Thursday's Signs of Spring

Jack, the wether


Yellow bell bush

Some of the ladies, doing their thing

Onion bed

Grimes Golden (For you, Winona :-) )

Asparagus bed

Azaleas

What a beautiful day. Blue skies, plenty of sunshine and green everywhere I look.

We've been busy around the house today. Sam got my garden tilled. Beautiful, rich looking dirt. I'm ready to plant my tomatoes and peppers tomorrow. My Grandma always planted on Good Friday and so do most of the older people I know so if it's always worked out good for them, I'll do it too!!! I have mowed the yard and washed and hung out 4 loads of clothes. Mmmm, it sures smells good out there. Downy and the fresh air. I can't wait until I lay down on those sheets tonight. I'll sleep good, that's for sure.

Sis has to go to work this afternoon, after being in class all morning. She is not looking forward to it. She is normally off on Thursday but has to work today. Aaron has gone fishing with a buddy. His friend, Kyle, is a policeman and had to go to the shooting range to qualify this morning so Aaron tagged along with him and now they've both gone down to the river. Aaron was excited. They're talking my dad's boat so they'll be gone the rest of the afternoon.

Lainey has been playing with her baby and stroller. She loves being outside and flits from rocks and sticks to babies and strollers. She can't decide what she likes the best!! She helped me plant oregano and basil in our whiskey barrel. She has her own little shovel so she "helped" dig holes for the plants.

Lovey is still sitting on her nest, no chicks yet.

Daisy, the Pekin duck, has 9 eggs in an old dog house and I think she's sitting!!! Stay tuned.......

Wednesday

After a few cold, rainy days we are back to sunshine and blue skies. Whoo-hoo. Yesterday we saw a few snow showers during the day. Strange, strange weather. My son and his friend did manage to get a tree trimmed in the front yard. I'm not sure this was the best time of the year to trim a tree but the Asplundh tree trimming crew was sitting across the street, eyeing our maple tree. This is the company that butchers trees for the power company. We have power lines cutting through our front yard and any tree within so many feet of the lines get whacked every couple of years. We didn't want this company "trimming" our tree for us so my son did it. It is a bald tree now but hopefully, it will start putting out new shoots soon.

Our banty hen, Lovey, is still sitting on her nest. Tomorrow is 21 days. She has 4 fertile eggs so hopefully we'll have 4 sucessful hatches. She is such a good mama. I need to keep a close eye on her today and tomorrow because she chose to nest in between bales of hay, 4 bales high. Can chicks survive a fall from 4 bales high? Hopefully I can move them before they get to inquisitive and start straying from Lovey.

Well, I'm going to get up from here and enjoy the sun. Hope everyone has a great day.
Beth

January and February

Hello!!!

Laurie, this post is for you :-)

Not much has happened around here other than the usual busy-ness. I have my chicken coop cleaned out, the garden tilled and ready and my chickens have gone egg laying wild. It must be close to spring. Ahhhh. Can't wait. I'll plant onions next week with radishes and a lettuce bed soon to follow. I don't think I'll do beets or cabbage this spring. It seems they do better for me in the fall.

My birthday was Jan. 31 and my parents took my whole family to our local Mexican restuarant for supper. Mmmm, it was so good. Here are a few pics of that night.

Being serenaded by the staff. You like my fancy hat?

Sis, Lainey and Zac

Aaron and Whitney

Weekend of Savings

I read a blog every now and then and one of the topics the writer blogs about is savings. Every few days she posts of the money she saved by just changing her attitude or routines a bit. Nothing big, just normally a few dollars here or there. Sam and I tried this weekend to think of ways that we saved money and here is our weekend.

