A Few More Pictures

Last week flew by in a blur - there was so much to do, and unfortunately, not all of it was outside. But at least now, our taxes are done :) I had hoped to spend Thursday outside working on the garden, but instead, spent the day inside because of rain. Well, most of the day, anyway. I did get to spend some time outside in the rain, raking and digging wet leaves and branches out of the ditch near the driveway. It must have rained really hard that night because that morning, I noticed that the street was flooded in front of our house. When I investigated, I found that it was because there were leaves and sticks blocking the flow of water through the ditch. Ahhh . . . country living :)

We had guests over this weekend, so I spent most of Friday getting ready for them, but I did have time to plant 4 asparagus plants. From what I can tell, moles have already dug up one of them, but I am hopeful that the others will make it.

Saturday, our guests were interested in going to town to check out some garden centers, so we did. We came home with a Japanese Magnolia, an Azalea bush (an interesting variety that blooms most of the time), strawberry plants, blueberry plants, raspberry plants, a few heirloom tomatoes and a flat of pansies that we received for free (I am sure it is because they were looking kinda rough and would have been hard to sell - and aren't they going out of season, too?). We put them to good use filling some terra cotta pots with them.

This one is my favorite.

The garden is slowly getting built. I am hoping to spend today working on it and maybe get it built and at least one raised bed planted. This is what it looked like late yesterday afternoon. The plan is to cover the area we are building it on completely with hardware cloth (moles) then lay weed blocking paper (most likely newspaper) over that. We will lay the beds on top of that and build a fence around the entire area. I'm hoping to get the hardware cloth and weed blocking done today so that I can start filling the beds. As you can see in the picture, I had to purchase compost this year as there is no way the compost I am making will be ready in time for spring planting. I guess that means we'll have to build more beds in the fall :) The fence around the garden may have to wait until early next week because I have another pressing building project that I must finish soon. I need to build a chicken coop.

Yes!! A chicken coop!! We were offered 3 hens and a rooster and if we are going to take them, they need to bring them by next weekend. Since they are full grown and already laying, they need a coop and not just a cardboard box, so I better get busy. I will post pictures of them some time next week. I do have some pictures of my Dad's chicks. He got 4 of them last week from a farm supply store in a town near where they live. They are such cuties!!
His choices were the commercial variety of white egg laying chickens or a mixed variety, so he went with the mixed, though he does not know what kinds they are or what sex. We think the gray one is a rooster, but the others are probably hens. The chicks (oh, and my parents) were our visitors this weekend so the boys fed these chicks lots of our farm bugs and my compost got a nice little (well actually, not so little, these guys can produce some manure!!) boost of chicken manure. Just a few short years ago, I would NEVER have believed I would be glad to have poop, lol. Ahh . . . country living :)