last week in review... in no particular order

last week was exceptionally busy, much more than usual it seemed. here's a brief re-cap of the highlights, and an overview of all the things that we got done.

Dave celebrated his birthday on Saturday. not quite a milestone, but nearly so. the girls helped me make his cake and the icing- chocolate cake with peanut butter icing. and of course, they were more than happy to help blow out the candles.

besides the 9 (nine) cases of mountain dew he received,and 2 magazine subscriptions, i made him this wall hanging. in case you can't read what it says: "hands to work ~ heart to God"

G and i worked on the pathway from where we park to the back porch (mud room) door. some of the rocks were very large and heavy, so we were glad to have the tractor to help with that part of the job.

A and B came out to help after their nap. there are still a few more rocks that I'd like to place, but that will have to wait a few more days. next we'll be working on the pathway from the parking area to the front door. we have an old barn foundation that we can get some more really cool rocks from.

i just love cool rocks, and sometimes i wonder why i didn't grow up to be a geologist!

right where the tractor is parked is where the 2 evergreen trees were until just a few weeks ago. this is where we plan on putting the orchard. we also laid out where we are going to put the apple and peach trees, and G started digging the holes.

Dave and both boys worked hard this week clearing this portion of the hillside. it was formerly covered with dried weeds, brush and wood, as well as a trash pile. (which G and i burned 2 weeks ago.) this hillside will come up all in naturalized (orange) day lillies, so the pressure was on to get it cleaned off in time for the new spring growth, which you can see has already begun.

they also continued the cleanup well to the left of this picture. the plan is to pasture the new pigs in that area. I'll keep you posted on that.

although this is not the greatest picture (it's actually a picture of a photocopy of a picture) this is what our house looked like in 1930. if you look closely, you can see in the lower left hand corner some stems of day lillies getting ready to bloom. while we are not deluding ourselves that we can afford to restore this wonderful old house to its former glory, we are hoping for a reasonable compromise!

i already told you about the cold frames that G built for me. I'm very pleased with them, and already have them filled with pig manure and dirt. i have been excitedly monitoring the temperature inside, and was thrilled to observe that so far, it's been warming up to 84 degrees, and holding a mild temperature of 50 degrees inside at night. we'll see how it continues to do as some of the nights can still get quite chilly. the high tunnel is now over part of the garden, and filled with a wonderful mixture of hay and manure that i hauled over from a farmer friend. Dave will soon cover it with plastic. after the high tunnel has a chance to warm up, and its been tilled, we'll be able to plant our tomatoes in there!

both the broccoli and cauliflower are up. I'm thinking that this will be a gigantic amount of both, so I've started collecting recipes that i think my family will eat. of course we'll freeze alot, and i hope to have some to sell. i also plan on plating a second crop of broccoli and cauliflower, either in July, or later in the high tunnel when the tomatoes are done. these crops will go in the lower garden, and even though I'll be planting either side of the rows with marigolds, there is no guarantee that i will actually harvest any of these plants!

we also bought another greenhouse. (it was the last one that Lowe's had!) there are still many seeds to plant, and it was obvious that we didn't have enough room. the second greenhouse has grow lights, but the "heater" is just a 100 watt bulb on the bottom shelf.

the pigs are getting ginormous, and in fact are not long for this world. while they are certainly not wild or mean, they are very large and aggressive. i was a little hesitant to jump in there with them to measure their girth and length to see how much they might weigh. maybe later this week i can bribe G to do that for me...

meanwhile, i plan on moving them twice a day, instead of just once as we have been doing. that's because i don't have anything better to do than pull my pigs all over the field with the tractor. *ahem* actually, i would like to have them root up as much of that lower garden as they can before we haul them off the the butchers on April 13th.

after such a busy week, i had promised the kids that we would have a campfire on Sunday afternoon. so after naps were over, G and i bundled up A and B, loaded up the wagon with our supplies and headed down to the campfire ring.

N had a nice fire going, and we enjoyed a relaxing time, filled with hot dogs, smoke, lots of chocolate, graham crackers and copious amounts of marshmallows.

now we feel relaxed and refreshed, and ready for another busy week!