It's April already!!!

That does look inviting. I would say your wifes' ideas are good ones! LOL

And the mule does good work too...

Gads. I just looked at the forecast for the remaining 14-15 days of the month; only 4 have sunshine. Bleck.

Hey Mister Nik... where's the pictures of your new toy?

CG, thanks,

L_K, looks beautiful!

Darius, are you feeling better?

I've been working outside all day. Planted lots of stuff and did a lot of trimming around the place. Suppose to rain most of the day tomorrow, so wanted to get as much done today as possible. Heard it was pretty rough coming across OK and KS today.

Robin, I'm hanging in, holding tight. I seem to have finally ditched the fever, and now sleeping only 10-11 hours instead of 15. Thanks for asking.

I must feel a tad better because I did a load of laundry today and washed dishes!

I used the new tractor to spread manure yesterday. Got about 15 loads on the pasture before Christopher had to go to Indiana for the auction. I did some air layers over at the neighbors on their apple trees, and on a kentucky coffee tree. I also had a bunch of my goji with branches right on the ground. SO I bent them up for simple layering. I may do some white mulberries over at my friend Haycutter's. He's the only one with a white mulberry tree that I know of. I had sent away for some seeds, but they hadn't been scarified or anything yet. I'm afraid they won't grow enough to make it through the winter , but I'm going to scarify them anyway. The layers will be insurance.

I don't have a camera anymore. But, I have friends coming from Wisconsin Monday or Tuesday; if they have one I'll get lots of pics of the tractor, the gardens, and Wolf's Rest Farm in general to show to you all.

We got an inch of rain last night, and more to come.

Lizzard, that looks great!! Those lilies are beautiful. My fave is daylillies. Looks like some in the background. What colors are they? I traded some veggies seeds for some Cotton Candy fans. We have the regular orange "ditch" lillies all over here. I love them too. Ky Horse Park has some beautiful daylillies. I also just dug up a few fans from a friend's house and put them in hanging pots until I can get a bed made for them.

Robin, I worked all day yesterday too trying to beat the rain. LOL I worked aven after dark in my little garden patch. I hate to call it a garden compared to what all of you have, but it's what I have to work with and I am trying to make the most of it. Though it is less physical work I think it is more mental work trying to get the very most from such a small area. I weeded every square yesterday. I also transplanted some beans from my wintersow jugs. I know it may be a bit early but I can cover them come blackberry winter. If they don't make it then I'll just start over with evryone else and be fine. If they do make it I will be ahead of the game. I also replanted the WS jugs for the successive planting. My onions and garlic look very good. I am thinking of mulching them with the hay and droppings from the goat house. Then I won't have to do anything to them until it is time to cut the scapes from the garlic. Should I do the same thing with the onion seed head stalks? My strawberries are blooming. I still have plants to put down. I am thinking rather than building another bed for them, I will put them in a half barrel instead. I am out of pavers and I want to use the bricks I have for a spinach bed.
I put 2 pallets at the end of my little plot last night to put my containers on. I put empty feed sacks under them to keep the grass from growing under them. I took pics last night but I am waiting for my batteries to recharge before I can upload them to the computer. Raspberries are leafing out nicely. Hope I get berries this year. I'd LOVE to have mulberries too. I have planted some seeds I traded for. Hope they grow.

It rained here during the night and it was raining this morning but the sun is out a bit now. I am waiting for my meds to kick in so I can get out and about. Hate wasting time.

I went to Haycutter's and did 6 air layers on his white mulberry. We'll see what happens. I took the seeds I got on eBay and divided them. The one batch I soaked in warm water and tomorrow I will strain them out and put them in the fridge for 2 months. I mixed the others with sand (tiny seeds) and scattered them on top of the compost/soil mix that I want to add worms to in a couple weeks. Hopefully between the two different methods and the air layers, and some cuttings, I ought to get at least 2-3 viable trees out of the bunch.

