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After my garden tour post, the citizens of our poultry yard are demanding some blog time, too. So here goes.
It's only been the past several days that we've let the chickens, ducks and geese out of their winter pens. The main reason we've kept them confined is that we've had a bobcat in the neighborhood and our electric fence that surrounds the poultry pasture doesn't work in the deep snow. Now with nearly all the snow gone (or at least going quickly) we have been getting a charge on the fence (not full force but enough to discourage an investigating animal who might put his or her wet nose on it) so feel fairly secure in letting the birds out for fresh air and exercise during the day while we're around to keep an eye on things.
These are our two pairs of Pilgrim geese. One of the gals has already started a nest of two eggs. At least, without being too invasive, we think there are only two there. Or perhaps it's a communal nest? At any rate, I think geese start laying and wait to start serious setting on the nest until they have a good number of eggs. Or that's how I understand the process works. (Hopefully, the geese know more about it than I do!)
Our small pond has open water at one end of it, and the geese have been splashing and giving themselves much needed baths in the last couple of days.
I really like the looks of the black Muscovy ducks. Above are a pair . . . Daphne and Darby.
Here are three Cayuga ducks. The picture doesn't show it well, but their feathers are not only black but a deep, iridescent green. Very pretty.
Last December we got two pairs of Muscovies and two pairs of Cayuga ducks. Unfortunately, we lost one female of each variety. So as of now, we're left with a female and two males of both the Muscovies and Cayugas. We're really hoping the remaining gals will lay a good number of eggs and hatch out several ducklings so we can build our mating pairs back up.
Of course, some of the chickens wanted their picture taken, too. We've had twelve hens over winter (including two bantam hens), and we've been consistently getting 6-8 eggs every day.
Just got word on Tuesday that the four (more Pilgrim) goslings we ordered for delivery end of April will be here today. Oooops. Well, at least we've had time to get a brooder area set up in the garage for them.
I'll take pictures of the little fuzz balls when they arrive.
I took a few pictures early yesterday morning to give you an overview of the current state of our garden. I know most of you are just going to shake your head while looking at these pictures, but I wanted to start documenting this year of gardening. (Okay, at this point in time it's still non-gardening, but it is the start of our season.)
Here's part of the asparagus patch we planted last year. Even with good growing conditions, I know we won't be able to harvest much this first year, but we hope it will be a start to many years of having delicious asparagus from our own garden. As you can see, the plants are still covered with the light mulch recommended for the plants over winter.
Our three 45' long rows of new strawberry plants put in last year are about two-thirds free of snow. We mulched them on a really windy day late last fall so we laid cattle panels over the straw to keep it from blowing into the next county.
The raised beds are free of snow. (For the most part.) Yaayyyy!
The field garden still has to lose the last lower one-third of its snow covering.
This is my bed of garlic. Can you see those little green shoots poking up through the heavy mulch? No, me neither.
Lastly, our blueberry bushes and haskap bushes in the foreground and raspberry patch in the background. Unfortunately, we originally planted these down on the lower slope of the garden too close to the tree line. The sun doesn't hit that area until almost noon time each day. We're just lucky that they all have done so well in that location. We've never lacked for raspberries and until last year when those *&%! robins wiped out most of our blueberries, we've always gotten as many of them as we needed. I'm planning on relocating the raspberries (starting some new varieties) in the next year or two but the blueberry bushes and haskaps will stay where they are.
Looks quite different than the garden plots of most of the rest of you, doesn't it? We get a (much) later start to our gardening season up here, but our long days of light help to make up for it.
Maybe next garden tour, I'll even have something green and growing to show you!
Here I've been yammering on about the need to finish the king-sized bed quilt I've been working on for way too long. So what happened?
Although I found myself with some time in my quilt room, I got side-tracked.
While searching for something, I came upon this small piece that I originally made to teach myself how to do string piecing. After constructing the nine string blocks, I decided I wasn't too crazy about the process, but thought the blocks would make a good center for a baby quilt. When the size of the quilt reached approximately 30" x 30", I put it away and never did finish it.
For some reason, I felt compelled to do so last week when it once again appeared and I heard a scolding voice telling me to finish it up and be done with it.
So that's what I did.
As I say, it's small, measuring just under 30" square.
The wide beige inner border is made up of a lighter background with darker beige stars on it.
I used a light-weight, nice flannel for the backing and cotton batting for the middle. I machine quilted it using simple, horizontal lines of various decorative stitching.
This gives a better idea of the color of the blue backing.
I don't think my machine's decorative stitches were meant to be used with a walking foot or to quilt together three layers of material. All of it is not perfect.
Now that this little quilt is finally finished, I'd like to offer it as a giveaway to one of you readers who might be interested in it.
The colors are a smidge wild, but that would be good stimulation for baby's developing eyes, right? The flannel backing will insure it's nice and cozy even though it is a lighter weight quilt.
