New Header

The new header picture is from last fall. In case you were wondering, I am not expecting! I tend to take lots of pictures of flowers, garden, goats, chickens and children and not too many of myself. So I thought since it is summer now I should get rid of that old winter photo of Noah and the goats beings that it was from two springs ago! I've been too busy planting and swatting mosquitos to take any recent pictures of the kids (my kids). But as we transition to garden upkeep and the urgency of planting subsides I intend to start taking more pictures.

In other news, Avery has begun crawling on all fours instead of the army (belly) scooch. She has been eating all sorts of new foods like hard boiled egg yolk, soft goat chevre (she loves it!), cherries, grapes, peaches, peas, and so on. She pretty much refuses to be fed by spoon and insists on grabbing fist fulls of food and feeding herself which makes for a messy meal indeed, but she also sits and eats contentedly while the rest of us eat...or while I quickly sweep the floor.

Noah has been enjoying the new sand box and the huge dirt pile in the garden. He wanted to plant his own little garden plot. So he told me what he wanted; squash, celery, red carrots, potatoes, corn and sunflowers, (at one point the list kept getting bigger so we had to narrow it down a bit). He decided where he wanted everything, planted the seeds and starts (with my help) and he is in charge of watering and all decision making here forth. I resist the urge to tell him when he is watering too much or little.

Most of the garden is in. I have more soil to move into beds and may plant a few more beans and greens. I have lots of mulching and top dressing to do, as, er, I was in such a hurry to plant I skipped mixing in some amendments and compost, ahem.

The roses and bluebells are blooming and they are lovely. It is just perfect that they bloom at the same time, pink and blue throughout the woods. My hardy yellow perennial poppies just started blooming today. And there is just the sweetest scent all through the woods. I'm sure it is just a mix of everything as there are all sorts of other plants blooming, low bush cranberries, dogwood, wild spirea, labrador and many others I can't name.

We moved the Welsummer and Sexlink chicks into a movable hoophouse/tractor today. So they are getting fresh air, bugs and greens. We moved the Americana chicks into the indoor hen house fortress that the older chicks had just moved out of. Now we just have ducklings in our house. Although we do have more chicks due to hatch in the incubator as well as cornish cross arriving sometime soon.

May was unseasonably warm and lovely. It seems as though we've already had a month of June weather and June has just begun. Noah keeps stopping by the raspberry patch looking for berries and I keep explaining the process that the plants have to go thru before there are berries. I am thankful that there are no raspberries yet, as that would mean it were already the end of summer!! Plus we still have lots of raspberry jam and frozen raspberries, probably because we were rationing all winter. Here is to the beginning of a very fine summer! Cheers!