Baby chicks and our dog Charlotte

 

Charlotte is still quite happy to have babies - although she whines when we check on them.  They are eating and drinking - the light and heater are keeping it about 80 degrees or a little less during the night and it is warming up during the day.  They are active and seem happy.  We still think we got five Americanas (as ordered) and one of something else.  The Americanas were also supposed to be all hens.  We'll see.

I need to kick myself up and go fix a hose outside and then drag a bag of new dirt to the main garden and put it into the beds there.  There will probably be another frost here before March is out.  I have ordered some seeds from Sandhill Preservation center a week or so ago and they should be getting here sometime... trying to keep my fingers from itching to buy other seeds - I do have some kale and mesclun greens to plant, and have also went and harvested a little bit of dandelion green from that bed I had gotten that started in a few years ago.  None of the italika rossa (italian red-stemmed) dandelions have survived, but the other native ones I put seeds in there from have - and I did that so I would have a clean source to enjoy some of that in the Spring.  I also have two bean plants that I sprouted last week and they need to go out in one of the beds.  They are 'Alice Whiting' green / dry dual-purpose beans I ordered a few years ago and have kept replanting.

 

 

Eggs and lentils

 

We finally got the first egg of 2026 - they hadn't laid any, or the opossums had eaten the rare one they had laid, for many months.  We had went all around the fence tightening things and putting bricks up against the fence any place it was loose.  Perhaps that has helped, some.  The day after the first egg I would have been surprised to see even one more, and there were two eggs that day.  We are still looking at getting more chickens, hopefully more like Speck, our golden chicken above - which I've asked the internet and been told that she was probably something crossed with a Crested Cream Legbar, to become the Olive Egger she was sold to us as.  She lays the more blue egg in the bunch, and we've gotten two of those the last two days and a more green one, as well.  

 

We will need to bring the brooder inside, it has sat outside since last summer but it looks in good condition - the lock and door might need to be looked at to see if there is any rust etc.  And we need to fix the footer barrel it used to sit in.  This is the big handmade cage Mark and Esme made from hardware cloth and a plastic 55 gallon barrel for our hamster and rat years ago but has been used as a brooder for two sets of chicks, as well, since then. It still might be a week or more before we actually look to buy chicks, but then we will be ready and not in a hurry one night to make a place for babies.

the first eggs

Esme and I were experimenting with lentils - red lentils a few weeks ago and I had her try some of the brown lentil vegetable mix I made last night.  She said it was nice - and that she couldn't really tell that much of a difference between the two types, spiced up as I had them.

 The recipe last night was :

1 cup of brown lentils, rinsed

2 cups of water

bit of olive oil, celery seed, black pepper 

minced clove of garlic, and a bit of minced ginger

chopped raw carrots from the freezer

bell peppers and onion from the freezer

half a can of diced tomatoes with italian spices

and after it had boiled for a while and was about half-absorbed, I added a teaspoon of paprika

 I served that beside a typical packet of Spanish rice, so she would have something else to eat if she really didn't like the lentils, but that made a nice combination, too - three quarters Spanish rice to 1/4 lentils mix.  The last time I made Biryani spiced red lentils for her with garlic and ginger and carrots - I served it over rice.  That is supposed to make a complete protein, so it is very good practice.

Mark also made two hamburger patties and split the second one in half so we put that with our meal and French bread.  With meat being so expensive I want to make sure Esme learns to cook the way I did in college and can stretch things and keep dry goods like rice and lentils.  Also, it is a good way to add vegetables and she will eat a lot of them prepared this way.

I put the other half of the lentils mix into a clean quart jar and put a lid and a ring on it, and when it was cooled some, I put it in the fridge to blend up into lentil soup for my lunches this week.  I ate the pea soup all last week with extra vegetables and spices each day and it was some of the best soup I've had in a long time. 

