Rudbeckia weeds loved by chickens, garden in April and hostas

Our Cherokee Rose bush will have white flowers in a few days.  This is what our goat was trying to eat behind the fence the other day.  When it blooms the flowers will be so fragrant.

  

Our little red chickens have been loving the 'rudbeckia' weed flowers I have been feeding them.  They are giving us four to six eggs per day, little brown ones and once in a while a bigger one.

 

 This is what they are eating.  I have called it 'white aster' in the past, but the Tennessee weed gallery I found a few weeks ago called it a relative of the black-eyed susan, or rudbeckia plant.

and this is what they look like from a bit back.. they are behind the area I tilled outside, so they are going to stay there and be good chicken fodder when I need a handful of something they can eat.

What the garden looks after my work yesterday

The 'Blue Angel' hosta

we have several of these coming up

The Frances Williams hosta, it will get a lot bigger!  

And Esme's lambs ear plant behind it.

The Blue Angel always 'gets up early' in the Spring.  The Frances Williams starts to come in behind it, about now, and the Aureomarginata won't wake up until the first week of June or so... and I am not sure why but it just is always a late riser.

Esme's dianthus plant from the Amish greenhouse, still strong!

My mom used to call the perennial version of this (biennial, I've actually learned) 'sweet william'.  That was in Minnesota.  We grew them around the side of the house in town, with lilies of the valley, blue grape hyacinth and tiger lilies.  She had bluebells on the other side of the house, and red Appledoorn tulips.  I was always so fascinated by gardens, even back then.

So this is actually a biennial - and then it reseeds itself every year from the first plant, and becomes 'almost a perennial'.  It is a fascinating little plant.  The edges can be fringed, like this one, or smooth - depending on the variety.  It can come in a wide array of pinks, reds, whites and purple combinations.

garden between the rain storms

 I planted some gladiolus bulbs and nasturtiums and morning glories here.

 This is the hosta garden.  I planted some tiger lily bulbs near the white post.

 Another shot of the tree in the garden .. still trying to find out exactly what it is.
Update : Through some help on Gardenweb it is a Prunus serotina, or a Wild Black Cherry tree.  

My white and green hosta is beginning to come up.  I am glad to see it.  I think this is a full two weeks behind the other one?  I'll have to remember that so I'm not so worried later.. I wonder if it is the age or size of the hosta or the variety that affects how early it comes up?

Antenna Adventures and cats

Mark's latest antenna design to replace the last 'bisquare' that he had up.  He hopes to get more UHF wavelengths on this one.  Esme helped him build it a few days ago and I helped him break out the extension ladder and attach it to the pole.

In other news, both of our teenage cats are at the vet today.  I felt like a mom leaving her kids at preschool... gotta let go and they'll do okay.  Mark will decide if he is going to pick them up when they are done or let them stay there the night.

My hosta seeds came in.  I'm probably going to start them in three or four days, not right now  I am hoping several things that are currently in the greenhouse area can go outside before then.  I also did some mending at my table - Esme is outgrowing so many things I need to take a bag and put it in the clothes donation.  Other things she has ripped holes in and they probably would have fit her but I couldn't get to putting knee patches or cutting off for shorts before now. 

I am thinking about the best way to make a large mostly open wire basket.  I might practice some on the dahlia buckets they need cages around them and I would like to try some overlap techniques to see if they will hold etc.  There is a metal basket at work being sold that I think wouldn't be too hard to make the sides but the bottom is obviously a cast grid.  Mark has talked about us making more crafts with Esme this summer for her to try to sell at the flea market, woodworking projects, maybe these baskets would be a good project, too.  She did so well with helping on the antenna, she is getting more confidence in her skills.

Greenhouse progress

 I have moved a CFL light to the greenhouse area to help some of the plants get more light.    I still have some not shown here that are in another windowsill,  but not germinated yet.  The cabbage and several of the tomatoes (also elsewhere) are really needing to go outside.  The Hosta is even a little bigger and/or spread out than when I bought it - it should go out when the ground is not mud, too.  The Hosta is an Aurea Marginata, and it should have purple flowers eventually.  It will be a nice companion to the Frances Miller hosta that is in the garden now (blooms white, has green leaves tinged with chartreuse).

There are three or four jalapeno peppers that are getting second leaves.  The split ivies are doing 'ok'.. I don't see immediate die off on any of them yet.  I can hope.  That Ivy is called 'Asterisk', Hedera helix.

This is the apple sapling, from Esme's homeschool project after we watched the documentary on how plants reproduce and learned that apples from seed are nothing like their parent plants usually.. and we decided to try saving some seeds anyway.  This is the second one we've tried - as the seeds were still in the fridge from the first one and the first one died unexpectedly one day (just leaves fell off and poof, gone?)...  I thought maybe it didn't get enough light, and that the tiny petunia and forget-me-not seeds might benefit, too from a more direct light instead of reaching for the window all day and stretching their stems.  So I'm trying three to four hours a day of this CFL to see if it perks them up more.

The Frances Williams hosta in the garden is coming up pretty this year.
The hosta seeds have not yet come in the mail, and I haven't gotten my basil planter made yet.

We decided that Callie and Doxie cats are about eighteen months old, probably born in December of 2015.  They are both (hopefully both) getting fixed tomorrow.  Their mother Minion and Pumpkin are next in line, but it might take a while to get them done, as they graced us with more kittens about two months ago.  I'm still a bit embarrassed by Doxie's name now that I remember what it means - but I called her that (and her twin, Dorrie, who died) from the start so it can't be changed now.  Sometimes I call her Dox for short.

 Callie cat, with her one little tiny white spot on her spine

I've set up a hard two days for us.. getting the two youngers in the house tonight and penned up for the night and all the running back and forth to the vet tomorrow.. but hope we can get it done.  Doxie has been spending almost all her time outside so she will be the difficult one.  Callie is curled up in my sewing chair.  The other day I tried to patch a pair of pants for Esme and I had to remove her from said place -- I had to pick up the cushion with the cat (claws dug in) and set it on the floor and wait for a good minute for her to realize I was not moving it back.  Then  she got up and stalked away.  *sheesh*  Calico cats!