I'm going to have houseguests for a few days come monday evening-tuesday morn, so I am getting my house all spiffy.

Cajun, way to go! Lots of great news about your garden. I agree about the mental work with working with small spaces or major obstacles. Sounds like you are figuring it out though. Using mulch in your garden will save you quite a bit of work, as it helps retain moisture and keeps down weeds. However, hay does have some weed seeds that will probably take root in either the hay or on the soil surface, but they can easily be removed if you don't let them get to big. Hay will also add aditional nitrogen to your soil. Other choices might be used straw bedding or leaves gathered from the woods and crumbled.

Nik, where do you find the time and energy?

Oh, I love all the pictures! Gets me to daydreaming about CSA, market or nursery growing. I admire you all, what an amazing amount of work!

Cajun, you have tiny hands or thats the biggest garlic 'toe' I've ever seen! I'm going to pick scapes today..mmm. Our elephant garlic looks good but I think the drought is stunting the regular garlic.

It was a crazy last week. Three days after going to the doctor for my back, I caught a cold bug. No big mystery where I picked that up. A friend has dropped off some hives. I've been too ill to go check them out, yet. It's just the hives and they are baited to attract wild swarms. He'll be moving more hives over as he can and seed about twenty acres with clover this fall. That will be great for the cows and we'll get a percentage of the future honey. yay! Too excited!

I've been wasting so much milk over the last week, just too tired to deal with it all. The calves escaped, a tree fell and took out a section of fence. I don't know how long they were out. We lured them back home with their mommas last night and they ran up and started nursing! UGG, I left them together and will separate this morning. Hoping that doesn't start another three day bawl fest and holding up milk.

A few chickens are missing and a body turned up...our great dane is high on the suspect list. She has a 'history' of that sort, but not certain since it's been so long ago.

The rabbits have found my green beans, GOT to get a fence up soon!

That's about it...spending my day, keeping things fenced in or keeping things fenced out :0)

Aww.. I am sorry about your cold. I despise Drs offices and pharmacies. Seems you can't get out of either place without extra baggage.

All those aggravations on the Cocoa_lulu homestead just validates it's full moon Grrrr....


Darius ~ I am hoping you have shaken more than the fever... hope you are getting your strength back too. I am sure that really saps you.

Cajun ~ isn't it delightful to be outdoors now that spring is on the way. Sounds like you are really gaining on the gardens. I mulch with pinestraw because it is what I have. Weeds aren't as much of an issue for me. The mulch is for moisture retention.

Home again...yay! Wow ya'll have all been so busy, I feel plumb lazy :/

Darius, I hope this finds you feeling up and at 'em again my friend!

I ended up staying way past my allotted time away, and all my seedlings died. I will try to start more, but may buy some plants since it's just me and see how that goes.
My mom wanted gardening help and shopping company...lol! I got to see all of my kids, and I'm going to be a grandmother again come November it seems. Really fighting the pressure from all of my family to move back to Florida. Got a little down as no one thinks I can do all of this here alone while having to work (once I ever find a job again!!) Even though it was a joint dream with my husband before he died, I stubbornly feel that I can do it, even if not on the grand scale that has existed in my mind for these last four years. Cajun, that Letters link you provided makes excellent reading and encourages me a lot, thank you for that.

My mom and step-dad gifted me new tires for my birthday - I pulled a trailer down there on early bald tires, but took it easy. Had to get the kids back dow there as I had promised. Then the ABS sensor went out; wasn't covered under warranty but I got a small loan to get that taken care of. It went out the day I was leaving, so cost me another day down there. Now that I am safely back home, my tranny is not sounding healthy. It is still under warranty, but the local dealership refuses to take it for warranty work, forcing me to try to nurse-drive it nearly seventy miles to the next nearest dealership. I'm trying to work a deal to let a local transmission place verify it is the transmission, and therefore covered, before I try to make it seventy miles away, to possibly find out it is something I couldn't pay for. Life is surely never boring, that's for sure :)