I have a few beans coming up in the windowsill to plant outside when the first frost has passed - and I have been upping my levels on the languages in Turkish and Chinese, German and French.  I haven't touched the Lithuanian all week... a break here and there helps to know what you really know.  Just like the German, it's been years since I actually did many lessons, and I had to re-orient my grammar in it which I have had that specific issue with it before. 

mid February tools

 

This is called a 'hoedag', it is a gardening tool that is a hoe on one side and a set of tines on the other.  I have been calling it, in my own mind, some sort of conglomeration of 'hoedak' or 'hoedar' and today, I decided to go look up what it was actually called.  Surprisingly, I have not just made up a name and used it (as I have done with some things all my life, as a way of keeping it organized in my own head) - but it really is a 'hoedag'.  Where did I pick up that name?  It certainly wasn't on any of the tools when I bought them - I remember looking, and even asking myself at the time - what do I CALL this?  Unlike my hori-hori knife, which I also use so often in the garden, and use the name from what was on it when I received it.

It is mid February, and the ice age has ended, at least for now.  I hope for all year.  In those hopes, I put a small patch of turnip seed out in the front garden with this hoedag this morning.  I had given some chickweed that was growing by the front steps to the chickens yesterday and watched them run around and peck at each other to get some.  They looked so miserable and wet this morning in the rain, that I decided it was worth some of my co-op 'old but might sprout' seed even at these temperatures to plant a little something - just to ask Spring to keep rolling along to warm.

 

 Mark had made a good pork roast with all the spices a few days ago (Esme helped grind those up and measure them), and we made stir fry with it.  I bought a new rice cooker a few weeks ago with a gift certificate, and it finally came in the mail.  I think I like it - but I want to see if it will cook lentils as well as rice.  The book has nothing about that - but I've seen some things on line.  I also wonder if it will cook soaked adzuki beans - if so, that would be 'golden'.

 

the sauce for the stir fry, as usual : 1 tbsp brown sugar, bit olive oil, about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water (I often add more later), 2 splashes of soy sauce and one splash of balsamic vinegar, and about a half a tablespoon or bit more of prepared brown mustard - mix that all together and put in with the vegetables and pre-cooked meat, and when it has all come to a good cooked mixture, add the recently cooked (but not just cooked) rice, a bit more water and when that has heated back to sizzling - make a hole in the middle and crack one egg.  Let the white cook for a moment, then drag the egg through the entire mixture and put the lid on to steam while turning off the heat.  Serve immediately.  This had zucchini, red bell pepper and onions in it, as well as the pork roast and rice cooked in the rice cooker the night before.

 

 And before we go out to town today, I am making some soup.  Mark had given me a large rind of fat in the refrigerator off of his pork roast two nights ago, and it was time to do something with it.  I put a pot of split peas on the stove with olive oil, celery seed, and pulverized brown mustard seed in it, as well as the fat rind.  In a couple of hours I can blend it up and put it in quart glass jars to use for the week.  Pease porridge in the pot, nine days old - not quite, in glass jars put up in the fridge shelf :)

This is the little mortar and pestle that my mother-in-law gave me a few years ago.  I use it to grind up seeds like these in small batches to use in cooking.  Whole brown mustard seed, from an Indian cooking spice kit I bought years ago, and did not have too much use for it particularly, until I began grinding it up in small batches. 

for languages lately, I've done Spanish, German, Turkish and Lithuanian.

I had the opportunity to try to speak to someone in Spanish, they asked me if I could say whatever it was en espanol etc...  but all I could think of was half German, half English, and something else in Spanish that had not meant the right thing in the past.  For actual usability, I really do need to take some face-to-face Spanish lessons covering things I actually need to say.  Maybe some day here.

March 15th Square One Garden

 

5 eggs today, and some daffodils from a few days ago

The garden doesn't look like much right now.  I haven't tilled - I've barely cleared last year's dead grass and leaves and started to uncover the things that are there.  So, this is Square One.

In case you're wondering - the garden gets beautiful come May and June.  But it always has to start somewhere.  I love to look at the difference the months make.  It reminds me what is possible when I get out there and it looks like it does today.  Take a look at this 2014 garden post or the bounty in this 2012 produce post.  I'm looking at some more of that two-tone Zephyr squash.  It always did so well.

It is 43 degrees outside, and I am really feeling the itch to get away from this Coronavirus news and work in my garden.  I've been planting in my indoor greenhouse, but at some point I know the cold crops have to go OUT, and the garden needs to be cleared and tilled.  It is planning to rain all next week, too - which means it will be too wet to do anything.  It is a tough call between not getting sick with a normal cold and getting the garden out....

