Planting the garden

On Saturday, William and I planted part of the garden. We planted cucumbers, yellow squash, butter beans and set out Cayenne, Jalapeno, Sweet Bell and Sweet Banana Peppers and Big Boy Tomatoes. William has the rows ready for the green beans and okra. I hope to get those in the ground tomorrow.

We are using rabbit and aged chicken manure for fertilizer this year. We used commercial fertilizer last year and neither of us was happy with the way our garden grew. This year we are going more organic again.

We still have to get the rows ready for the Zipper Cream peas and another row for tomatoes.

I have some seed that a Homesteading Today member sent me that I want to get in the ground also. There are beans to be planted but I would like to put these beans on a teepee for running beans. There's a small number of seed for the two varieties of beans so I think teepees will be a better way of planting these.

I have some Thai pepper seed that I want to plant, too. I will plant these straight into the soil.

Then we plan to till an area and sow some purple hull peas in this area. I am afraid these won't do too well since there is not a lot of sun in the area. But, it won't hurt to try.

We need to cut some trees so we can have a sunnier area for planting.

I have posted some pictures below of the garden.

These are the rows we planted in squash and cucumbers.


William spread the rabbit manure on the rows then he worked the manure in with a garden claw.

Chicks at almost one month old

The chicks are growing. They are feathering out and the roos are beginning to look like roosters. I am not sure which are the Easter Eggers yet but I should be able to tell soon. The Easter Egger roos are all white I think. The pullets are different colors and some are about the same color as the Buttercup pullets.

As quickly as the chicks are getting feathers, I think I will be able to move them to a pen soon. The weather here is warming up nicely so the chicks should be warm enough. I will keep a light on them for a while longer.

The babies are becoming chickens!





This is the rare/unusual chick that was included in my order. I have no idea what it is but do know it is a crested bird.



Some of the Buttercup pullets.


I couldn't get all twenty-six of the chicks in a group so I could get a picture. Some of them are camera shy. :)




The chicks are growing so fast. In a few months they will all be grown and I will be collecting eggs from the hens. I am looking forward to the different shades of blues and greens from the Easter Eggers and the white eggs from the Buttercups. Combined with the Barred Rocks that we have now, we will have a nice flock of chickens for eggs.

Children, Grandchildren and Sons-in-law

We were privileged to have our four children, six grandchildren and our three sons-in-law with us for Resurrection Sunday lunch. My Mom and stepfather were here also.
We had a large lunch and then all the children (yes even the oldest children) had an egg hunt.

It was fun to watch them running around looking for the eggs that William had hidden after lunch. Everyone wanted the prize eggs.

I have some pictures of our family posted below. I hope you enjoy our day with us.



All the children hunting eggs.



Our children and their spouses. L-R Lance, Erica (D), Mark (S) Richard, Todd Front row L-R Sandi (D) Lisa (D)



Grandchildren Back Row L-R Matthew, Symanthia, Jonathan, Avery, Front Row L-R Emily, Meagen

What's For Dinner?

This morning I harvested the first of the lettuces. Tonight we will have a wonderfully fresh salad made of a variety of lettuce, baby spinach, baby burgundy mustard, tiny swiss chard leaves and radishes straight from our garden. Yummy.

I will make meatballs with gravy to serve over smashed potatoes and butterbeans to round out the meal.

Looking forward to our dinner tonight. :)

Lost a chick

Today we had some thunderstorms move through our area. Our electricity flickered on and off a few times.

Each time the electricity would flicker, the baby chicks sounded like they were in a stampede. I checked on them and they were running around in the box like scared little mice. I tried to talk to them and calm them down.

When the storm was over and the flickering had stopped, I had a dead baby in the box. It looked like it had been run over by the other twenty-six chicks.

I hate losing baby chicks of any breed. This one was one of the buttercups.

I guess it doesn't matter how well you care for your animals there are things that happen beyond your control. Maybe, I should have unplugged their light but then the thunder was very loud so I am not sure if it was the on and off of the power or the noise of the thunder or a combination of both.

It still makes me sad to lose an animal.