While I was there my youngest uncle got a cancer diagnosis, then had surgery - seems it was stage one and they think they got it all. He treated us to some really great meals, blackfin tuna infused in roasted garlic oil, fresh mackerel, and mahi-mahi, accompanied by cheese grits and cole slaw. I saw all the relatives this visit, so I'm caught up for a while on the visiting requirements. Not sure how I'll get back down for my daughter's college graduation, but I will, one way or the other!! She's the first one in all of our families to actually get her degree and I am very proud of her.

My container garden flourished in my absence and I picked a lot of salad greens upon my return. Looks like my strawberry bag tower will be producing some berries here shortly, and the peas are ready to trellis. Broccoli's have some heading started, so I am a happy, if confined, camper. The riding mower won't start, so I'm push mowing today and tomorrow to at least clear a good area around the house and stay a bit ahead of it. Two of my three raspberries are leafing out, and the two grape vines are leafing as well - now to figure out where to put the asparagus, get beans and beets planted, and some more chard and kale. My folks sent me home with several scavenged containers to expand my garden with; I'll have to wait for my tax refund to get the dirt for them, but I'm thinking of trying the asparagus in those since they are all more than 12" deep.

Spring tornadic weather greeted me when I returned and I spent morning and evening in the basement on Friday. There has been lots of rain, so everything survived my absence that was outside, and no limb damage even in all of this wind we've been having. I am very thankful.

Glad to see everyone's updates and work plans and that all have remained safe during this nasty weather; may we all remain safe during this next week as well, which is calling for nastiness again after tomorrow.

Off to mow!!

~H

I finally got my house all cleaned up for Theresa and Tony.I don't think I've had it this clean since the last time I had visitors (06?-07?). Knowing them, I'll probably give them a complex or something. They aren't that neat.
The wind is gusting to 40 mph (i HATE wind) and rattling the whole house. The MacTavish is scared to death, although Simba just wakes up every hour or so and goes looking for another mouse.
I have a big beef roast in the crockpot, and was thinking about making some noodles to go with it. I have about 15 5-gallon buckets to cut the bottoms out of so I can use them to start bushes and trees in. Then I need to update the plat, I've added a lot of stuff since I last updated it. I'd like to work on the oven, but it's a bit too windy for mortar work. WAAAAAAAY to windy for my poor paper kites!!

I have folks coming in from out of town in a few hours. My best buddy died back in February and his sister and BIL are coming in for a few days to visit and bring me my inheritance-200 restored manual typewriters, adding machines, and cashregisters.


Sometimes, it's just strange being Nik hehehe

Well, I guess so!

Well, I hope everyone fared well through last night's brouhaha. We had a tornado here, thankfully no home damage, but I lost several trees. Two which were rotted from the inside, and then one beautiful 40 year old chestnut simply uprooted, just like in Georgia. Are tornadoes following me? LOL! We had a 911 call siting the funnel, got a warning about three minutes before it hit. Thankfully I had spent all day preparing and me and the critters were in the basement - but still spent a lot of time praying during those long six minutes. Power was restored about 6 a.m. - I have a LOT of work to do, including getting a huge maple limb off the power lines. Thankfully not a re-do of last year's power line fiasco when it pulled the meter right off the house. Otherwise, Allstate would probably cancel me instead of simply doubling my rates like this year!

A few photos to come.

Where my truck would normally have been parked; thankfully I put it in one side of the barn to protect from expected hail damage.

On the bright side of things, I now have a LOT of free firewood :D

Wow! Once more you got hit. I wondered if all of you in KY and TN were all right. Did you see any rain?

I hope you have someone to cut the firewood for you. I am so glad it was not worse at your house. Glad too that you have a basement.
That blew thru here with no rain and the wind just dried us out worse. We are expecting no rain and praying for no fires.

