We spent the whole day outside working yesterday. It was a perfect day here. I thnk we wore ourselves out! The strawberries are needing to be picked every other day now, I got a couple gallons yesterday. We're going to go get some more plants for the garden today and some more flowers.

We are kinda re-doing the yards around the house, making it a bit larger and moving some fences, pushing them out so people have to park further away. We would rather walk down the driveway than to have cars drive right in front of the garage/rabbit/horse barn. Steve is going to make me a big gate to put across the drive.

My pups are ready to go starting this week, we have folks comming from all over, so it'll be a fun week and comming weekend. I've got to take allot of pics of the pups before they leave! They are so beautiful. What'cha all up to?

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), May 13, 2001

Answers

I was supposed to go to work this morning for the agency I work for and got canceled. I'm not real upset about it. Will miss the $$$$ as today is considered a holiday, pay wise, but I can use the day off. Will go to church instead and spend the rest of the day fooling around here. It is a beautiful morning.

Happy Mothers Day to all concerned!!

-- John in S. IN (jsmengel@hotmail.com), May 13, 2001.

I have pulled up some lettuce that is going bitter on me, and am contemplating the fates of the not-yet-producing broccoli. It seems like they just wanted to grow leaves this year, but soon it will be too hot for them.

The little wood duck was adopted by some wood ducks near my moms farm, so that's a relief. I believe he'll do better if raised wild. I'm contemplating building another chicken tractor for the roosters that I'm feeding out. I've come into a large group of 3 gallon square jugs, and I'm thinking about cutting them into long rectangles, and covering a frame with them, like a skin. Think it'll work?

Lovely day in the neighborhood, and we're all basically happy here. Hope you all are doing well today too. :-)

Peace.

-- Marty (Mrs.Puck@Excite.com), May 13, 2001.

Our garden is coming up good here in southeast Missouri. If we get some rain and I can keep the rabbits out we should have good luck with it. The weather has been wonderful here the past few days. My young chickens are laying a few eggs every day. This is my first experience with chickens and I just love them. To my husbands dismay, I have planted 32 tomato plants. He is the one who cages and straws them. I may have enough to supply the whole county. Happy Mothers Day to me and everyone else! Mona Lea

-- Mona Lea (monalea@hotmail.com), May 13, 2001.

We also are redoing fence. Changing out more of the field fencing to cattle panels. Also did some last minute remodeling of the guest house, have folks visiting next week, the week after, a break and then 4 more weekends in a row, mostly goat stuff. Graduation for middle daughter the week after next, then a visit to the college. Summer also means practice, summer camp and hopefully another bid for son for the cheerleading Nationals. Mowing every weekend now, even with that the grass is way to tall on day number 6.

We are going to look for pups, Rhodesian ridgebacks, when things calm down around here, and build a kennel area. Good farmdogs are so hard to come by, that are both used with stock and excellent family dogs. I want to give folks an alternative to the "dog with the goats only". With the majority of Ridges being raised as couch potatoes, or running speed courses, or hunting, which goes to show you their versitility, they are often overlooked for their original occupation, which are goat guardians. Pups and canning are going to be my summer projects. And of course the goats :) Vicki

-- Vicki McGaugh TX (vickilonesomedoe@hotmail.com), May 13, 2001.

We have finaly had some decent weather so we have been busy outside also. We are converting an old trailer house that we got really cheap last year and didn't know what to use it for into a intermediate brooder for our chickens. We will move the broilers there later tonight and if it holds against the predators we'll move our replacement chicken breeding stock over in a few days. We moved all of our ducks and geese to the outside breeding pens and set up a new 500 square foot pen as a grower pen for our replacement/meat ducks and geese. We found 5 muscovy nests this week so are looking forward to a bunch of babies.

Our dry does and does that are bred for late kidding have been moved into an open loafing shed and the does in milk or close to kidding have all of the winter housing to themselves. I have been taking the girls for walks to get them outside and for some grass. They browse close to us when we work on pens, etc.