Although it is cold, I thought - I have these thermal clothes for riding in the post office route, so let's put them to work.  I took out the cabbage seedlings and pea seedlings to get some real sunlight for about 15 minutes.  Then I went out and cleared a few little bricked-in sections with the hoe.  I dug up a bit of soil from the base of some trees behind the garden and mixed it into the second pea area.  I did that last year as well, and ended up with some beautiful results.  I've planted peas already along the pole garden fence, just a few days ago before the rain.

 I did a very very minimal corn and beans garden last year, and a few tomatoes.  I put up this fence to keep the deer out of it.  It was a bad time last year - the deer and rabbits were eating almost anything they could find because the weather was just so fluctuating.  It is doing the same this Spring, as well, and I might have to makeshift measures again to keep them out.

I was looking through the garden the other morning and I scared two large deer nosing around the back fence.  They barked and ran away looking back at me like 'you're not supposed to be here yet!'

I also heard Canada Geese down at the lake, a mile down the road.  They were very noisy and I could hear them flying back and forth across the swamp to the dam and back again.  I will have to make some time to get down there and see what is going on soon.

 the goat and our chickens.  The chickens have really been enjoying all of the little bits of green I bring to them out of the garden.

 This is apparently kale that overwintered in my flower bed.  I have read that the flowers are edible, and it might also reseed itself if left to its own devices.  I'll just plant more kale around it.

 Hard to tell but this is the same beautiful area as in one of the posts above.  There is asparagus coming up in there, and lemon balm, and a stray daffodil that helps me know where the gladiolus is going to come up later.  I need to clear all of the bricks so they are visible and dig in the three beds that will be radishes and kale and cabbage, carrots and herbs.  I had a pepper plant and two tomato plants in here last year, as well.  It will look so much better after it is cleared and truly started on.

 the raised bed we planted with the Jones and Irene a few years ago.  I cleared out a lot of weeds out of the foreground one, and I know that lemon basil and purslane will grow in there as the weather gets warmer.  I usually put some cold crops in as well and a few carrots.  Last year I put six jalapeno plants and radishes in the very front area and had jalapenos all summer.

The back section also has strawberries and an Amish dianthus plant that Esme bought.  It has kept coming back as a perennial and has beautiful two-toned flowers.  I also had arugula and kale in there.

 the white daffodils with peach centers, and a bed I am digging to put Good King Henry and Sorrel in.

 the viburnum (snowball) bush.  The goat was munching on it the other day when she broke her string - but we got her repositioned away from it now.

pole garden where I have planted peas against the fence.

Almanac work today 

conditions: 43 degrees, light rain expected

----------------------------------------------------------

dug out round brick with fence in main garden (old snow pea fence), added forest soil

weeded one half of the raised bed

dug out and prepared new brick bed by white daffodils for sorrel

planted sorrel seed in six rows, 3 inches apart

transplanted cucumber seedlings in house, planted more seed

seed started lemon basil (1 pot) and red marrow squash (1 pot) and blue hubbard squash (1 pot)

tried to save garlic bulbs in indoor greenhouse, will see if they grow

aired cabbage seedlings outside for 15 minutes

planted clover seed over area outside chicken yard and in all walkways in the main garden

day in Jackson, dentist, mandolin

We've had a long day to Jackson and back.  Esme had a dental appointment, and she gets very anxious.. but she did well.  And we're 'ok' with the exam for the next 6 months!  She has a tooth growing in 'over' a baby tooth but they think it will all work out okay... if not, then we will look at it again then.

We got some balsawood planes at the hobby store (and yes, I got a bit of yarn), and Mark and Esme made them to fly at home.  Esme and I went out in the sunshine and took some pics.  The sarvis is blossoming now, and there is some little moss on the cedar wood with red flowers.

We stopped into a music store and Esme bought a harmonica, and I bought a mandolin that was priced at such a deal!  I had one twenty years ago and I never got to do much with it - now I've downloaded a tuner on my tablet and am trying to learn the chords.  Esme has a recorder (like a flute) coming in the mail on Friday.  She wanted a musical hobby - and she asked to stop at the music store to see flutes, but they didn't have any this time of year.  She did buy a harmonica.

