Quick overview!
Here's how things stand on the farm right now...
1. SPRING is progressing, and everything is green. Now is the best time of the year to visit! The weather is nice and cool and the weeds aren't huge yet. No one ever visits us at this time of year, though. That's a real bummer. They probably think they'd get put to work. ;)
2. GARDEN! Collin, Collin, Quite Contrary... how does your garden grow? Here's what he's got sprouting: onions, garlic, feed corn, asparagus (of course), rhubarb (of course), garden peas, red leaf lettuce, baby greens, 2 kinds of radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, & pak choi. Also, Collin planted 2 types of hops rhizomes in the iris/lilies bed along the east side of the house. They're not out yet.
3. CONTAINERS! Planted in peat pots in the attic window: broccoli, green zebra tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, chili peppers, cantaloupe, eatin' pumpkins, & buttercrunch head lettuce.
4. FRUIT! The apple trees are just starting to put out leaves this week, and they're beautiful! Collin planted a couple of 2 year old Saskatoon serviceberry bushes last weekend. They came from the nursery -- they just look like sticks poking out of the ground. Collin swears that their buds are bigger though. We protected our little plum from the rabbits last year (and still), and it's actually getting so much bigger now! It was nibbled down to about a foot tall the first Spring we were here, but now it's about 4 feet tall, and bushy!
5. Livestock. None. We're providing pasture for some nice people, so we've got the 7 horses and 2 mules in the front. They're keeping the weeds down in that area, and they're pretty to watch (the equines, not the nice people). The reason we're not currently doing poultry is because of #6:
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FUTURE PLANS
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6. VACATION! Around the 20th of May, we'll be driving down to Rapid City. We plan to visit Reptile Gardens, and camp overnight. We pitched our tent in the yard a couple of weekends ago to test it for problems. Even though it's been unused for almost 5 years, and been stored in the mousy garage since we moved here, it is still in perfect shape! I'm excited!
The day after we camp, we're driving the rest of the way to Colorado, where we'll stay with Collin's parents for about a week. I'm SO PSYCHED! I haven't been out of ND since we moved here!! I'm going THRIFT STORE shopping, and I'm going to go around and take pics of all kinds of memorable places in Colorado. Depending on how much money we have then, too, I have a huge list of attractions and restaurants and stuff that I want to do... stuff I really miss, like eating Chinese food at the mall. High on my agenda is the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, while Viv is really only looking forward to going to Casa Bonita (see the South Park episode of the same name to understand her Cartman-like obsession). She'd also like to see the Hippos at the Zoo. She remembers them fondly. Collin's vacation goal seems to only be to visit the cheese warehouse in Longmont and get squeaks (cheese curds).
PSYCHED!!!
7. SUMMER POULTRY PLANS. Today I placed our first order for poultry this summer. The week of June 4th, we'll be getting:
*5 Black Sumatra chicks
*25 Cockerels, all heavies assortment(which may include any of the following breeds: Black Australorps; Lt. Brahmas; Dark Cornish; Black and White Giants; Buff and White Orpingtons; New Hampshire, Rhode Island Reds, Barred, White, Columbian, Partridge, Buff Rocks; Sussex, Turkens; White, Silver Laced, & Columbian Wyandottes, Red Sex Link or Black Sex Link)
The Sumatras, at $3.60 per chick, will be for keeping, and the heavies, at something like 55 cents each, will be for fattening up and eating. Those Sumatras have the purple skin like the silkies, but they can fly, and they're quite a bit bigger. I've read that they're really even-tempered and pretty good reliable layers, to. We've certainly found out that we don't AT ALL need the volume of eggs that more than a few chickens can produce.
When we come back from vacation, we're going to be trying to get 5 geese, 10 guineas and 2 non-broad-breasted turkeys from the farm store. Naturally, it's hard to rely upon being able to get what you want when you buy poultry from the bins at the farm store, but its SO much cheaper than buying these less-popular types of birds from the hatchery that it's worth the risk that we might not get exactly what we want.
Drat, I have some pictures I want to share, but they'll have to wait. We reinstalled Windows on this computer and I haven't downloaded winSCP yet, so I can't upload my pics to my website. Grr! I'm about to go give Viv a bath, so I'm thinking I'll upload some new movies on Youtube while I do that.
