Over the Fence Chat for 4/20 - 4/26

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Country Style Homesteading : One Thread

Good morning everyone! Just wanted to get this started! Gotta go get my coffee and visit the "throne room." I'll be back in a jiffy!

-- Phil in KS (cshomestead@planetkc.com), April 20, 2002

Answers

There now ... did you miss me? Didn't think so :8)! Nothing like a good fresh cup of hot coffee with a little Irish Cream added for flavor to start the day off right.

It's been an interesting week here for us. I have a friend that drives a school bus that convinced me to apply for a driving job. She homesteads, too, and assured me that it wouldn't interfere with what we do around here much, so I applied. Got the job, so this last week I took the physical and drug screen and all the yadda-yadda stuff they want you to do and next week I'll have a couple days training and will most likely be driving a school bus by the middle of the week. I think it will be GREAT! I love kids and love driving so the combination will either be lots of fun or will drive me nuttier than I already am.

And I had a lot more to write on this, but someone just called me to go mow a lawn and till their garden, so I gotta get around. We also plan to go to the farmer's market in town (we've been the only ones there so far) if it isn't too cold/wet out, and I have to rotate the hogs onto new ground today after I get the hot wire put up. Busy, busy, busy (thank goodness the ground is too wet to get into the garden here at our place!!!) You folks have a GREAT day! Talk with you later :8)!

-- Phil in KS (mac0328@planetkc.com), April 20, 2002.


I got up at 5:30am so I could pick strawberries to take to my children-then it was off to NC State Farmer's Market! Boy,were they busy--everything from vegs., home baked goods, to flowers. One lady had the most beautiful flowers(sweetpeas, bacholor buttons, and larkspur) in bunches for sale for $10.00 each and she was selling them. I will plant sweetpeas in my cutting garden -next year! Tomatoes were $1.75 lb. and strawberries were everywhere($11.00 for a boxful(the kind that sodas come in)! It so nice to see what others are planting/selling. As for us we haven't planted anything,yet! Our calves are really growing and starting to eat 'calf feed' but they still have "milk faces" :)!They are so cute with their white,wet little faces. 90* weather almost all week--we could use a little rain! Hope everyone else is having a good week!

-- Debbie T in N.C. (rdtyner@mindspring.com), April 20, 2002.

Bobby and I made our pasture about 8 acres bigger. wow, physical exercise! lol I almost stepped on a copperhead, cut by briars, a little sunburn, but does it feel great! The cows love it. Now it is raining, soft gentle rain. see yah

-- julie (jbritt@ceva.net), April 21, 2002.

We've been converting one end of our barn into a larger chicken coop - we have one that's about 8'x9' or so, but this one will be about 10'x12', nearly double - which is good, because I've gone from 6 hens to 6 hens, 11 three month old pullets, and 2 two week old babies living in an aquarium (35 gallon) in my living room until we can get this new coop done and everyone moved around! The old coop will be a temporary new baby home and garden shed when all is said and done.

I do have one piece of advice for anyone messing with corrugated sheet metal - that stuff is SHARP on the edges. You think a paper cut is bad, you ain't seen nothing yet! Wear Gloves! Leather ones!

Other than that, the only thing I have accomplished in the last few days is going to the local Wal-Mart supercenter today for groceries, the first "stock up" trip in awhile - and the last for awhile if I have anything to say about it! The checker was impressed I had "so much" for $150 - I was in shell shock at the total! I didn't ever take that much cash with me - I had to pull out the checkbook for part of it! Boy will I be glad when the garden's up and going again! (We're moving our garden plot, which is what got us started on the moving the chicken coop escapade - can't have them too close together when the garden isn't fenced!) On the bright side, I bought enough food so that as I told Lance, he "won't be eating out for a month!" Period! End of Discussion! It is TOO expensive!

Well, the house has been neglected since I've been spending all my time this past rainy week in the barn, so I'd better get in the try to accomplish something now, since the boys are in bed and Lance is at the fire station tonight. It'll probably be back to the corrugated sheet metal tommorrow - which reminds me, I need to find those leather gloves....

-- Christine in OK (cljford@mmcable.com), April 21, 2002.