Hope everyone else will report in too.

Thankfully it went around us again. Wind, but nothing major and almost 3" of rain. That makes almost 9" of rain in 15 days. Sure glad we live on a hilltop.

What about you all down in Texas and New Mexicowith the wildfires? Hope everyone is safe. I woke up this morning dreaming about the wild boars heading east.

Podster, thank you very much for bringing up the subject of snakes. Hadn't seen any here for 3 years, but went out to lock the chickens up last night and after about half of them got in the fenced in area, I spotted a 5'+ snake along the back fence. Found out it was a Rat or Chicken snake, but it was still scary.

OH, oh ~ did I jinx something? lol. Sorry...


But I'm glad you weren't bothered by more than rain. No fires here but we are just a spark away. Scarey when you live in the woods. I haven't even wanted to bushhog the weeds for fear of the blade hitting a rock and throwing a spark. Looks pretty mangy for lack of rain.

I got a measure of less than a half inch, but it is possible that it simply didn't record the horizontal rain :) Ground is boggy, boggy. The best part is I lost no plants except a sage which went airborne. Hail seems to have missed all the greens...yay!

More rain due to come this week; I'd send you some if I could Pod!!

~H

Well, company is gone now. We had a good visit. My trees came yesterday from Stark bros. But the ground is so boggy it'll be a few days before they get planted. These trees are sort of a memorial to my Navy buddy, Roy Faust from Wisconsin. He died in February after losing his fight with the big "C". They brought me some tipple from Roy's old still, and I sent them home with a case of Sleeping Wolf concord-blueberry wine. We got all the typewriters shelved up in a storage unit, and now I am looking for collectors to take them off of my hands.
We've had almost 4 inches of rain in the last few days, and more coming tonight and tomorrow. I'm ready for the May flowers.

Chicks are hatching!!! I had 48 eggs in the incubator and the first one hatched last night. Now I have 13 and more are pipping. These are Buff orpingtons, and are to be sold on Craigslist. The add has already been posted.


It is starting to rain again. Yesterday was a beautiful day, but it was only one in the forecast for the next week or so. I would happily send you Texans, Arizonans, and New Mexicans an inch or so of our rain.

Please do!

Here's a couple of interesting links for y'all...

Home Made Bottom Heat for Seed Starting
Using rope lights
http://doorgarden.com/02/home-made-bottom-heat-seed-starting

How to build My 50 Dollar Greenhouse
http://doorgarden.com/10/50-dollar-hoop-house-green-house

We've been getting rain but the bad weather has gone around us. I am thankful to God for that. Glad all you guys are OK.

I started a compost pile. It's just itty bitty right now but I figure you gotta start somewhere.

I also planted 9 hills of sweet corn and 10ft of mangles. I planted those in the ground and will not be suprised if they don't flourish. Our ground is sandy clay with lots of rocks. The only saving grace for the spot I chose was that it was occupied by the horses for a year. It was chock full of worms.

Still working on adding the spinach and greens bed. I need to dig some more compost from the old pile for that.

Got most of my seedlings up potted to plastic cups. Seeded my squash and melon seeds.

Wish it would stop raining long enough for me to do something outside. I did seed 4 trays in the house today.

LOL, that's better than I did, and it isn't raining/stormy here!

I sold most of the chicks that hatched out. A small way to pad the wallet. I'm starting another clutch of eggs tomorrow or the next day. We got almost 1/2 inch of rain last night and today, with more to come. They are forecasting another 6-8 inches over the next week. The whole place is gonna wash away. The wheat crop is doing well, though.
I am going to work in the shop over the next couple days building the new chick hutch and cutting the parts for the greenhouse. I have to get the meatbirds on the 4th and I'll need somewhere to house them while they feather out. The greenhouse is going to be built almost entirely from 2x4s, so I can cut them and stack them. In good weather I can probably build it in about 2 days, including the benches inside. It might take longer for the brick floor, though.
Hope everyone had a happy Ressurection day

We got rain!
and
tornadoes
but
we got rain!

