Murphy Conspires With The Strawberries.

I'm sure you're hanging on with every thread of your being waiting to hear about my strawberries. You know, the stone wall I built to contain them, and the crowns that I planted, that never came up, and then the garlic that I planted there because the strawberries never came up and something had to go there?

Up to speed now? Ok. So Saturday, hubby says...."let's go for a drive". Never one to shirk off a possible adventure, we hopped into the truck and headed off for points unknown. Actually, we had a known point, but because I've been on his little adventures before, whether or not we would actually get there remained to be seen (we did..... eventually...)

Stop one... to see my muskrat (or monkey as she's also called. Some would also call her my almost 3 year old granddaughter). This was fun, they moved out (her and her mother) close to a month ago and I hadn't seen her since. While we were there, I noticed blueberry bushes by the tra-zillion, so we had to stop and dig up some of those.
Stop two... a fruit stand on the side of the road that had........STRAWBERRIES!!!!! Plants, not just crowns, where there was actual greenage visible! So of course we had to get some of those.
Stop three....lunch.... after this and a few yard sales it gets routine, so we'll just end there.

Strawberries plants people! Lots of them! On Sale!!! Enough to fill up the stone hedge (that is now planted with garlic and chives and a few beet and spinach seeds thrown in for good measure) and more!
Strawberries, the ones I've wanted for so long! Finally I have them. I paid for them and hauled them out to the truck as I heard a faint chuckle in the background. Dismissed.
Got in the truck and headed off to the next unknown stop and heard that chuckle again. What the heck?? Oh yeah, it was Murphy, for sure. The infamous Murphy who conspires to throw obstacles in my path just to watch me trip over them.
"Where are you going to put the strawberries?", he taunts?
"You already planted the stone hedge, you can't put them there".
"You'll have to find another spot"... he continued. This went on and on until he was laughing so hard he couldn't say another word.
So I'll show him! I planted those strawberries in with my garlic, and chives and beet and spinach seeds thrown in for good measure. And next year, at this time you can all read my bestselling book: Strawberries, garlic, chives and Murphy! Just to see how it all turned out!

Oh, and a special shoutout to my cousin. She's a California gal. She's a Sharks fan (as in not a Red Wings fan). I'll just leave you to digest that for a minute.

Yeah, I know, and I'm sorry, I had little to do with her upbringing.

Is It Spring Yet?

Let's take a wander around the old garden shall we? The rhubarb is coming up, no this isn't a picture of my rhubarb, my camera got left in the house this morning. Still have to dig some of that for my Dad who wants some in his garden.

I've planted my strawberries in the stone ledge border I built around the pool, they also don't look quite like the picture, actually, I'm not at all sure they're alive.

Asparagus has been planted as well. Oh, and onions. Onions are important.

Garlic is ready to go in too, although normally a fall crop, someone didn't get off their behind long enough to get it planted in the fall, so spring it will be. Started it in the house probably in January or so, not too much longer, actually the tops are starting to die back already.

My Tiger Lilies are popping up all over as is all of the mint that seems to find it's way around the place.

Started in pots are Hollyhocks (I know, they'll grow anywhere, anytime, but I wanted to make sure I got a good bunch of plants before I put them out for the rabbits to munch on - gotta feed those rabbits ya know!)

Also started are tomatoes (3 dif. kinds of regular tomatoes and 2 different strains of heirloom) as well as peppers, hot and regular.

As soon as hubby gets the garden rototilled for me (or Sunday afternoon, whichever comes first) I'll put in some radishes, carrots and spinach and beets maybe. Don't know about beets, have to check on those, but definitely the first three.

One of these nights when it's nice enough, I'm gonna grab hubby and go tooling around the countryside and woods, looking for blueberry plants to transplant. Tried to grow some from seed, but no go.

One of the next big projects in the barn related area of the homestead is to Clean. Out. The. Barn. This spring has been very busy with work and other stuff, and that just hasn't gotten done yet. If I could get hubby to get the dozer outta there, it would help. Then I have to build a wood rack (actually just reinforce it as I've already built it) and start piling all of our scrap wood up there, off the floor. The next task would be to corrall all of the binder twine, actually, this is valuable stuff. But scattered all over the floor, not so much.

In the knitting room, I'm still working on granddaughter #1's sweater. Purpley heathery Lithuanian Birds and Blooms design, and I do need to get a picture of that.

Here's the reason for a recent er, um, stash addition!

