August 31, 2015.
Harvested all the winter squash! Quite a lot. I am exited for the winter months. Visions of delicious squash soups floating before my eyes, roasted squash as a side dish, mashed root veg with squash added for sweetness…ahhh! 😉
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Cucumbers, Squash, Pumpkins and cabbages are all in.
Chickens got their wings clipped, so they don’t fly over the garden fence, feathery bastards 😉
Two out of three sheep got sheared.
There were 7 chicks that hatched and one hen is still sitting on a clutch.
Ordered more Black Consort Currants, thinking that what I had planted were red ones. As a result now we have a bucket load of Black Consort…Oh well, I do like them better than red anyway, but it would be nice to have a variety.
Also ordered two types of red Rhubarb , Valentine and Starkrimson, they are supposed to be sweeter that green on we have. Will see how that will do. I am thinking it would be fun to have different ones.
Strawberries are coming in! EarlyGlo was first to ripen. Then Sparkle. Jewell is still green. on most evenings we can get a small bowl for dinner. What fun! And here I thought that we won’t get any at all, and was really worried that they will taste horrible, because we had some sort of nutritional deficiency that was showing on the leaves.
EarlyGlo tastes like a conventional strawberry, while Sparkle is sweeter and seems to be more fragrant. Both taste awesome, but I was surprised to notice the difference.
Planted some flowers and more are waiting to go in. Was surprised to see that Purple Coneflower did not make it through the winter. Black Eye Susan and lilies did though. Will try planting some Shasta daisies, maybe they will make it. I do like daisy family!
Grapes survived, but all roses are dead. Como Park easy Elegance was supposed to be tough, and we did not even have too harsh of a winter, but no…dead.
Planted Borealis Honeyberries, but will need another variety for pollination.. I remember as a kid, going to the woods with my Grandma, back in Russia, to gather wild honeyberries, I must have been about six.
Ordered Jostaberries. No clue what they are. 😉
With garden stuff getting more and more straightened out, I start thinking of working on the house a bit more. Maybe paint something, lighten things up. Looking for inspiration on cottage style sites, blogs and books.
And we need to get back on the roof…sigh.
Will be updating. Life is good! 😉
Thanks for reading,
Tat
We ran out of poo.
What I mean is that we finally used up the four year old pile of composted horse manure. So we had to buy dirt. I can’t stand black dirt, but that is all they use here for gardening. Sigh…
Here is the garden progress as of today.
Tomatoes are almost all in the ground, 19 so far. So are the cabbages, peppers, some dill and onions. Potatoes are in too. It’s been busy. Good busy, with love.
Fruit trees are moved to the new location by the house. And the pear tree, whose roots were eaten by some rotten underground creature is doing good in a bucket of water. It got leaves and some teeny rootlets. Hopefully it will root enough to be planted this season.
The lilacs are planted by the back fence in the garden. The thought is, that when they mature, they will serve as a pretty fence between us and the farmer’s field as I do not enjoy looking at soy beans, not to mention corn. Looks like they all took nicely. We would like to order more next year from the county.
The Silky Dogwood all survived the winter. This year we planted Redozier Dogwood. It has pretty red branches, while the Silky is more green. Looking good so far.
Golden Currants that were planted earlier this year all have leaves on them.
On the downside, the tiny hazelnuts and crab apples are not doing so hot. But I am thinking at $28 for a bunch of 25 trees we can afford to lose some. I would rather not, of course 😉
Strawberries survived the winter too. Hopefully we’ll get some berries, this is the second year. Last year we ordered three types from Stark Bros nursery: Jewel, Sparkle and EarlyGlo . I do like pretty names 😉 and just could not bring myself to grow strawberry that’s called Honeoey…I mean, what the heck it that?
Last night Alice made Rhubarb Crumble from this year’s rhubarb. Yumm!
Some Kale, Scotch and Russian and green onions are happily growing in pots.
Life goes on. As it should. 😉
Thanks for reading 
Tat
The Ferret Died.
The Cat.
The feral Cat was captured by mistake, escaped from the cage and is bouncing off the walls in the cat apartments.
Half of my tomato seedlings, all my peppers and Shasta Daisy plant Alice gave me got dumped on the floor by Grandma and trampled. That included all the hot peppers too. In all, probably about 20-25 seedlings. Three months of work…dumped. I am sure it was an accident, but still…
The trees that I was so painstakingly planting into pots last fall, hoping to save them from winter cold, all dead but one. They were in the greenhouse all winter and even had new shoots this year. Somewhere I did something wrong, I am sure. I’ll give them some more time, maybe they’ll come back.
The Husband is going out of town again for work. And my Birthday sucked…
Oh, and Rosie Pig is turning out to be quite a pain in the bum.
Now that I got it off my chest, maybe things will get better. I hope. But some days you just want to curl up and cry.
The Ferret Man was found dead today.
Sad.
He had a good old life running around, chasing cats, eating craizins.
We’ll see you at the Rainbow Bridge, Gwin. You will be missed.
I realized that I do enjoy reading blog updates even when there are no pictures. A little glimpse into the life of people I like. A small thread of connection with others. Positive thoughts and gratitude towards people those with similar interests, have fun digging in the dirt, hatching chicks, mucking stalls and enjoying every minute of it, in spite of hard work.
And as usual, when I have a few minutes to write a post, I have no pictures to go in it. So it will be updated later.
Here is what we’ve been up to for the past few weeks:
Fence. We have been working on the garden fence and it is coming along nicely. Enclosing the area between the house and the barn. Roughly estimated it is 70×170 feet. Thankfully, not all of it had to be fenced. Most of it, though… Not all of it is garden. There is a double line of pines/ box elder trees right in the middle, dividing the area. We are planning to put mushrooms in there in the future. Yumm!!
