The Garden on Mothers Day

This week we had a horrible wind storm.  I wasn't home at the time, my wife and son both were and were sure we had roof damage.  With the winds roof damage is to be expected and the damage we saw at neighbors was pretty bad, windows on cars were broken and one person had a cab over camper blown from one side of his property to the other.  Today I got on the roof to check the damage, only to find none, no cracked shingles, no missing shingles, nothing.  We were very blessed in this storm.

While I was up on the roof I took some pictures:

Happy Mother's Day

Relaxing in the shade on Mother's Day

The tomato's and beans are really growing.

The chickens free range and the goat pen is soon to be enlarged!!

We recently cleared brush down by the fence line.  You can see the brush piles.

We spend a lot of time out here in the evenings, it's on the east side of the house.

Homestead Update

Recently we bought chickens to replace the ones that were carried off by a bobcat.  They are about 18 weeks old and growing everyday.  We have one black astralorp that for a couple of weeks now I have been telling Trudy that it was a rooster.  She disagreed, she just thought that maybe the chicken was developing faster than the others.  Well this morning were were sitting drinking coffee, talking and checking Facebook and lo an behold the chicken started crowing near our back window.  We were both surprised and Trudy got up and ran to check which one it was and sure enough it was the one... So below is a picture of the rooster.  This is the first rooster we've had, but in the future we'll be able to let the flock replenish itself, which is a nice thought.

There's the rooster with one of the Hens.

While breakfast was in the oven this morning I went out and took pictures of the garden.  We still have plants that we sowed as seeds coming up, but pretty much all of our different plant types have finally come up.  I think we need to replant a couple of items like add more beans, and cucumbers, although we have one cucumber plant growing.   The tomato's are starting to set flowers, and they're starting to grow tall.

In this raised bed are luffa plants.

Strawberries... they're slowly filling in the small bed we have.

Some of the roma's they usually produce pretty well in the desert heat.

Most of the corn is up and a lot of the beans are up, but we will probably have to replant some of the beans.

More tomato's, these are Arkansas Travelers and there are yellow pear tomatos in there too

Strawberry Flower.... we added fertilizer to the strawberries and seem to be getting better fruit.

Cilantro Flower

Garlic Chive flower

Garden Mid April

Yesterday we had to cover all the plants in the garden.  We were scrambling to find enough things to cover the plants and we didn't make it.  The beans, corn, yellow crook neck and zucchini that didn't get covered seems to have come through the frost alright, we had the tomatos and peppers covered, we also covered the grape plants with sheets.  Below is some pictures of the garden that Trudy took today.

The tomato's are here, we're trying something new and supporting them with recycled pallets.

Over here are beans, corn and summer squash.... there's a bunch growing but they're not showing up in the picture.

I don't even know if I like artichokes, but I want to try to grow it.  Did you know potentially you can get 50 chokes off one plant?

Sharon, we took these and posted these pictures for you...

Have a good day folks.

The Weekend

I was all set to work from home yesterday.  The gateway to work was down and I had a dental appointment later in the day so I took the day off.  I ended up going to the dentist, finding out that my insurance didn't cover an extraction, nor did it cover a bone graft that needed to be done after the extraction.  The tooth had to come out because it cracked and split so it was not salvageable with a root call/crown procedure.  The dentist told me that it would be a twenty minute procedure.  Three hours later I walked out of the dentists office one less tooth, a lot less money and a mouth full of blood.  I also had 3 prescriptions and instructions to take it easy and do nothing strenuous for the next 3 days.  Which totally bites, because on the way home from dentists office I stopped and got a yard of compost for the garden.  Of course I stupidly told my wife what the dentist said, so she and the kids let me do nothing strenuous...  It sucks being treated like an invalid.

Today was a gorgeous day and I wasn't allowed to do anything.  Tomorrow, is supposed to be cold and rainy and besides, I'm being watched like a hawk when I get anywhere near a door.... Oh well, I guess this weekend is the weekend of planning.