Look what was under all that snow....

Lots of pictures today. I let the ladies out around 7 o'clock to frolic in the grass.

Heres todays haul, there was remnants of another blue egg all over the other ones,  it didn't make the stampede evidently. 

A few of the girls set up shop under the bird feeder like it was a buffet.

Somebody seen from afar and she came sprinting towards the group.

Here are how the tomatoes are going.

Leeks and onions.

This is how I have the tomatoes heated in the evening, I have the heater under the bench with some of the slats taken out so the heat can come up through. I wrap up the lights and keep it all enclosed so the heat stays in good.

Franke needed a good head scratching before I left. And when I did, there was a full blown party happening at the bird feeder.

Look at the buds on the forsythia, I can't wait to see it bloom. My tulips and daffodils are shooting up also, and the hyacinth look like artichoke coming out of th ground.

And heres the best part of the day, husband put my nice wheels back on my car, that means we are swearing off the snow and salt until next december!

Repairs and a bit of spring weather

We took a walk on the rail trail on Friday, it was about 65 degrees with a nice breeze. This yard was right on the trail and as we were coming up to it you could see a blanket of purple.

 

I made a quick make-shift area for the chickens to hang in that wasn't wet, and to keep them out of the run while we redid the roof. (Will post pics of that soon). I'm pretty sure they were enjoying the green grass snacks. And Mabel was enjoying the treats the chickens left behind, yuck. This time we used chicken wire, hopefully this will leave bigger holes that the snow will fall through next winter instead of sit on. We shall see. 

My fantastic husband made me a broadfork this week! This tool retails for like 200 bucks, which is way too much for me to be spending hence the asking of the husband for favors. You use this in your beds to loosen the soil and mix in organic matter that you add to the top. It's better than using a tiller every year because you aren't smashing all the worms that you work so hard to get into your soil. 

I used a tiller the first year to establish the beds, and I actually double dug a couple. I started with the double digging and quickly found that I would rather do just about anything on the planet than that. I was actually seriously thinking about how much I would have to pay someone to finish them. I read about double digging in John Seymours' book 'The guide to self sufficiency', which is most fantastic, that is why I thought that I just had to do it that way.... Then we bought a tiller to finished up. Anyways, with the broadfork you stick the tines into the soil and then step on the rail and rock it back a little bit just to loosen things up and get things mixed in. I can't wait to try it out. 

Here's a pic that shows how we added on to the coup in the fall. I painted it green because I had it on hand and needed to get something on it before it rained, I planned to decide what to do with it over winter so I could paint in the spring. Well here its almost spring and i'm still not sure what I want to do. I was thinking just to paint it white and windows black to match the original portion, but now I am wanting to paint the whole thing a different color, only problem is that I will have to paint the siding. You can get Behr ultra that has the primer built in and you can use it on siding, i'm just not so sure if I want to try that or not. I'm afraid that it will flake off. The ghetto bags of leaves leaning against the coup were for winter insulation to keep the nasty wind from blowing underneath.

I moved most of the tomato sprouts out of their baggies and into the flats. They hadn't all sprouted so I will have to plant those late comers within the next few days. Then I moved the baby flats into the greenhouse, I have a space heater under the bench and wrapped plastic up over the flats and the lights to keep the heat in. Last year I had this whole setup in the kitchen, with the peeps in a huge cardboard box, you know, where the dirt bike was at, I guess we like having weird crap in our kitchen. I wish I had a baby wood burner in my greenhouse, I have seen that in some setups. That would be cool and cheap! 

Here are some of the ladies, they were all interested in the laces of my sandals, they must have been setting off their worm radar.

When I get up in the morning and husband is sleeping in this is what happens to my side. Rough life she has.

Birds were chirping this morning

Today was a balmy day in Ohio, in the 50's, which means you don't have to look to hard to find flip flops and shorts. I was on my way out to the chickens when I decided that since we have a bunch of rain on the way I maybe should get the gourds out of the garden and let them finish drying in the greenhouse.

These are some nasty gourds. I wiped a lot of the outer skin off that held all the mold and wet leaves, but they still smelled. Smelled enough that when I tossed a broken one to Mabel she thought enough of it to rub her neck in the guts that plopped out. And that means a lot, she saves the neck rubbing for the especially putrid stank. 

I'm sure that I will be shuffling these around when the seedlings are in full swing. There ended up being about 16 broken/ rotten where they lay/ I dropped on accident- gourds. And about 100 are left now in the greenhouse. I hope they all make it. There weren't too many that were all the way dry where you could hear the seeds rattling inside. There were quite a few that you could shake and tell they were full of guts and liquid.

Since it was so nice I thought I would let the ladies out early and put them back before dark. Usually I let them out about an hour before dark and they make their way back in without going too far. Well over winter they must have grown some courage because they almost sprinted to the outskirts of the yard like right now. So after a bit I had to round them up and get them back in. Mabel decided she wanted to play with one with teeth, not good. She chased her for a minute or so making her fly around until she almost turned into fresh dinner with a side of feathers, time out.