Well, I'm sitting here with braces on both wrists doing my best to type and having a hard time of it. Oh well, such is life sometimes - with carpal tunnel syndrome anyway. Mine hasn't bothered me very bad for a long time - hurts like #^@%*& now, though. Started bothering me pretty bad when I began working in the raised beds this year ... hasn't let up since. Guess that will teach me to do all that manual labor, won't it? :8) Okay ... whimper session is over ... on to other things.

Doesn't seem like I've got much done around here, but I know I have. It's rained the last couple days, so the ground's been too wet to do anything in the garden. I did get the lawn mowed that I was called to do the other day, but no tilling. If I'd had soap and a towel, I would have had my shower just as I was finishing up the mowing job. Rained like crazy for just a few minutes before I got finished, then as I got the last pass done, it stopped raining altogether. Kinda crazy, but made me smile just the same.

I did manage to get the middle of the rows tilled in our garden before it rained, and my mom tilled the rest of what we haven't got planted yet to get all the grass out. Then it rained and we have beautiful green plants in freshly tilled soil - very nice! We have our sweet corn up, and our potatoes, squash, onions, radishes, some lettuce, and some okra coming up. Popcorn isn't up yet, and the peas we planted didn't germinate (I thought the seeds were older than last year, but mom was pretty sure of herself, so we gave it a try ...), so we'll be replanting them as soon as it dries up. We've also got our pepper plants and tomatoe plants to get hardened off and ready to set out pretty soon, along with planting the heirloom tomatoes, corn and peppers we have. I'll probably give those things a week or so before I get to them, though - I HAVE to find more ground to till up ... don't have room for all the melons I want to plant! And this country boy don't go through a growning season without some cantalope and black diamond watermelon to eat fresh out of the patch :-p! That's just for the garden stuff.

I have another outside pen to put up in order to let the 100 larger chicks out, then put the 200+ smaller chicks in the pen the larger chicks have been in. I have to get two pens and sheds ready for the two gilts that will have pigs one of these days in the not too distant future, and I have a rabbit shed to build so we can get the rabbits out of the "winter house" and out into some fresh air.

After all that's accomplished, I have to get our tractor serviced and the brush hog greased and checked out and get the pastures mowed. I've been wanting to burn them off, but about the time I think I'll be able to without much worry, the wind gets up and I back down ... afraid of the fire getting out on the neighbors and going wild. I don't want to be responsible for burning someone else's place when they might not want that done ... so I'll mow it all as soon as I can.

Those are the things on my "To Do" list for THIS week ... you don't EVEN want to hear about next week! LOL! Someone in another post talked about having springtime overload (or someting to that effect) - that pretty much fits the bill here. I wouldn't have it any other way, though! After not being able to do anyting outside during the winter, I look forward to my overloaded "to do" list of the spring and summer months!

Well, I'll bid you all g'nite now ... here's hoping your day tomorrow is productive and full of love and laughter!

-- Phil in KS (mac0328@planetkc.com), April 21, 2002.



Phil, reading your to do list has tired me out enough that I think I need to go take a nap!!! I sold my buck kids, 7 of them, on Sat. and my barn chores are down to a more reasonable level. It is rain mixed with snow here today.......quite a shock to my system after the mid 80's we had last week. I am sure glad that I did a lot of mowing before this cold rain, as it sure looks like the stuff is growing pretty good in the cold :>(. We mow quite a bit here, not so much for lawn but for trails back through the land etc. We do try to keep the "lawn" type area down, but it does seem to grow a bit each year for some reason.

I plan to start a bunch of seedling today, since I can not get outside to work except in the barn. I have the four little doelings that I need to disbud and tattoo and vaccinate, bunny cages to clean, chicken coop to clean and over half the barn.........so rainy day or not there is much to be done. Hope everyone has a great week.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), April 22, 2002.


Hi Everyone, it's sounds like you all have been busy!

I finally got the garden put out on Thursday and Friday. Got the herb seeds planted and the blueberry bushes in on those days too. Of course it had to be in the 90's for those two days! I was melting. Today the temps were in the 70's! Ah, such is life. But we did have some rain last night, which really helped the garden and the corn is poking through already. Yeah! Still need to get the straw for the garden and some odds and ends, but I've got most of the hard part done. And boy, does my back know it! But I sure have been sleeping really well!

