Oink

Swine flu. Are you worried? Me, I am too busy and too tired to worry. After all, what the heck can I do about it, anyway? I'm making sure everyone takes their daily vitamin and washes their hands, but it's not a major lifestyle change.

Here's what I'm wondering, though:

Assume Swine Flu goes pandemic; people dropping like flies. What happens? Are we all confined to our homes? What happens to life as we know it? There's no one going to work, so bills go unpaid. Will mortgage companies still foreclose, or will there be no one there to handle the paperwork? Electricity? Nope, not if no one is working. No gasoline, either, if there is no one to run the store, haul the gasoline to the pumps or if there's no electricity to power them. What about grocery stores? No electricity means no refrigeration. No people working, no food deliveries...you see where this is going.

So..what do you think? I of course am hoping this whole thing peters out. Does anyone have a link to a government site with plans for how to handle a pandemic?

Warm weather!

It has been blissfully warm here. Up in the mid 80's! I'm pretty sure this is unheard of for this time of year, but you don't hear me complaining! For the rest of the week, we are predicted to drop to the normal temp of mid 60's and lows in the mid 40's. Bah! I'd much rather have the wonderful temps of this past weekend, with lows in the mid 60's and barrels of sunshine.

The garden is coming along nicely. The onions have started breaking ground, the asparagus is growing like mad, and the seeds are all germinating. I can't get over this: Saturday morning, we took a peek at the garden and noticed a couple of onion tops coming up and some asparagus nearing the picking point. By evening, there were three times as many onions up, the ones that had been up had grown at least an inch, and the asparagus was ready to pick! Amazing what will happen with a bit of sunshine to warm the soil, huh?

I've harvested enough asparagus to cook (if you don't get enough on the first picking, put what you harvest in a glass of cold water in the fridge to keep it crisp) so we'll be having that for dinner. Fresh asparagus is amazingly different from that green mush in a can.

It's still too early to put out the rest of the garden; we are a couple of weeks away from the last frost date. But we did manage to extend our garden by 2000 square feet over the weekend in preparation for the oodles of green bean plants and other goodies. In fact, we'll go another 2000 sf at some point during this week. I have a lot of seedlings ready to go into the ground as soon as the weather promises to stay warm.

That's about it for an update. This time of year is usually hectic, but even more so this year with my return to work. Things are still great with the new job. I've lost my winter weight, already have a tan, and am building muscle in places I didn't know I could. lol The family is adapting nicely to my working, and DH has demonstrated an amazing culinary ability that I forgot he possessed.

Life is good here. Hope it's great for all of you, as well.

A great weekend

It was an awesome weekend here at the 'stead. The weather was incredible: sunny and in the lower 70's, at least for Friday and Saturday. Sunday was still warm, in the 60's, but cloudy and it ended up raining off and on during the day.

We got a lot accomplished:

All of the potatoes are now in the ground. 100 lbs!! I can't wait to see how much we get as a result.

A total of 10 lbs of onion sets (5# red and 5# yellow) are in the ground at last.

The kohlrabi, cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, turnips, rutabaga, lettuce and spinach are all planted. I should've had those out about two to three weeks ago.

We also went out and picked up our seed for the corn field (Kandy Korn), a half pound of bean seeds, and a few extra seed packets that caught my fancy.

I found some lettuce coming up in the garden where I'd let a plant go to seed last year, so I moved the little volunteers to a better spot. Soon there'll be fresh garden salads!!!

I think spring is late this year. I know we had more warm weather by this time last year, and I'm pretty sure I also had more done to the garden. We may even get snow this week. ugh. Will winter ever give up its hold?

Why is all the rum gone?

Things are hectic here on the homestead, leaving very little time for superfluous pursuits...like eating, sleeping, or blogging.

I'm wondering what the heck I did with all those hours I was home before I got a job? I can't seem to remember.

The garden is going in...slowly. The weather is not cooperating much. We've had very cold nights (and many cold days), snow, wind, sideways snow, and rain. Lots and lots of rain. I can't wait to move south!

So far we've planted:

• Five pounds of red onions, with five pounds of yellow onions ready to go in the ground as soon as I get time. I got a few of those planted yesterday.
• 50 lbs of Kennebec potatoes, with 50 lbs of Yukon Gold to be planted this weekend.
• Carrots, bunching onions (those little green ones), radishes, and peas.

I'm hoping to get a lot more planting done this weekend, weather permitting.

I know blogger is going to screw up my spacing on this post, so please overlook it. I don't have time to figure it out now, I'm off to work.

Our first hatch

Last Friday, April 3rd:

Aren't they cute?

We only ended up with four chicks out of 42 eggs. We were 100% on the bantams, though, so after a little research (cracking open the unhatched eggs) we discovered that they weren't fertile. Turns out Big Red just isn't up to keeping all those hens happy. Well, one roo and 19 hens, that's a lot of work for the poor guy. We actually weren't expecting a big hatch since we knew our rooster:hen ratio was a bit off. We ended up with two frizzled cochin bantams, one golden chick of unknown origin, and a barred rock baby (crossed with RIR).

So...thanks to the wonder of the internet and some generous folks that had an extra roo, we now have Charming, our Blue Laced Red Wyandotte.

We were worried he'd fight with Big Red (our very mean Rhode Island Red roo) and not perform, but things worked out well. We put Big Red up in the coop, then let Charming roam with the ladies. He was challenged by one hen, and stood up for himself nicely, then strutted around like he owned the place. After an hour or so, we let Big Red out. They walked around ignoring each other for a while, then went after each other once or twice. Charming is bigger than Red, and not a chicken (pun intended), so he taught Red a few manners. Now they just ignore each other, mostly with Red staying out of Charming's way. They are both busy doing roo business, so we should see a better hatch this time around.

___________

I came home from work the other day to be greeted by Little Sis:

"Mom!! Dad made cartoon eggs! Look! I took a picture!!"

They do look as nice as the ones in cartoons, don't they? lol Any man that can make cartoon eggs is the man for me. ;)