So, daugher #1 calls and says, “Go to this yardsale. They have TONS of yarn”, she says. “More yarn than I’ve ever seen in one place, ever!” She recants. “It’s your heaven”, she teases, “your own personal paradise”, she continues.. yadda, yadda, yadda….So, being the dutiful mother that I am, I went. Seriously, this woman had a problem. She needed to start her own Yarn-a-holic 12 step program. She had yarn. LOTS of it. Yes, TONS! of good stuff! Mohair, cashmere, alpaca, wool, actually very little acrylic. She had skeins and balls and cones. She had needles, and lace wires. Stitch and row counters were coming out of boxes. Patterns, books and leaflets jumped as I walked by. But she doesn’t have alot of this stuff anymore. Bet you can guess why! Because now I have a yarn problem. 8 (yes, count them - 8!) lawn and leaf bags later I’m now looking into 12 step program requirements for myself.
Part of my New Years Resolution was to knit from my stash and not buy any more new yarn. There’s a loophole here, can you spot it? Yup! New! This yarn was not New, so it didn’t count!
I wonder if justifying addictions is addressed in the 12 step programs?
Moral of this story? Sorry, got nothin’ for ya. But yard sales, garage sales and auctions rock for possible stash enhancement!

So, now that I've fessed up about my recent purchase, I better go. Got a few minutes before I leave for work and that means I have a few minutes to pet and drool, I mean to admire my recent aquisitions!

Tractor Zen

So, I'm out baling hay, which is fairly relaxing in itself. The sun is shining (950 degrees), the birds are singing (which can't be heard above the sound of the baler), the breeze is blowing (a hot humid sticky breeze). It's relaxing. It's where I love to be. And I hit a rock. My bad, should have been watching. Oh, yeah, I was. Watching behind me, making sure the baler was actually scooping up the hay like it's supposed to do. Every now and then something happens to "wake me up" so to speak. Like a rock, or a tree. There's nothing like being totally mesmerized by the rhythmic sounds of the baler crunching up dried grass and spitting it out the other end, when WHACK! All of a sudden I'm swatted with a branch. No big, just a pine tree, and a white pine at that, you know, the ones with long long soft pine needles? They don't hurt, they just serve to wake me up and shake me from my zen-like trance. But it is enjoyable, even if every muscle and every joint in my body is just burning this morning. Things aren't moving quite as well as they did when I was a few years younger.

What else did I do over the long weekend? Well, first of all, I officially became a 50 year old! And the same day, I got my first AARP card in the mail. WTF????? NO. I REFUSE! (Can you refuse stuff like that?)

Of course, we did the obligatory parade and fireworks on the 4th. We have a HUGE hill by where we live and you can see the town fireworks, all the country people who light them off, the small towns around, it's like a 360 degree display. Quite Cool!

A friend and I took off for Traverse (west coast) on Saturday to get fresh cherries. We found that they were still about 1-2 weeks out, but they did have lots and lots and lots of strawberries and asparagus. So, loaded up and then we hit the local yarn shop, well, because you have to do that. I can't very well recommend that particular shop if I've never been in there to drool and pet or, touch and aah and ooh over the yarns.

As with any foray into Farmer's Market territory, there is the results of that foray to be dealt with. That afternoon I put 48 cups of crushed berries and close to 25 lbs of asparagus into the freezer. The berries will be turned into jam, but not until a cold crisp autumn or winter weekend, when I have cherries, and peaches to add to them. I'll dig out the rhubarb too, then all the jam will be done in one day rather than in fits and starts.

Got most of the garden weeded and my "over the winter" lettuces started. I found the coolest rainbow swiss chard. Can't beat a good garden fresh salad in January. Also planted some cabbage seeds to winter over and make kraut, yum!!

Got a lot of hay put into both barns, worked on the chicken coop, got all the nesting boxes built and perches put up, still have to put netting up on the inside and cut a "trap door".

Tonight? Blessed rain! So, I'll finally get some inside work done, you know, like dishes, floors, laundry folded, stuff like that! And gasp.. maybe some knitting!! Probably not, my wrists and hands are trashed from haying.

Someone who now is famous, coined a phrase, I'm sure you've heard of it: Life Is Good. And it is!

Strawberries and Chickens!

So, the strawberries didn't happen. As usual, I'm a day late and 3 weeks early, or something like that.
We went to get them picked and found that they had already been picked out. It would be easy if it were the same every year, but with the wacky weather lately, they were late as it was.
I can still go north, to get some, but I think I'll concentrate on the cherries over on the west side of the state. Have a friend who lives over there who will keep an eye on it for me, then we'll go to get bunches of those. The sweet cherries are about 1.5 weeks ahead of the sour cherries, but both are just yummy! Cherry syrup and jams and stuff are just as good as strawberries, but the strawberries are local. Oh well, maybe next year. Actually, I'm going to make a note of that in my really cool portable brain that I can't live without, to start inquiring about strawberries around the 1st of June.