Saturday....Our pickup truck has been making a weird noise in the front tire area. Instead of taking it to the dealership for big bucks, we called a neighbor who has mechanic experience and also works at Flowers Auto parts store. We found out that instead of the $368 piece the Ford Dealership tried to talk us into buying, our friend was able to get us the piece for $59 and repair if himself for a $25!!
Savings....$284

Sunday...We awoke Sunday morning to find our mailbox lying in the ditch on the side of the road. Someone had plowed over it, knocking it down and warping it all to pieces. During "triage", Sam decided that we were going to have to buy a new one but upon further inspection, he was able to use his welder to fix a few broken pieces and was able to use a mallet to knock it back into shape. Our mailbox is now standing by the side of the road again, not quiet as pretty as it once was, but no money was spent on a new metal mailbox.
Savings....$65.37

Monday...Caylon had to had OP surgery about 6 weeks ago. Everything was covered by our insurance except for the anesthesiologist. For some strange reason, even though the hospital and the surgeon were both listed as participating providers, the anesthesiologist wasn't. Upon receiving a bill for $550, I called my insurance company and they were able to "wrap" those charges in with the hospital charges and they were paid at 100%!!! All it took was a phone call on my part and 10 mins. of my time.
Savings....$550.

Sooo, for the last 3 days, my savings total is $899.37

Not too shabby!!!

My camera is broken so no pics today. We're trying to decide if it's worth it to fix it or catch one of the great deals being offered during the holiday season and snag us a smaller, more compact, camera.

Have a great one.

Beth

Just a quick post today. Sorry I've been away but things have just been WILD around here.

On today's list is Thanksgiving preps. I have 6 pies to bake and the rolls to get mixed up and their first rising completed. I also have to start processing a deer that Aaron got this morning!!!! Whoo-hoo. Meat for the winter that was harvested in our own back pasture.

I went "shopping" in the basement for stuff for Thanksgiving. I brought up green beans, corn, pumpkin and eggs, all harvested from our land or family land. Ain't it wonderful??

Ahhh, feels good.

Beth

Collard Greens galore

I got my first picking of collards Tuesday morning. Collards are better once they have been "bitten" by frost. It ups their sugars and makes them sweeter, not quiet as strong tasting. Anyway....

All of these greens cooked down into 7 quarts of vitamin loaded goodness to be put into the freezer. We'll enjoy them all winter long. I left plenty of smaller leaves to develop so I'll have more picking to do later on.

Today is a grey, dreary day. Sam is home for the weekend and both kids have short days at school so they should be home by lunchtime. I don't have much planned for this weekend and it's probably a good thing since it is suppose to be rainy and cool. We do need to get the weather stripping done on the bottom of the wooden front door and maybe put some insulating film on the big picture window in the livingroom but other than that, it will be a quiet weekend.

Beth

The Party's over...

Saturday was a blur of party preps. Our house and yard haven't been this clean and cleared of clutter in I dont' know how long. I told Sam that we need to have at least one party a year in order to clean. I don't know how happy he is with that suggestion!! I cleaned the garden, Sam hauled a load to the landfill and Caylon and I cleaned the house top to bottom. In addition to the cleaning, I slow roasted 3 Boston Butts, made 3 pans of baked beans and a HUGE bowl of slaw. Sam smoked the butts and I pulled the pork and we were ready to rock and roll. It was a very productive day and at 4:30, the guests started rolling in.

We had a smashing success at Miss Priss' 1st birthday party. We had 31 in attendance. It was a beautiful fall evening and by dusk, just chilly enough for the chiminea to be lit. We had BBQ sandwiches, hotdogs, baked beans, chips and then cake and ice cream for dessert. Delish!!!

Great Paw-Paw, Aunt Betsy and Uncle Chris

Lainey's cousin Abby with her mom, Chasity, Lainey and Caylon and Lainey's BFF Breanna with mom Jessica.

Caylon, Lainey and Zac

The birthday girl.

Present time!!!!

And of course no party would be complete without a spin on Aaron's motorcycle.

Sunday was spent cleaning up and resting from the shin-dig. We had some friends over for left-overs last night and I still have some BBQ left to go into the freezer for another meal.