Our yard turns into a swamp in the spring slash anytime it rains. We have like a foot of dirt and then it is straight clay. I have tossed around the idea of building a moat complete with drawbridge at the driveway, we'll see about that, I want to screen in the back deck this year so that may be put on the back burner. This is the slop mess in front of the greenhouse door. 

These are my bad uggs, they used to be good ones a long time ago. The first time I wore them to get eggs and you get some chicken poo in the tread, well, it's all down hill from there. 

The Kidron auction

Saturday 9am March 6th

This is where the buggies park, the horses go into the white barn to the left. 

If you arrived in a vehicle you park at a church or school down the road and you get  taxied to the auction in this snazzy getup pulled by a big john deere tractor.

Some fantastic items up for sale.

You would think that these would go to scrap instead?

This looks like it could be fun, actually I think it already was to someone, the roll cage was a bit bent.

This little wheelbarrow seemed out of place. Not that those cement animals look like they are in the right place either!

This is where they keep the animals when they have the livestock auction.

The horses whiskers were frozen it was so cold. Who knows how far they had come from, they looked like they were ready for a break.

Good doughnuts. Even though I was wanting a french waffle....

After the auction we went to Lehmans. Its a cool place to go, Saturdays are super busy but don't try to show up on Sunday ok, they are closed. They have a lot of cool stuff. It's not an all amish made joint like you may expect. But they have a lot of things that you can't easily buy elsewhere, like things needed for putting up foods, tons of kitchen things, cheese making and different gardening type things. They have a super assortment of non electric items (duh). Lots of gift ideas too. You can order a catalog from them or go online to their site http://www.lehmans.com/

Jam and dirtbikes

So on Tuesday when I got home from work I was reading the harvest board over at GardenWeb while I ate my turkey soup. People were going on about jam and I got interested to make some. I tend to do things spur of the moment so why not some jam? So, I ran to wal-mart and got some jars and other items and made some strawberry jam! The strawberries we had picked locally last year and had them in the freezer. 

Heres the strawberries in the pot with the sugar, lemon juice and pectin. I blended up the strawberries in the food processor before cooking because I don't like chunky fruit pieces. It was like a nice strawberry smoothie, minus the rum.

After it had been boiling a bit.

In the jars now and boiling in the pot. The water almost came over the sides.

Done!

About 3 pounds of berries got me 10 jars of jam! I think it turned out super for my first time. I have some various other berries in the freezer but not enough in quantity to make all one kind, I may do a blend to use them up. I copied a recipe for chocolate raspberry jam, this sounds like something that my grandma would love, I will have to try it. Maybe a mothers day gift.

Overall this made me wish that I would have tried it sooner, it seems like such an awesome thing for gifts and such. It wasn't nearly as hard as you would think either. I may just try to do some more things like this instead of just freezing everything I put up.

Meanwhile, in the midst of canning happiness the UPS man delivered my new phone, yay! :)

I was going to use the extra money from my paycheck tomorrow to get a couple of replacement parts for my t-tape watering system and possibly a worm bin for my kitchen. Better luck next time. I had to pay a deductible to get my replacement so thats how that story ends.

Last night I started my tomatoes, eggplant and rosemary, and I took the celery out of the baggie and moved it to a flat. The amish paste toms that I picked from territorial are on backorder so I am canceling that and I picked up 2 other packets from Home Depot, aka work. I got san marzano and big mama, both paste types for sauce.

Here are the celery sprouts.

I sprayed the paper towel with water really well before trying to pick the seedlings off of it. I think that helped the roots not break as easily.

Here they are planted up in seed mix, I will use potting soil when I plant up from the flats.

Here are the baggies. I used coffee filters this time instead, I read they work better, don't fall apart as easily. I had some on hand so why not.

The final selections on tomatoes this year are- San marzano, big mama, brandywine, peacevine cherry, zebra cherry, yellow pear, japanese trifele black, persimmon, tiger-like and old german. All are organic or heirloom except for the big mamas. 

Last year one of my favorites was the trifele black, they are so pretty and unusual and the taste is pretty terrific. The only other one that I had last year also was the yellow pear, I like the mellow flavor and the color in salads, also great to take to work for a snack. Even if people think you are strange for snacking on -gasp!- veggies. I have planted pretty much all different varieties for the last 3 years now, I am getting it down to what will work best for me. I want a good blend for sauce and also good ones for salsa and just snacking. I am a tomato lover. 

So this is what I have been doing the last few days, I am going to move the alliums out to the greenhouse tonight I think, if I can open up a spot for Franke to get in and out without leaving the door propped open. That lets out all the heat. And for my husband, he is working on his dirt bike so he can ride it on the street to work and such. What was that?.....Where is he working on it you ask? 

In the kitchen of course!