I finished transplanting the peppers, eggplants and tomatoes into their paper pots and just need to wait for the garden to be ready. We got our tillers back from the local high school where they got a tune up and if the weather holds we will be playing in the dirt later this week.

-- Trisha-MN (tank@Linkup.net), May 13, 2001.

Well---as usual we haven't gotten every thing done we've wanted to in the last few days but we've done a lot!

All 20 of the 2 month old chickens are doing great in their outside pen but I have the heat light back on with them because it was getting down to 50 tonight! They are so funny and run to the fence when they here the back screen door slam!

The five two week old "Easter Egg chicks" are still in a cardboard box in Nathan's now un-used bedroom and doing great (He gets married two weeks from today and has already bought and moved into a house on once acre of land. A good fixer-upper!

Handyman husband is taking off from his regular jobs tomorrow to build Nathan new front steps on his house as part of our wedding present to the happy couple!

Our garden is looking great! The rains Friday made the squash plants jump four to six inches! It was amazing! We still have six more Better Boy tomatoe plants to set out, eight more pepper plants, some greenbean seed and some sweat potatoe slips!

The other pepper, egg plant, watermelon, cantolope, other tomatoes, and all the squash so far are looking good. The peas and butterbeans haven't come up yet but it hasn't been quite time!

All 18 rabbits seem to be doing better and the three with the snuffles have stopped sneezing thanks to the sulfa-type medicine I got from the vet. I've quit cutting the Angora's hair until this last cool snap gets over!

Learned to put string in my new rechargeable weedeater today. I love that thing! It is light weight and I can carry it anywhere on the homestead and don't have to drag a cord or worry about trying to start a gasoline engine! I can NEVER pull the string hard enough to start the old gas weed eaters we've had!

I have a new small plot I want to till to plant some more onions...the other onions are almost ready to pull! the new plot is where I've dumped a lot of rabbit "fertilizer". We had some WONDERFULLY sweet onions I planted in a similar plot last summer!

I'm expected a busy day with my newspaper writing tomorrow. Will continue to write for the daily but am ready to finally quit the weekly for good in a couple of weeks if I can get something else lined up. I will not compromise my writing principles for them and they have shown they do not really intend to change. I would already be totally gone but replacing that salary is going to be hard. I have been the senior writer/photographer there for so long....and have ALWAYS gotten to work from home! That kind of job will be hard to replace.

So things around the homestead are about like usual. All three cats are asleep on the screened in back porch. The two dogs are enjoying their large new fenced area (but I'm still trying to get over digging all those postholes by hand! glad hubby took pity on me and dug the last seven or eight!)

take care and all of you KEEP DREAMING!!!! and then put some ACTIONS BEHIND THOSE DREAMS!

-- Suzy in 'BAma (slgt@yahoo.com), May 13, 2001.

oh woe is me so much to do and so little time.the garden needs tilled the grass needs mowed.the garden needs rain awful bad but then the weeds would grow to. and my motorcycle hasent been out of the shed in over a week. and on top of all this its time to fish. dug the boat out of the barn today got to get it going by the last of may. then theres the blue gras thing at Cassville the first and second of june. just got so much to do maybe i should get married to get some help around here. eny of you gals know how to clean fish? lol Bob se.ks.

-- Bobco (bobco@hit.net), May 13, 2001.

OH Bob,

Let me explain this to you. A wife will give you ALLOT more chores to get done than you have now! I watch for Steve's van comming up the hill in the afternoon, oh boy, here he comes. He knows to get a quick bite to eat and a cup of coffee, and then it's outside to follow my instructions! Pick that up, take that down, drag that over here, no not there, over here, dig a hole, fill that hole in, nail this up, get your crowbar, get the T-post driver, where's the plyers I told you to get, a break?, it's not dark yet! The real kicker is when he finially gets to sit down, and I say "You know sweetie, I've been thinkin..............