Old trusted Honda is out again
Posts go in
Originally we bought cedar posts. Then we looked at the receipt…and exchanged them for treated ones, which cut our costs by about 2/3. When 50 posts cost you $500 and not $1500, you feel a whole lot better about a lot of things. As I am not pitting vegetable beds right next to the posts, it should be safe enough. Besides, you do the best you can in being natural and chemical free. I wish we could do cedar, but the price is just too high! Moving on.
Frank and Sid the Micro Man
Sid is enjoying the ride
Here they are, in the ground
Between the posts is welded wire. Pretty, dark green one. Even though it might not be the most durable wire, it is the best out of all the types we had to deal with over the years. It is stronger that chicken wire, but definitely not as good as woven one. It is easy to stretch by hand and it looks nice. We had a go at woven wire when we were putting up horse paddocks…what a pain! It was extremely difficult to stretch, even with the right tools. And for all our efforts it was all bent out of shape in about a year, with horses leaning on it and scratching their butts.
At this point we got all fence wired. And makeshift gates were made. Next we’ll make proper gates and put 2×4’s on the bottom and top of the wire. Then posts will need to be cut, so they are all even and pretty. We might even put some tops on, maybe solar lights!
Garden. I am exited to have the garden so much bigger this year! I had to move some of the raised beds to accommodate the fence line and create a bit of a different layout for the whole thing. The plan is to have it look like potager garden, with some raised beds and some inground ones. I am planning to have some flowers among the veggies, and nice wide walkways too. There should be room enough to bring the ATV in, when needed and to get around with the wheelbarrow.
Tomato and pepper seedlings are doing good, awaiting to be transplanted .
I bought four types of Raspberries from Green Barn Garden Center. Could not resist and got 5 of each! Nova, Autumn Britten, Anne Yellow and Polka. If they all make it, we’ll have a lot of raspberries! Got them all in the ground yesterday.
Golden Currants came from Isanti county tree order this year. A batch of 25. Got them in the ground too.
Sadly, can’t plant anything in the beds until the fence is finished, chickens are getting in and scratching things out.
Speaking of Chickens. A little Black Japanese Bantam hen hatched four babies. Unfortunately one disappeared. It was so tiny, maybe mice carried it off for a pet…
So I took the rest of the eggs and put them in the incubator, together with some duck eggs, that I got from a friend. So far we hatched two babies. I do hope they are hens 😉
Happy Spring everybody! Keep busy!
Pig sugar cookies
Rosie on her first day home
Pig jam pies
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We picked up Rosie on February 10th. She had something wrong with her shoulder, the breeder said, and was limping. The breeder offered us another piglet, but we have already fallen in love and when you are in love, a little bit of a limp does not matter. To celebrate the occasion, we made pig sugar cookies and pig jam pies 😉
Her birthday is 12/13/14! How fun is that!
Now she is 5 months old and about twice bigger than she was when we brought her home. She is like a princess balancing carefully on tiny high heels. And strong like a little tank!
We are not letting her into the main house yet, but the dogs are extremely curious. Not sure if it is the right kind of curiosity though. They know better that to get close to the outside pigs, Cerce takes on a Dane with no problems. So we’ll wait till Rosie gets a bit bigger, a bit more intimidating.
I am sooo excited! We are finally getting a house pig!
She will be here after 9th of February, when she will turn 8 weeks and like all good little piggies will go to her new home. She is coming from Misti Rose Ranch here in MN.
While I feel bad about getting a piglet from the breeder, I don’t feel too bad. I honestly tried contacting a person who was looking for a new home for their piggie, and got no response. Besides, when you are surrounded by three legged, blind, toothless and just plain old, sometimes you just want a baby that had a little better start in life. I think it gives hope, feeling that not all is bad and lost.
As all the animals in the house grow old and older, there will be a little (or not so little) piggie growing up and giving us something to look forward too .
Because one day there might be no dog to get in the trash, no cat to puke on the couch, no bird to scream in your ear..and it will be sad…and lonely… and empty.
Pictures to follow
I have neglected the blog. With the holidays and cooking and shopping and projects that never stop (which is a good thing) it simply seamed difficult to concentrate long enough to write a post. Too much going on at the same time.
There were Frank’s and Alice’s Birthdays and Holidays to get ready for, cook, shop, decorate. The Christmas Tree still takes residence in the living room, even though it has been relieved of most of the decorations. The birthday cakes are eaten, presents opened, candles blown out. 2014 was a difficult year. 2015 will be better, I am sure. I believe it.
Now that the holidays are over, I can reflect back on the past months and try to sort things out.
Projects we have finished:
Amazing! What a way to update crappy floors on the cheap! We used builders paper from Menards ($11 a roll, have about 1/3 of a roll left over), Elmer’s glue and water based polyurethane. We cut paper in strips, soaked in water and scrunched it up lengthwise. We fould out that the longer your paper stays wet, the darker it is going to be when dried. It was fun alternating darker and lighter areas for a more natural look. On one of the tutorials that we found on Pinterest (Yay Pinterest!!) the lady was saying that one side of the paper dries lighter than the other. Maybe her paper was different, but we found no difference between two sides of the paper. Now I am planning to do the stairs in paper too. I would like to try the whitewashed look.Looks like this is it. Not much when you put it in writing. In reality it is quite a lot and we are happy with our accomplishments. We are slowly learning to be satisfied with small amount of success rather than get discouraged by small amount of failure. It does not come easy, but as you get to this point, you become a whole lot happier being. We are working on it (;
bunnzai
Tat
Home of Many Tails 