This is in no way a keepsake to be treasured as a family heirloom (that's for sure), but it might be useful to keep in the car to tuck around baby in his or her car seat. Or give it to a toddler to drag around and wrap their dollies in. Or use it as a table topper on Halloween. Or hang it by the back door to scare off unwelcome visitors.
All kidding aside, I'm offering it as a giveaway to any of you who would like to have your name entered in the hat for a chance to have it.
I'll close the entries around 9 p.m. on Thursday night, March 31st, and announce the winner sometime on Friday, April 1st. (No April Fool's Day pranks will be involved.)
Soooo . . . by me being a bad girl and not doing what I perhaps should have been doing in my quilt room, I finished this little quilt (which did feel good) and made it possible for a small giveaway here on my blog. Anyone interested?
Our daughter invited us for Easter Dinner this year. But she warned the meal would be unorthodox Easter fare.
Between her two jobs, tomorrow is her only day off in a string of eleven or twelve, so she didn't feel she had the time to spend shopping for and then preparing the meal she had originally planned.
So what is she serving?
Tacos.
Sounds good to me! Anytime I get to eat anyone else's cooking but my own, it's a treat. The other folks she's invited are also just fine with the menu. A little merlot, a little pinot grigio, a little zinfandel, the tacos with all the trimmings . . . all will be just hunky-dory!
I made some frosted sugar cookie eggs this afternoon so everyone would have a cookie or two in their Easter basket.
My style of decorating with frosting can only be described as "rustic." But the cookie recipe is good as is the frosting, so I don't usually have too many complaints.
I might, of course, if Martha Stewart should stop by. But I don't think she'd ever go for tacos for Easter Dinner anyway.
Yep, that's what the calendar says. There needs to be a caveat printed under that notation on all calendars hanging in northern Minnesota homes.
We have had some melting from our most recent snowfall, but there's still plenty of whiteness out there. Overnight temps are registering in the low 20s. Two more weeks until I can start the first of my garden seedlings inside under lights. Spring is coming. We're just a little slower (okay, maybe a lot) than most other places.
I shouldn't have talked about finishing the top to my new quilt that's been in progress for so long. I haven't managed to work on it since then.
I've been doing some touch-up painting in the kitchen. You can tell by the yellow splotches on my hands. Papa Pea and I did a little wood working constructing a wooden tray I've been wanting for some time. Little things are getting done, it's just that a day's time is never long enough. Never, ever, ever.
Looking ahead to this week, we're trying to decide on the best day for a trip to the big city. We need to pick up a new garden cart we ordered. Our old one has served us well, hauling untold tons of various materials and doing service as a make-shift hand truck to move heavy, heavy objects for many years. The poor old thing has been on its last legs (wheels?) for a couple of years and is now beyond repair so we've come to the point of having to replace it. We chose to not pay the shipping on this new one but rather to pick it up. Sure, a trip to the big city is expensive in itself, but any time we go we never fail to come home without the back of the truck filled to the brim . . . with wine from the discount liquor store, if nothing else. (Truth to tell, it's more likely a bulk box of toilet paper and kleenex and miscellaneous building materials.)
Our supply of food from last year's garden is holding out. Mostly. We are almost out of potatoes (didn't get as big a yield as usual) and carrots. Papa Pea has fed out more to the poultry this winter . . . carrots, beets, cabbage, apples. Frozen veggies are still plentiful. I served Brussels sprouts with dinner last night and hubby commented, "Where do you keep finding these Brussels sprouts? I thought you didn't freeze that many?" Well, when you rotate serving them with frozen green beans, peas, beets, cauliflower, broccoli and others from the root cellar, I guess they each go a long way.
For our potato crop, for years I've saved and planted the smaller ones from the previous crop. Haven't purchased new potato sets in I-don't-know-how-long. But after last year's harvest I decided maybe it was time for some new life to be infused into our potato crop so have on order two new varieties, Red Chieftan and Burbank Russet.
It may still be snowy and cold, but I can't help but be eager to get on with all those outside chores, tasks and new projects. Spring is in the air . . . or at least in my mind and on the calendar.
The snow "storm" only dropped about 6" of snow on us. But , oh my, what a heavy, wet snow.
We had no sun yesterday and a temp just below 32° so very little melting occurred.
Today looks to be a sunny day so there's the hope for a bit of melting. Maybe. That would be nice. (But a high of only 27° forecast.)
The weather (and view out every window) yesterday threw me into a fit of sorting and cleaning in my quilt room. I attacked three big storage boxes filled with "stuff" that had just been thrown into them. (Who would do a thing like that?) Organizing a messy area always feels good!
Today I'm hoping to be back in there working on putting together the last of the top for a new quilt I'm making for our king-sized bed. It's been in progress for almost a year now (shamey-shamey, Mama Pea), but I can see the light at the end of the tunnel so I'm eager to get it finished.
P.S. I may have been just a bit premature in changing my blog header photo to that lovely spring one. Ya think?
