Well, I've lacked in my posting again. Sorry, I'll try harder I promise. We've been busy lately. What have we been doing you ask?

Well Mother's Day weekend I started planting my garden. I got the onions and carrots in the main, vegetable garden planted. Then I got pumpkin, gourds, sweet corn, sunflowers (the kids plant these and I figure the birds will like them) more onions and squash in the other two gardens. Since it was mothers day my mom was here for an overnight stay and together with her and my hubs I made this.

Isn't it CUTE! Its on the side of the chicken coop and the window is one that was in our farmhouse before it was remodeled and the green wayne's coating was in the basement cold storage area before I tore that down. I have black eyed susans planted to hopefully climb up the window. I plan to make two more of these with smaller windows for the shed.

On Tuesday I planted more in the vegetable garden. Did I mention that I HATE planting the garden! Don't know why, I just do. I LOVE harvesting it and watering and every thing else, just not planting. Okay, I got that off my chest. Back to Tuesday. I planted some tomatoes, but have room for more. I also got in the peppers, lettuce and peas. I was worried about the tomatoes at first because after I planted them they looked all sickly even after being watered in very well. Yesterday I checked on them and they look great!

Lastly we discovered SIX MORE baby kittens on Tuesday! Yes, SIX! They are so cute. When we were looking for the newest set of kittens we checked on the ones that were born a few weeks ago. There eyes are open now and they are just getting bigger and bigger. Cute, Cute, Cute I tell you. 

New Additions To The Farm!

Guess what! Mama C (otherwise know as mama cat) had her babies! We knew she was due any day now and last night while eating supper we noticed she was looking pretty thin again. The had to have had them the night before or yesterday morning!

Of course we had to set out to find the little fur balls right away. Last fall when she had babies she had them in a water tank in the barn. I think the tank may have been to full of junk this time. We then went to the more obvisous place, the haymow. Sure enough there was six little baby kittens behind a straw bail. Cant wait till Mama C lets them come out and play. Should be a fun summer with them to play with!

Rainy Day Ramblings

Today's a rainy day on the farm. Which means its also a clean the house day! Its been so nice out latly that the house had been greatly neglected. Now I can only hope it stays this way till the weekend when my mom is coming. We shall see I guess.

This morning I spent some time transplanting my tomato and pepper plants. It was no small task seeings  how I counted 35 tomato and 40+ pepper plants. I can already here you saying, "Wow, she must really like tomato's and pepper's!" No, I just like to grow things.

I am also hoping that I can either sell a few of the plants or see some of the harvested crop from them. Again, we shall see. I have never had luck with starting seeds so I didn't really even expect to get any plants. Now I just have to hope I don't kill them in the hardening off phase!

Remember those cows that the hubs and I had to chase so much the other day? Well they are gone. The cows went to the auction yesterday. In typical fashion my kids had to be as much a part of the process and we would allow them. Abby helped put fresh straw in the barn to make it easier for the men to chase the cows out. Then when it came time to load the cows they all had to get as close as possible to watch.

Weekend In Review

Well, another fun weekend is behind us. Friday night I sent the boys off to Matthew's very first boy scout camp! (Tear!) It was a Tiger cub only camp and it sounds like they had a lot of fun. Matthew's favorite thing was the human Foosball game they played. I saw a little snip of video of the game and it looks like fun to me. Matthew now has the idea that we should make one at home.

While the boys were at camp the girls and I decided to go to the big city and spend the night at Grandma's house. Abby was beyond excited. We got up early on Saturday morning and went garage saleing all day! It was heavenly. I love garage sales, like really, really love them!

Grandma and Grandpa also let us take home a few of the toys that I played with when I was little. I have always thought this little tractor and attachable trailer was so cute. Seeings how we live on a farm with tractors now I figured it was appropriate that it come home with us.

Grandma also sent home a cute garden bench with me. It needs a little TLC but then it will look great in my perennial garden. Speaking of perennial garden did I tell you that one of my friends offered to some and help me straighten that out? Well, she did and I'm so excited about that!

Abby got three rides in the Corvette with Grandpa while we were there and she just loved it. We pulled up next to them at a stop light so I could snag this picture. Then they appropriately raced us off the line and won! Settle down now, it wasn't dangerous racing.

Sunday we just hung out at the farm. I mowed a bit of the lawn. We also looked at little more at the old well where we want to plant flowers on top of. Well, first we need to put a new cover on it so non of the kids fall in it. Again, settle down people there is a cover on it now, its just starting to rot away. Anyways, back to the flower bed. We want to replace the cover and put some flowers on top and hopefully get the well going again. While looking at that we unplugged the fencer, so we didn't get any unwanted shocks. Well, we may have forgot to plug it back in. A few hours later, low and behold there were cows out. Humm, wonder how that happened. Todd and I got them back in only to find that they had broken a fence post too! Dumb cows. So they got to stay in a new part of the pasture last night. Did I mention that we then forgot to shut a gate that you have to shut when cows are in that part of the pasture? Well, we did so then an hour later, this time it was dark, more cows were out. Again Todd and I got them back in and decided to go into the house. Our night of cow chasing was over.