-- Cindy in KY (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), May 14, 2001.

i just discovered that the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence, but the dang stuff still has to be mowed Bob se.ks

-- Bobco (bobco@hit.net), May 14, 2001.

LOL, Cindy. I'm new here and have been reading the forum. Your note is so right on the nose. I tell my husband "I've been thinking..." and he immediately responds with "Oh, my back!"

-- Sandra in Co (ColoradoDaisyMae@aol.com), May 14, 2001.

Bobco - you are such a riot.

Our usual Mothers Day event is shearing sheep. Yahoo.

But after all the dog attacks and only two left they can wait. Tomorrow is another day.

Instead DH took me to brunch and on a tour of 1920's California Spanish homes that were opened just for this weekend. The architecture and craftsmanship was wonderful. We had a great day.

-- jennifer (schwabauer@aol.com), May 14, 2001.

Strawberries and squash plants! I love reading Over the Fence because it's such a taste of joys to come! My peas are an inch tall and I planted them as soon as the snow was off the garden! (Maybe next year I'll dig it off their patch!!!) My husband happily listened to an "Oh honey, I think we should....." and ended up helping me fell a couple trees and cut them up, then turn over a new garden patch on Sunday. We both slept well! I sold a kid on Sunday. One more to go. I may keep this one. I'm waffling (or I should say, debating). I hope it rains tonight - today was bright and sunny but was supposed to be cloudy and rainy (which is what we need). Have a good week!

-- Sheryl in ME (radams@sacoriver.net), May 14, 2001.

Everything is beautiful and green in Central Washington,lots of new animals are being born around the valley. Last week our cow had her calf, we didn't know till sat. what it was, we have heifer. We will have to see how she grows before we decide to keep her. The neighbors and us let our cows run together and when they went to another place to visit the bull we didn't know it was a beefalo. We raise our calves till there about 19 mons. and then we sell sides of beef cut and wrapped. It's wonderful living in a farming valley. Lots of rhubarb is up. My husband ate his first of the radishes. The spinach will be next. I love reading the forum and see what every one else is doing. It's alot of work getting a place going, but oh the joys. Were going to paint our place and put in a living room window.

-- Joanne (ronandjo@sisna.com), May 14, 2001.

Lots to do here, not enough time, as usual! Got more of the garden in, delayed because of an emergency trip to Utah this year. Peas are up about 3", a few potatoes are peeking through now, too. Got two mares re-bred this week, either they absorbed their foals or aborted, so only two new equine babies this year! One, a mule, is so cute, the other, due in about three weeks. Feeding a little buck kid for a neighbor, the doe died shortly after giving birth, and he is really a handful. Hope all of you get the weather you want and need, and that everyone has a great week! Jan

-- Jan in CO (Janice12@aol.com), May 16, 2001.

I can't keep up picking the strawberries! I put a bunch in the freezer last night. My fingers and lips are red! There's so many, and I've had to water them a little bit at night. We need rain and we didn't get any last night like we were supposed to. I might have gotten carried away a bit last year planting the runners! Oh, they are so good. I got some white cake mixes for 75 cents and vanilla instant pudding for 44 cents. I have plenty of goats milk for the pudding. We poured the pudding over the piece of cake and topped that with strawberries, oh boy oh boy!

My "free" tomatoe, cantalope and other little plants are popping up all over the garden now, I have to go searching each day for them and move them where I want them. I got some beautiful Early Girl tomatoe plants 5 for 89 cents, got about 50 of them, and some peppers and lots of flowers! It's been too hot to put them in, but I'll get them all in by the end of this weekend, it's supposed to cool off some.

I did get my mowing caught up, BOB, at least for a day or two! I need a riding mower! I am soooo busy, as I'm sure all of you are too. I'm getting into that bad habit of not comming in till after 9:30, and we get up realy early, so I've got to make myself make dinner earlier, it's so hard when it's soooo nice out in the evenings.

-- Cindy in Ky (solidrockranch@hotmail.com), May 17, 2001.