Got our first "batch" of hay in last night, well, when I say "we" it wasn't me helping. at all. this is a first!
I was daddy-sitting, so didn't get to partake in the festivities, but not to worry, there's LOTS more hay to be got!

Stupid coffee pot! Just got up to get a cup of coffee and realized that it never turned itself on. grrr.
OK, I'm over it.

So anyway, in my scattered little brain, we've covered strawberries and cherries and touched on hay. Let's go to my awesome chicken self feeding system shall we?
The items needed for this include as many 5 gallon buckets as can be rounded up (on the farm, this isn't a problem), a shotgun or drill to drill lots and lots of holes in the sides and bottoms of the buckets, A way to suspend them above the chicken pen (sticks work great, as does left over binder twine - the plastic stuff) and as many dead critters as you can get your hands on. Again, around here, shooting possums, raccoons and stuff that attack my critters are plentiful, as are fish guts from hubby going fishing, so usually don't have to look real far.
Hang the buckets up above the chicken pen (pre shot or drilled for holes) and throw in the dead critter. Within a matter of days, the flies will swarm and lay their eggs. The maggots will fall out of the holes and chickens will eat them up. It gets a bit aromatic, but if there's a reason for it, well.... it's easier to put up with.
See? Self feeding chickens! Works great!

A bit too redneck for you? Well, it works, and around here, we're all about making these critters pay for themselves, even the dead ones! If you happen to like the idea of this system but lack dead critters, leftover garbage, especially meat scraps would work too, just not as quickly. But we don't have a lot of that, the leftover garden scraps and vegies go to the chix and the leftover meats go to the Bu-Dawgh, with the exception of leftover chicken and turkey, which the barn cats will happily relieve you of.

And the most exciting news of all? I got a heifer last night! This brings my cow total to 4! She hasn't come to live with us yet, but hopefully soon. You know what this means? a constant source of calves as I have a friend with an awesome bull, and an almost constant source of milk and cream for drinking, cheeses, yogurts, butter and ice creams. All organic and natural and everybody with no antibiotics or growth hormones, no pasteurization or homogenization, nothin' but milk, grass fed, right from the cow! Life is great!!

Tonight? more garden work and more chicken pen work, it's supposed to rain, so that will put a halt to the haying, temporarily. And if it rains too hard, there is the hayloft that needs to be organized before we bring in any more hay! The sound of rain on the tin roof of the barn is just one of the best sounds ever!

I love the farm, can you tell? Now, to make it pay a salary that I can live with....

Picking Strawberries and other Farm Stuff

So, the neighbor girl (queen of everything that needs to be done but I don't have time to do it, and she will do it for a very decent price) has offered to pick strawberries for me. This is waaaay cool! She's so willing (12 year olds still value the good old fashioned quarter a pound concept!) to do this for me. And, to boot, for another 10 cents a pound, she'll wash them, and get rid of the green stuff that seems to be attached to the ends of them, otherwise known as stems.
This is HUGE! I love strawberries. LOVE them! Fresh in cereal, frozen in pancakes in the winter, strawberry shortcake, hubby loves strawberry ice cream (homemade of course, still need to look into finding a small one family cow), and of course, the cream on top of the strawberry pile, strawberry jam!
So tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn (literally, she will start about 6 am!) she'll pick me all the berries she wants to pick. As many as she wants, and I'll gladly pay her to do that for me. Not only do I not like to pick berries (skeeters and all) I have Dad Duty this week, so just can't do it myself. And this will most likely be the last week to do this kind of thing.
I anticipate 50 lbs or better. That's approximately 60 bucks or so for picked, washed and de-green stuff-ed berries, all ready to be cut and frozen. YUMM! Well worth the money! And if she can con her cousin into helping her, I'll be that much further ahead!
Not only do I love all things berry (not just strawberries), I also love to make strawberry jam on a cold winter day. Oooh, the cabin smells soooooo good! They (I love this, "THEY" means anyone who is someone other than me!) say that strawberries are the ultimate summer treat. But definitely a year round deal if you do it right.
My strawberries are not doing well enough yet to pick a bunch of them, but there are so many U-Pick operations around here that it's all good.