1. SPRING is progressing, and everything is green. Now is the best time of the year to visit! The weather is nice and cool and the weeds aren't huge yet. No one ever visits us at this time of year, though. That's a real bummer. They probably think they'd get put to work. ;)
2. GARDEN! Collin, Collin, Quite Contrary... how does your garden grow? Here's what he's got sprouting: onions, garlic, feed corn, asparagus (of course), rhubarb (of course), garden peas, red leaf lettuce, baby greens, 2 kinds of radishes, kohlrabi, carrots, & pak choi. Also, Collin planted 2 types of hops rhizomes in the iris/lilies bed along the east side of the house. They're not out yet.
3. CONTAINERS! Planted in peat pots in the attic window: broccoli, green zebra tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, yellow squash, chili peppers, cantaloupe, eatin' pumpkins, & buttercrunch head lettuce.
4. FRUIT! The apple trees are just starting to put out leaves this week, and they're beautiful! Collin planted a couple of 2 year old Saskatoon serviceberry bushes last weekend. They came from the nursery -- they just look like sticks poking out of the ground. Collin swears that their buds are bigger though. We protected our little plum from the rabbits last year (and still), and it's actually getting so much bigger now! It was nibbled down to about a foot tall the first Spring we were here, but now it's about 4 feet tall, and bushy!
5. Livestock. None. We're providing pasture for some nice people, so we've got the 7 horses and 2 mules in the front. They're keeping the weeds down in that area, and they're pretty to watch (the equines, not the nice people). The reason we're not currently doing poultry is because of #6:
==========================
FUTURE PLANS
==========================
6. VACATION! Around the 20th of May, we'll be driving down to Rapid City. We plan to visit Reptile Gardens, and camp overnight. We pitched our tent in the yard a couple of weekends ago to test it for problems. Even though it's been unused for almost 5 years, and been stored in the mousy garage since we moved here, it is still in perfect shape! I'm excited!
The day after we camp, we're driving the rest of the way to Colorado, where we'll stay with Collin's parents for about a week. I'm SO PSYCHED! I haven't been out of ND since we moved here!! I'm going THRIFT STORE shopping, and I'm going to go around and take pics of all kinds of memorable places in Colorado. Depending on how much money we have then, too, I have a huge list of attractions and restaurants and stuff that I want to do... stuff I really miss, like eating Chinese food at the mall. High on my agenda is the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, while Viv is really only looking forward to going to Casa Bonita (see the South Park episode of the same name to understand her Cartman-like obsession). She'd also like to see the Hippos at the Zoo. She remembers them fondly. Collin's vacation goal seems to only be to visit the cheese warehouse in Longmont and get squeaks (cheese curds).
PSYCHED!!!
7. SUMMER POULTRY PLANS. Today I placed our first order for poultry this summer. The week of June 4th, we'll be getting:
*5 Black Sumatra chicks
*25 Cockerels, all heavies assortment(which may include any of the following breeds: Black Australorps; Lt. Brahmas; Dark Cornish; Black and White Giants; Buff and White Orpingtons; New Hampshire, Rhode Island Reds, Barred, White, Columbian, Partridge, Buff Rocks; Sussex, Turkens; White, Silver Laced, & Columbian Wyandottes, Red Sex Link or Black Sex Link)
The Sumatras, at $3.60 per chick, will be for keeping, and the heavies, at something like 55 cents each, will be for fattening up and eating. Those Sumatras have the purple skin like the silkies, but they can fly, and they're quite a bit bigger. I've read that they're really even-tempered and pretty good reliable layers, to. We've certainly found out that we don't AT ALL need the volume of eggs that more than a few chickens can produce.
When we come back from vacation, we're going to be trying to get 5 geese, 10 guineas and 2 non-broad-breasted turkeys from the farm store. Naturally, it's hard to rely upon being able to get what you want when you buy poultry from the bins at the farm store, but its SO much cheaper than buying these less-popular types of birds from the hatchery that it's worth the risk that we might not get exactly what we want.
Drat, I have some pictures I want to share, but they'll have to wait. We reinstalled Windows on this computer and I haven't downloaded winSCP yet, so I can't upload my pics to my website. Grr! I'm about to go give Viv a bath, so I'm thinking I'll upload some new movies on Youtube while I do that.