Thursday's Livestock and Garden report~ Week 4

another busy week has sped by, and there is lots of stuff to tell (and show) you. I'm glad for all my readers- those of you who have followed my blog from its very boring beginning, as well as those of you who have become recent followers. thanks to all of you who take the time out of your own busy days to see what we're doing here on our little homestead in northern PA.

Dave decided that this was a weekend for planting potatoes, so that's what we did! i went crazy buying seed potatoes, so we're sure to have lots of fresh potatoes to eat, as well as plenty to share and sell.

we planted 40 lbs. of the Yukon gold here in the upper garden. these potatoes are not keepers, so they will be nice and handy for me to go out and dig for easy summer meals.

A was intrigued, and was of course more than willing to help her daddy plant the potatoes. i cut them up, and we'll readily admit, the chunks are bigger than normal. they are also planted a tad bit close, but we have so many...

(remember, i bought 150 lbs. of seed potatoes! there are 50 lbs. each of Yukon gold, kennebec and red Pontiac)

before we were even done, A was happy to help water the newly planted potatoes. she has a watering can, and is able to get water out of the frog puddle all by herself. and with those trusty yellow rain boots, this is a job that any 2 year old would love!



this is not technically the garden, and obviously there are no animals either. however, this is the completed walkway that G and i did this week. I'm really very pleased with how it turned out. last night before the rain, i transplanted some of my abundant day lillies, and now the walkway looks like it was done by a professional landscaper! with the completion of this path, you can now get into our house by both doors without tracking through the mud. i will fill out both of these garden areas with more flowers as the season goes on. but for now, it's off to a really good start!




on Friday, we had a pleasant and welcome surprise when a friend from church stopped by with a trailer load of farm machinery that he had bought at an auction. we were very pleased to buy both a plow and disc!




Dave immediately drove down to the lower garden to try out the disc, and of course it worked just fine.


then on Saturday, before he headed off to work, he taught me how to plow. it's not that hard, and it was a very satisfying job to do. i was done in no time at all, and was thankful that we have a tractor, and not horses...




A and B were thrilled to be outside with us, and collected lots of worms from the freshly plowed ground to feed to the chickens.


another task that i finished this week was the "final" plan of the lower garden. my two favorite books this year are Carrots love Tomatoes and The Joy of Gardening. as i mentioned last week, i am gleaning advice from both these books to plant wide rows, with companion planting to help deter critters from devouring all my hard work!

i spent time making a *color coded* diagram that i was hoping to share with you, but my computer is being stupid and won't let me. if i get it figured out, I'll upload it later.

the end of last week we worked hard to get all our fruit trees in the ground. Dave dug most of the holes, but N helped with the holes for the plum and cherry trees. A was glad to supervise.




B watched over her daddy while he planted the cherry tree, all while she was munching on an apple.




A helped with the apple and peach trees. as he was digging the holes, Dave took out the heavy bottom layer of clay soil. when he planted the trees, he used only the top soil and some rich, black soil that he dug from the old barn foundation. the trees should do very well, and we hope to have fruit of our own in just a few years.








the meat birds were moved outside to their hoop home. they will remain in this hoop house until their unfortunate demise on June 17. however, they are right by the garden for now, as the oats and clover are not up yet.

A loves to help me feed the chickens, and insists on having feed in her own little bucket. they are eating so much now that i need to feed them 3 times a day!

A made sure that they are all settled in. it's still a bit chilly here at night, so their hoop is covered with another tarp, and they have a light bulb inside to help keep them warm.

we've had lots of rain this week to help our onions, potatoes and day lillies get a good start. hopefully next week we''ll be able to get more of our garden in. until then, i hope you have the chance to get outside yourself and marvel at the wonder of God's creation, all fresh and new for spring.

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!

happenings at our house this week

it's been a very busy week here, with lots going on. I'll just give you a list, in no particular order, and you can see for yourselves what we've been up to.

*we celebrated my birthday

*i started putting perennials in my kitchen garden

*we butchered and froze 20+ chickens (somewhere along the way we lost count!)

*we canned 19 quarts of grape juice

*we celebrated the twins' birthday

*B is on the brink of walking

*we canned 28 quarts of applesauce, and made 3 apple crisps

*Dave hooked up heating zone 2, completing the heat for all downstairs living areas

*A enjoyed her first story time at our local library

*Dave and i reached a happy compromise about the butler's pantry

*M is doing just fine down in SC, but is very busy, and doesn't get much sleep

*N's stitches were removed, and he will have an impressive scar on his elbow

*Dave put in a new door in the utility room (with a window!)

