos. We spent a day walking around in Burlington, which is a cool city. We also toured Magic Hat brewing company, which was having a party when we went. There were live bands, entertainers, free food, and of course beer. Tony happily went home with a couple of growlers of beer.

Yard work

Busy weekend between working in the yard and working on final papers for my class that ends tomorrow. I finally started tearing apart the front flower garden, which I have never been too fond of. It was too big and too flat. I decided to build a little stone wall so that I could make one section higher than the other. I also shrunk it to half of its size. Still need to plant grass seed around it, and work on smoothing out the lower part of the garden. Then it is time to fill it in with more plants.

Before:

Halfway:
After:

I am happy with it, it is certainly better than what was there before. I am sure it will look much better once it is filled with flowers too.

Yard Cleanup

It finally feels like spring around here. With that, THANK GOD, is April vacation. I didn't think I would make it this year. The kids have been off the wall.
Tony and I started some major cleanup in the yard yesterday. Tons of leaves still need to be raked and hauled over to the compost bins. There are several birch trees that were bent down by thee snow and ice this winter that aren't able to recover. So firewood is their destiny. Tony was gifted a chainsaw from his father for xmas, so he put it to work. A couple of the trees were looming over our back veggie garden.
Speaking of the gardens, we have just about gotten the raised beds on the side of the garage all cleaned up. The chickens have been happily helping us with this task. Today I am going to plant some peas and hopefully some spinach. I did start some seedlings inside this year....not as many as last year though.
Already sprouted seedlings include:
brocolli
kale
beets
swiss chard
eggplant
bachelor buttons
zinnea
black krim tomatoes
yellow jubliee tomatos
romas
rainbow cherry tomatos

Still to plant:
spinach
peas
beans
salad greens
pmpkins
sunflowers
peppers
ccumbers
morning glories

Tin Roof

It is absolutely pouring out tonight, and has been for most of the day. We still have about a foot of snow in some shady spots, but there are areas that have melted and mud season is in full effect.
Working at the hospital this weekend. I am tired. Will be sure to demand less hours from them next month. I can't keep doing 70 hours a week.
My class ends on Monday. I have a big paper to write and took the night off from the hospital to do so. Signed up for another course which begins April 14th. It is only a 3 week course which means it will probably be a pretty intense 3 weeks. Hopefully all of this hard work will pan out with the teaching job for summer school.

Good News, Bad News

Good News....the snow is finally starting to melt and I can see some small patches of grass and garden. I finally managed to start a few seeds today, leeks, beets, brocolli, kale, bok choi, and pansies. I still have a lot more to get planted and am frustrated to be getting a late start once again this year.

Bad News....I have been working ALOT. I guess part of these could be good because we can really use the money especially due to the potential of real bad news....my head gasket may need to be replaced (AGAIN!) in the subaru at the tune of $1200. We don't have that money and the car is barely worth much more than that....fingers crossed it is just a thermostat or something else affordable.

The new job is going well aside from working a lot more hours than I anticipated. I am working as an environmental services aides which is a fancy name for a cleaning lady. I don't mind the work though and am learning a lot about the hospital. I have met a lot of great nurses and hope that this job will lead to something more (nursing or lab work). I've had several compliments about being a good worker and hope to make a good name for myself there. It is a small hospital and the staff seem like a close knit group. There are tuition reimbursement incentives and the hospital has its own nursing program.
My class is a week and a half away from being over. It has been tough keeping up, having to do my homework when I get in around midnight, however, I am still maintaining an A. Looking forward to it being over, but that will be short lived, as I think I am signing up for a 3 week course at the end of April. Once I complete that I will have my conditional certificate in Special Ed and my chance to teach our summer school program.
Time to run... finally get a night to watch one of my favorite shows and then its bedtime.

Soon....

Still alive......I PROMISE to post this weekend. Have been working 67 hour weeks for the last two, should calm down a bit now that I am trained though. I got home from work just a few minutes ago, went to wash my hands, and squeezed toothpaste into my palm instead of soap. Whoops. That is the state I have been in for a few days now, but overall I have felt surprisingly good and am enjoying the new job. Two more weeks of my class left...can't wait to be done.

B-U-S-Y

Sorry for the lack of posts.....I have been uber busy. Am taking my second online grad class in Special Ed Methods and just started a second job today. Working as an environmental services aide (glorified cleaning lady) at the hospital. 7am-2:30pm at school today, then 3pm-11:30 pm at the hospital.....Its midnight, I just got in feed the kitties, am eating a bowl of cereal, checking in on my online classroom discussions, taking a shower, and then crashing hard. I am working trough Saturday, but will try to post more on Sunday.

Fried

We have no food in our fridge this week except eggs, olives, and condiments. Luckily the girls are laying more eggs each day, so breakfast for dinner can continue. With the increasing daylight, we are back up to 5 eggs a day. We have 11 hens, not including the guineas. Mostly getting browns, but every couple days one of the ameracanas will lay a pretty green one for us.

Damn You Winter!

Ugghhhh................
We got dumped on by this last storm. Woke up to two and a half feet of new snow. Add one more snowday on top of February Vacation. We also lost power for about 5 hours. I have been shoveling lots and lots of snow all day....