Was looking around the house this weekend and figured I had ignored the inside long enough, so I got some old rock music going and rearranged the furniture and cleaned real good. Of course, I had to stop a few times and dance with Ellie (my dog) until Jed (my other dog) kept butting in. He's a terrible dancer who's got two left feet but Ellie and I don't have the heart to tell him! :)

Today was spent taking my mom to Knoxville to have the air conditioner in her car fixed, so I didn't get anything else done. Did get to visit with my brother, so it turned out to be a pretty good day.

Dave came in from work yesterday feeling really bad. I think he has the flu. He says it's just a bad cold, but he was running a temp last night and feeling achy. I've got a sore throat tonight, so I'm praying I don't get it. I've got too much to do. Thursday is the day I take the class to learn how to make baskets. I've been signed up for it, for well over a month, so I really don't want to get sick! Murphy's Law. :)

Hope you all have a great week and the weather cooperates with whatever ya got planned!

-- Annie (mistletoe6@earthlink.net), April 22, 2002.


BRRRR!!! It's cold out there! And to think, 50* would have felt plumb warm a couple of weeks ago, before we got those record and near record high temps last week! Grey, gloomy, cold and damp....I was thinking about sending hate mail to www.weatherunderground.com; they swore yesterday that I would have some sunshine here today! I wanted to haul my laundry in to wash it, so I could come home and hang it on the line. Bummer. Oh well, it's going to be summer in my kitchen today anyway, By Golly! First, I'm going to make some potato salad and baked beans, to go with the hamburgers that Hubs will cook on the grill for supper. Then, I'm going to start the watermelon and canteloupe seeds today, at Pop's urging. Hale's Best and Minnasota Midget canteloupe, Banana Muskmelon, Moon and Stars and Sugar Baby watermelon - all those are heirloom seed. Then, Tiger Baby melon; I'm pretty sure it isn't an heirloom, but it's Pop's favorite, so grow it we shall! I may even start the cukes and zucs too! Anybody ever grow and eat Delicata squash? I've got some seed, but I'm not much of one for eating squash.

Pop managed to get out in the woods for an hour, before the weather turned off so cold; he found us 20 or so morels, so he and I will be having them for lunch today. Hubs doesn't like them - there's something strange about that boy!! Pop went out again this morning and only found one little black 'sroom - I think they've gone back in to hiding!

The strawberries and bee balm that Pop and I transplanted to the garden look great and the berries are even blossoming! Got to remember to put hairpins on my shopping list - those ones that are U shaped are the best thing I've found for pinning down runners where you want them to go. Pop won't let me move the rhubarb this year, says to wait 'til next spring (sigh of exasperation!) so I've got to decide what to put in the beds where I was going to put them. An annual, so I can get out there early next year and get that darn rhubarb moved! Guess the zucchini would go good in that spot, but then I'd have to decide what to put where I had planned to put the zucchini! I reckon, with the weather outside, today is a pretty good day to be having garden dreams, so I'll get out my pencils and erasers and get to it here pretty soon!

My eight hens are getting back in to production mode - 5 and 6 eggs a day, not too shabby! I've been feeding them (and Bun) the dandylions that I keep having to chop out of the perennial bed and around the edges of the garden - they seem to appreciate them. Better them than me! My Godmother and Granny used to get together and go "greening" every spring - yuck!! I can get overwintered spinach and chard out of the garden just as early - and it tastes a sight better too!

Huh - Pop is hollering from the other room, wanting to know when I'm going to start those seeds - guess I'd better go get set up and get it done. I got those little peat pellets that expand in water - maybe I'll let HIM plant them!

You folks take care, keep warm and dry!

-- Polly (tigger@moutrie.com), April 23, 2002.


The cold weather is a lot harder to take after having had several days that reached into the mid 80's. Our high temperature yesterday was 32 degrees.

We now have our onions and peas in and, while having the nice weather last week, put in a fairly large perenial flower bed (am going a bit crazy with the used tiller my husband found for us). We have lots of veggies and flowers growing under the lights still - won't be long until we can put them outside for a while.

We are down to four egg layers so we used a light this winter and had four eggs almost everyday. They are Light Brahmas.

Our oldest buck rabbit (Red Flemmish/California) died this weekend. He was a real sweety - very gentle. We haven't been able to figure out the cause of his death.

Hope everyone has a nice week - we're wishing for warming weather.

-- Terry - NW Ohio (aunt_tm@hotmail.com), April 23, 2002.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