Well, I suppose I should get out and let the chickens out or they will get mad at me and not give me very many eggs. Also I should check on the six baby ones I let out into the big coop now.

 Linking up to ...........

http://homesteadrevival.blogspot.com/

This week has been super nice out so we have been getting a lot of stuff done outside. Which means I have not been getting anything done inside. Consider this your warning, so if you stop over unexpectedly the house WILL NOT be clean! There I did it, I warned you!

The chicks were starting to stink up my garage so we moved them to the coop with the others. It still gets pretty cool here at night so we are keeping them in the water bin with a heat lamp on still. There are a few of the bigger ones that sneak out every once in a while.

We also cleaned out an area I will refer to as the junk yard. Its behind the unattached garage. It housed the old out house, two old barn cupolas and various other junk. We sold the cupolas and torn down the outhouse. Now its all cleaned up and I think I may plant some pumpkins and other vines there since the ground should be pretty fertile with the outhouse being there for at least 30 some years. ;)

I've been trying to save energy costs and hanging the clothes on the line. I think its so pretty with the apple tree in bloom and the clothes whipping in the wind. While it may save energy costs, it definitely takes more time to get the laundry done. It takes a lot longer to hang them all up than it does to just throw a load in the dryer. I'm hoping to see a significant drop in out energy bill this month. That will give me the get up and go to keep up with it I think.

When we got home from the city yesterday Grandpa was out working on his new/old auger. The kids all ran over to help. They LOVE to help with anything to do with the farm!

Well, I'm off to research flowers for my perennial garden now. Its a huge undertaking as its all a muss right now. More on that later though.

And that was the end of that!

Yesterday was a really nice day here on the farm. Its supposed to be even better today. Since it was so nice I decided to forgo all my indoor chores. Well, except cleaning the bathroom, you just cant let that one go undone. Anyhoo, like I was saying it was so nice out so I decided I would finally start transplanting all the strawberries back into nice little rows. There was tons of grass amongst the berries making it hard to pick them. The girls and I set forth on our journey and I wanted to make sure they had plenty to keep them busy while I was busy so we brought snacks and drinks and play stuff and the pick-nick table all to keep them busy.

Well, I was about 20 minutes into the 4 hour long job of transplanting the lovely little plants when something caught my eye. It was a SNAKE! Yes a snake was in my strawberries. He slithered out and into the pasture and after taking a deep breath I continued on. I dug out a few more plants carefully placing them in the wheelbarrow each time then returning to my hands and knees to dig out more. Then it happened again ANOTHER snake slithered out. This time I was really freaked out. I mean that thing could have climbed right up my leg or something. So after I quickly returned to my feet I ran out of the patch and to "safety" on the lawn. I told Abby what was happening and we discussed that we should throw stick in the patch to get any more out. Although I was sure that there couldn't be more than the two we had already seen in there. So Abby threw sticks and I used the rake. Sure enough one more of the worst creatures slithered its slimy body out. This time taking its time, as if to say I'm not scared and I might be back! UGH! So I decided three was enough for one day and that was the end of that! When my son came home from school Abby and I told him was happened and after he found out they were just gardner snakes he ran to the house to get his BB gun.

I'm glad that I can count on my 7 year old to protect me. I intend to dig some more up today, but I will surely check the patch good with a rake beforehand!

Life on the farm...

I've decided to try and start this blog back up again. I wanted to write about what I experience every day on the farm. We moved from a smaller house in the "big city" to a big house on a farm stead in a much smaller city last fall. If I had any idea how many acres the farm is on I surly would tell you all, but I don't. The farm has two houses on it. One house is located farther up the driveway and then there is our house, the old farm house. Did I mention the other house is my in-laws? Gasp, I know what you all are thinking and so far I actually love having them so close! my father in-law grew up in the house we are in and my husband grew up in my in-laws house. Confused yet? Anyways, I grew up in the country but we didn't farm or have animals. Well, my brother and I did receive rabbits one Easter but neither one of us ever wanted to touch or hold them so that didn't last long.

Now I have chickens and baby chicks, cats one of whom is pregnant and due any day, a 9 week old puppy and my father in-laws cows right in my front yard! Last weekend the family and I went to an exotic bird auction looking for a different variety of chickens and there was a baby lamb that I really wanted and the only thing that stopped me from getting it was the fact that I have no idea what to do with them.

I have no idea what I'm doing on this farm, but if you wish to follow along on my blog feel free and we can learn together.