 

  

 

And I moved some of the bricks we still had to check the measurements for tomorrow's project.

sarvis bits and a chicken in a doghouse

The sarvis trees are starting to bud out, one of the first signs of Spring.  I also caught our Gennet chicken (English game hen) hanging out in the old doghouse I stuffed with extra straw.  I threw her some seed there.  Daphne dog still holes up there sometimes when it is cold or rainy.  A few other shots just because their patterns and/or colors attracted me.  The chartreuse in the moss is like sunshine on fields of new grass.. which I adore even at a distance.

 There is something about the stone wall to the right and the mirror reflection showing through the ice cracks ... the progression of ice along the right edge.  I didn't capture exactly what I wanted to say - but there is always another day to try.

More sarvis trees.   I do love how the buds in the background blurred to bright spots scattered artistically behind.

 The aforementioned chicken.

sarvis buds

// I have a drawing I did of Mark in our first year of marriage that is sort of Klimt-styled that I want to put up somewhere.  It is not 'much' of a drawing, black ink on white paper, but it has that something that I always remember, some bit of expressive joy.. and I don't have anywhere that is 'right' to hang it up at and it isn't really small and easy to tuck in anywhere.  Have to think about it.  I go hunting for it every once in a while.  It has little fish (of course, its me) swimming out along the edge of it that suggest he is dreaming something.

Garden Project

The days are finally warming up, and we've started a garden project on Facebook called Shepard Lane Garden (because it was easier to spell than our full address...

I bought some little blue irises today and added them to the bulb garden.  The pink hyacinth are coming up, and the lemon balm is fragrant.  I love the way the green shines in the sunlight.

  blue irises

 pink hyacinth

 lemon balm

I also found the two varieties of morning glory I was looking for more seed of.

One is 'Flying Saucers' and the other is 'Blue Star'.

There are 'Alaska' peas germinating in a pot inside.  Once they poke their heads out and get a few sets of good leaves (and the last frost passes next week we hope) I can dig up a section of earth and put up a trellis and still have enough time to get a good harvest.

and top it off with one shameless garden cat begging for attention!

bit

We all went to the Fish Fry carnival yesterday, and had a lot of fun. Esme was very brave and got on several 'big kid' type rides.  She was so sad to see it end...  I have some things to do with plants and seedlings today - and I have started a woven wall hanging type thing that I saw ideas for on Pinterest.  Esme is holding a 'party' in her room again with her boombox, snacks and basically just repeating the same song over and over again... I'm holding off attending, although I received a written invitation :)  There is coffee brewing and I might bring the loom in there.

I put out nasturtiums and bushel gourds yesterday.. it is supposed to rain tonight and all week long after that so I might try to get another row of beans and one of cucumbers out there before it does.

Tilling in Spring

Baby's breath bush under the tree - Mark grabbed a picture of Spring :)

 Daphne dog is growing up... she was born just last summer.

 The cub cadet tiller.  We had to clean vines and weeds out of the tines a few times, but it is going pretty well.

 Esme and the Kitty goat pose for a picture while Esme keeps the goat occupied 

and out of the garden fence.

 First groundbreaking for year.

I notice this is the same dress she was wearing last time we tilled in November... it is one of her favorites.  Yay for outside roll-in-the-mud clothes and for sewing that holds up. I do need to sit down and make her another one like it, as I said on my 'to do' list earlier this week.

 gourd seeds from a very small gourd found hiding in the garden fence

 

Mark came back for a second pass.

We have gladiolus growing where the stick is and around it.

Mark hanging the garden gate back up after we are done for the day

Now to decide where to plant things.  It will be raining much of this week, and we tilled some compost in so it will have some time to warm up.  Mark says we will plant 'some things in this general vicinity'... ha.

Diggers two and tulips

I planted purple tulips yesterday. Esme and Loula were digging outside in the sand, like two peas in a pod. Loula is really living up to her nosy coonhound heritage. The dogwood trees are also blooming now.


diggers, two


hunting stance


dogwood blossoms
This tree had broken in half but was still finding a way to bloom. Mark says if we trim this tree after this season it will have stored enough energy from this year to spring back better from where it has broken.



purple tulips


a brown mushroom