Good for you! I am glad to hear it but hope there was no serious damage.
Still dry as a bone here. Guess we haven't been 'paying the preacher'.
Off to water...

No rain here either.

Thought we might get some yesterday but it blew over. We're not hurting for any yet.

Oh my gosh, Hineni! I can't believe you got hit so hard! Glad you are safe!

Storms have been to the north and south of us, makes for interesting skies. Tho, not much rain to mention :0(

Busy as a bee around here. Incubator is broken, envious of those baby biddies, Nik!

Lots of green tomatoes, will be canning time soon!
Corn is iffy.
Field peas and okra are sprouting.
Green beans, good.
Lettuce on it's last leg.
Turnip greens, pulled because of flea beetles. Froze 12 cups.
Onions, ok.
Chard and beets, lots of foliage..no roots.
Sweet potatoes are? Slipping? lol Will be late getting them in.
Winter squash.. gone, don't know what happened to them.
Seeded patty pan, no sign, yet.
Yellow squash, good.
Zucchini, looks like I'll be fighting powdery mildew.

Haven't decided on planting pumpkin or melons...

More storms today, everyone stay safe!

I have a bit to crow about... friends from Maryland stopped by Saturday for a short visit, and sampled some of the cheeses I'm making while they were here. Emailed me on Sunday to order one of the Thyme Caerphilly wheels! Now, if I can only replicate it...

That Is awesome, Darius! I'm so scared to put a price tag on cheese. The way the gobberment is acting,,,you'd think cows gave crack instead of milk. How will you decide pricing?

I'm going to try the caerfilly in the next few weeks. Right now, going for bulk. I wanted 30 pounds put by for the end of April, but been too under the weather. Will be lucky, but I think I can get 15lbs by the end of the week.
I've been making my meso from clabber. The cool weather has been making lovely sweet smelling clabber. So, I freezed a bunch and trying it out with this month's batches.

Yeah, there's such a gubbmint-induced fear everywhere, esp. about raw milk. I cannot legally sell cheese whether it's raw milk or not anyway, and I have NO idea how to price it either. Since they are friends I've had for 35 years, we'll work something else out. If I were to price any, I'm thinking something like halfway between materials' cost and what retail cheese shops like Murray's charge.

I'd love to have fresh milk to clabber then make meso. I do make meso and thermo from cultured buttermilk and yogurt, respectively, and freeze it in cubes. The meso is what I'm using in the thyme caerphilly, and works well for me. I'm almost out and need to make more soon. I modified Tim Smith's caerphilly recipe with some extended times from Peter Dixon and it seems to be working well.

I had hoped to make my lever press in May, but there's a Virginia RU in May that will sop up the money I planned for press parts. Maybe in June, though. Actually I bought all the hardware last month but returned it when I had to get prescriptions for the pneumonia filled.

Cocoa is just a cheese making machine. LOL I don't even understand most of what you said other than clabber and I didn't know you could freeze it.

Darius, great job! Did you get your cheese cave running yet?

I have a question I am hoping some of you might be able to answer. I wormed my chickens so I can't eat the eggs now for 21 days. But 3 of the hens are in with a roo so is it safe to hatch the eggs?

Way to go, Darius! Lots to be proud of!

We're now pushing 14" of rain in 14 days. I would love to share some with all of you out west and south that need it. Dang, I'd love to be able to store a lot of it for the drought we'll probably have this summer. But I shouldn't complain and I AM grateful that we haven't had any storm damage. Being cooped up in the house is really wearing on me though.

Talked to Hineni briefly early this morning. She had another round of storms overnight that blew down some tree branches. Nothing serious on the house or car. A farmer neighbor cleared some downed branches in the road to the highway. She's becoming quite familiar with her basement this spring.