So back to the current stuff. Weeding the garden, planting more seeds (due mostly to lack of time and weather weirdness rather than season) and last night we finally went to the neighbors house to re-borrow back our pto driven posthole digger. This item is way cool! Attach it to the back of the tractor and zingo-zango! Instant post hole!
This is a definite plus when we're burying posts for whatever needs posts. Hubby can dig a hole faster than I can bury a post! Currently these are for the new chicken area. We're fencing in a HUGE area for my chickens, it will be sooo nice to have them in an area all to themselves. Scavenged a lot of page wire from a scrap heap so I think I have enough of that, might need to get some chicken wire to wrap around the bottom, and some for the top of the pen, but other than that, we'll be good. This project will definitely see completion this weekend. And now that I've said that, but no, I'm motivated on this one. Gotta have this done before we leave for our vacation/family reunion in just a bit over 2 weeks!!

This time of year, it's all about the farm/homestead. Growing things (both plants and critters), building things and harvesting things to make it through the winter. During any lull in the crazy busy farm life, we spend time getting the wood pile built up, also for the winter. It's tough to find the wood pile when it's buried under 4 foot of snow, so that's best done ahead of time. This past fall, we were fortunate enough to get access to a state land tract that had just been cut. After they took the trees that were big enough to be sawed into lumber there was scraps, just perfect for the woodstove, so we spent a lot of time cutting and hauling that mess home, it will be dry and seasoned for this winter, and I hope to have it all piled and a roof over it also this summer. That's pretty low on the priority list, a roof over the wood pile, but we'll definitely get it cut and dry piled and enough brought up to the house to last us most of the winter.

Not much new on the knitting front, I continue to knit when I walk to work, which isn't nearly enough. I only walk when the weather is good (takes about an hour to get to work), and then when I don't need to go anywhere during the day. If the weather is nice or semi nice, or heck even if it's raining sometimes, I'll ride my bike, but walking is my first option. I can combine 3 and sometimes 4 tasks that way. I get to work, get my exercise, get some knitting done, and at the end of the day, I'll start walking home with my dad, and The Mouth will leave her work in time to pick him up on the way, so he gets his exercise in also! Tell me that's not a good thing!

I need to get into the habit of bringing My Awesome Camera That I Bought Myself For My Birthday A Few Summers Ago along with me, there is some awesome photo ops during my walks and trapses around the yard.

Tonight, after our taco night out (because we do have to go out once in awhile) we'll dig more post holes and start fencing. During any lull in that, I need to sharpen the blades on my mower. Hubby found me the coolest mower at a yard sale last year. There's no motor, just push it. Works pretty well, it's hard to push so it needs to be oiled a bit, and definitely sharpened, but it's good exercise as well as not using any gas! That's the best part, and it's quiet! And if I rake some of the grass clippings, my chickens love them!
One of these days I'll write about my automatic self feeding chicken system! Kind of yucky, but they love it!

This is my latest project. After firmly promising myself, making myself pinky swear (that was fun to watch), threatening myself with eye injury and generally telling everyone in the world (just to keep myself on track) that I would start NO OTHER project until my pretty yellow cable sweater was done, I started another project. Before the pretty yellow cable sweater was done.
But there's a good reason here. They are baby booties, ie.. simple to knit, fast to complete and I need them next Saturday (10 days or so). These are so cute. They use suede yarn (I'm using Lion Brand) because that's what our LYS (aka Walmart) had and although they're supposed to be for a little girl, the "girliest" color they had was kind of an eggplant purple. I also got a cactus green color, maybe I can get 2 pair made. If not, I'll make the other ones for my Monkey.
They use short row shaping, not hard although they call for a size 4 needle on a bulky weight yarn.

My Wings advance to the final round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The first game of that round is Sat. night in Detroit. Go Wings!!

STILL don't have my garden tilled up, but I got a bit more inspiration today. And it will happen this weekend, our frost date is June 1 anyway so still have time. I have a spot in my yard that is very shady and needs a lot of help. I found a wildflower mix for shady areas, so after I get my garden tilled up and hopefully get some seeds and plants in, I'll plant my wildflowers. That will pretty up that little area. Also have to fix the faucet on that side of the house, either that or get a longer hose. The only outside faucet I have that works is down by the barn.
The forcast calls for close to 80 this weekend! woo hoooo!! I'll get lots of stuff done outside, plus some nice bike riding with my brother who's coming in from Colorado for the long weekend.

Found an article on Mother Earth News the other day on a water pump that is hooked up to a bicycle frame. Apparantly 15 mins on the bike will pump enough water for a family of 4 for 2 days. That's pretty cool. Also found an idea for chickens in the garden there.

Soooooo many projects, not enough time! Indoor projects that are against a deadline: get the baby booties done. Outdoor projects: those stinky yucky baby chix and turks that are currently in my bathroom HAVE GOT to be put outside. Today it's about 35 deg. Just haven't had time, nor has the weather really cooperated to get that little project finished. And the kicker? I've spent more time trying to figure out how and when to do this than it will actually take. Also got to get the rototiller running and get the garden tilled up. I really want to get stuff planted this weekend while it's so warm, and get my pool cleaned out, and make my strawberry beds, and paint the barn, and, and, and......