*we got $10 pump jacks on e-bay, and can start insulating the rest of the house

*we closed up the garden, tilling it all under, and planted it with winter rye

*we played the genus edition of trival pursuit, and Dave and i creamed the boys

*it's my job to feed the wood stove, and I'm liking that chore

*D started his job at Family Dollar

*A is learning about the color orange, with crafts, coloring and snacks

*all 3 boys are working well at their chemistry

*Dave accidentally trapped the master bath shower in the utility room

so that's it- life at our house: full of adventures, escapades and mundane happenings, just to keep things interesting!

still loving all those flowers!

if you're visiting from shannon's site, thanks for stopping by! I'm glad to have you, and i hope you can stay and visit for a little while. don't forget to vote to save my butler's pantry before you go. (scroll down a wee bit to read the post that tells the history) thanks!

in the midst of all the other projects we have going on around our house, I've been working on my flower gardens, rock paths and rock walls. we moved in with virtually no flowers, and I've been systematically solving that problem all summer. i had a nice assortment of flowers to bring along with me when we moved, i traded some with friends and new neighbors, and i bought a few at the master gardener's sale this spring. we moved in on a Thursday, and Sunday afternoon i was already outside working on making some flower beds. really. that's how much i like flowers!

the whole flower gardening thing has been going so well that i already have some perennials that need divided. and with a pretty tight budget, and lots of flower gardens that I'd like to do, that's definitely a good thing! today i was able to get out and work in the dirt, and i divided and moved mums, asters, lamb's ear, black eyed susan, blazing star, bleeding heart, lung wort, some sort of dusty miller thingy, and coreopsis to the kitchen garden.

now, here's my WFMW tip: a few weeks ago i walked around and looked at my gardens. how were the plants doing? were they liking where i had put them in the spring, or did they need moved to a more suitable place? was there too much yellow all clumped together? then what i did was take a roll of Dave's surveyor's tape, and mark what i wanted to move, and what i wanted to divide. the plants that i merely wanted to move, i tied one ribbon on, but the plants that were ready to be divided, i tied on 2 ribbons. then i was able to observe for a few days, before i hastily dug out my flowers, without having a clear idea where i was going with them. even though i go for the eclectic, Tasha Tudor cottage garden look, it's good to have some sort of plan of how i'd like my gardens to look. also, it goes without saying, that being patient and then dividing my own perennials saves lots of money at the greenhouse!

following are some pictures i took mostly just for fun, though the concept is pretty simple. maybe you can see in the first picture that the lung wort is definitly not happy! i moved it to another shady spot, with more moisture. i think that it will be happier come spring!

thanks for stopping by! happy gardening!

my yard is emerging!

today we were back outside, working on the pathway from the front porch around to the lean to. (the back family entrance)we got some of the path done yesterday, and last week, but my goal today was to mostly finish the path,which we were able to do. there is still some finishing work to be done, but the main part of the work is completed!

this is how the path and my yard looks tonight, after we've finished. it was supposed to be the grand finale photo, but somehow i goofed that up. it's a big giant mud hole now, but we'll tackle that next week after it dries up a bit. and then i can start planting my perennials, too. already i have some that need to be divided! hard to believe, but it's time to start closing down the flower beds for the winter. i'm really looking forward to finishing this project. it's the first thing you see when you pull into our driveway, as well as the view from the road driving by.

come see the progress at our house!

we're still moving along nicely around here- less holes and dirt piles, more yard and pathways. that makes me happy! here are the most recent pictures of what we've been doing these last few weeks. (aside from copious amounts of tomatoes, beans and cantaloupes!)

the boys have coated the foundation with tar. no more water pouring into the basement. always a good thing!

dave is helping with the tractor to put the dirt back into the trenches. unfortunately, he couldn't do alot, because the back tires are for a construction site, not farm work. bummer.

ditch filled in- some by hand, some by tractor.

house wrapping the back of the addition.

D and G are pretty much done with that now.

now they are working on filling in the foundation, and also getting rid of the big pile of dirt in the yard.

this is the old well. it's covered with a large piece of metal, and a huge stone. i wanted to look inside, and this is what i saw. it's about 18 feet deep. pretty cool! we're thinking of how we can maybe build a wall for it, and have a wishing well or something, as part of the kitchen garden. still working on that one.

we've started building the walkway from the front porch, to the back porch, and joining up with the rock path we built earlier this summer around the flower gardens.

we worked on the path pretty much all day Friday, and we're almost done.

A played nicely with the trucks in the dirt. how cute!

G rebuilt the little retaining wall around the cedar tree. maybe next year we'll back fill it with dirt, and plant some shade loving plants in there.

here's the path, pretty much all done for now. i really like the way it looks. it improves the look of the house a great deal, too.