Life's not boring, that's for sure!

Wednesday Night Nothing-ness!

I got nothing for you today. So let's take a wander around the Little Brain and see what pieces we can pick up, shall we? After all, leaving pieces around for Little Brain to trip over is not exactly the recipe for anything good to happen. At all.

First of all, the sweater picture you see is a project that is definitely on my to do list. I actually got to pet the sweater, I tried not to drool over it, and the shop owner, Peg, from Tawas Bay Yarn Company graciously allowed me to photograph it. Not saying it will be the next project, just that it will definitely be on the list.

Let's see, here's another piece: Little Brain and I went to our favorite store last night after work, Tractor Supply, to aquire little buddies for our sole hatchling. They didn't have any meat birds, have to special order those, but they did have lots and lots of cute bronze turkeys and "miscellaneous straight run chickens". So of course, we had to buy our daily supply of cute and picked up 9 "miscellaneous straight run chickens" and 3 bronze turkeys. Just because. I didn't really need them, didn't really want them, but Little Brain won out on this one, they had to come home with us just to keep the sole hatchling company.

Awhile back, on ebay, I bid on and won 25 blueberry seedlings, which arrived in perfect health and as soon as I planted them, died. This was my fault, totally, as it was too cold to plant them outside so I stuck them in a few buckets of compost, and didn't water them enough. I wrote back to the original seller to ask if I could purchase more and he very very kindly offered to replace them for the cost of shipping. I won't do this, it was my fault, totally, not his, so I will send him what I originally sent him for the 25 plus shipping and expect in return another batch of gorgeous blueberry seedlings. How great is that? I've had a lot of good stuff happen with ebay and a lot of bad stuff too, but this guy went above and beyond and deserves an A+++++++++++++ rating. Here is a link to his "stuff". Seriously, this guy rocks! http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQfgtpZ1QQfrppZ25QQsassZjohnnynoseQQssPageNameZMERCQ5fVICQ5fRCRXQ5fPr4Q5fPcNQ5fQ5fSI

Along the same lines, kind of, in a berry kind of way, Tractor Supply was clearancing out some strawberry plants and I scored 30 of them for 15.00! I also got more tomato seeds that need to be started, jalapeno seeds (finally found them), and cilantro seeds. Can you say yummy salsa? Got to get some onion sets too.

Tonight is knit night, and I'll continue to work on granddaughter's sweater. I really have made some progress on it, tonight being knit night AND my Red Wings play a late game I should get a good 4 or 5 hours to knit. That ought to be good for a couple of rows anyway! Then tomorrow I'll post pics of both the sweater and my new birdies. I love baby birdies!

Go Wings! Take that Colorado Brother! (cause they are playing the Colorado Avalanche, in case you're just tuning in and are, GASP, not a hockey fan!)

Announcing our New Bouncing Baby.....

This baby started pecking his way into world last night around 11. Here are some pics.





There is only the one chick so far so tonite after work I'll go to the farm store and get my meat chix. This one is an egg layer, a Rhode Island Red.

It's kind of discourging in a way. All of these seeds get started and all of these eggs get collected and put in the incubators and you wait. And start more seeds and collect more eggs and wait. Finally you hear the tiniest of chirps coming from inside one of the eggs, or a seedling pops through the soil and all the wait has been worth it.. So tonight I will go to the farm store and get my meat chickens and hubby wil roll his eyes cause I'm the farmer, not him. And I'll set up shop in the guest bedroom with the feeders and waterers and heat lamps cause its still too cold for them outside and hubby will shake his head but I love this life and he knows it so its all good..

In a few weeks i'll start pestering him cause it's time to get the garden worked up and last years compost moved to wherever I need it to be. With the cost of food skyrocketing, my garden will be at least 4 times the size it was last year with every available flower bed turned into spots for asparagus, strawberries, grapes and blueberries along with the staples of beans, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, corn, squash, punkins ...

I will be a busy gal this summer, with all the canning, freezing and processing but I love this life. Then comes haying season, with the 18 hour days on the tractors, wagons and up in the dusty loft. The exhaustion is overwhelming but it's such a good, satisfying exhaustion. The next day starts all over again. So tonight after work I'll go to the farm store and maybe come home to find that another chick has pecked his way into my life! I love this life! Spring on the farm is the best place to be.

And, to top it all off, my Red Wings won again last night. One more win against the Avalanche will launch them into the finals. Tomorrow night! Go Wings!!