Lovely Clematis

So no farm update today. Spent most of the day running the kids around here and there. But I did get a chance to go by a new nursery and they had this beauty there for only $9. The big box stores have clematis roots for about $5-$10. And those can be hit or miss if they grow. So to get a started plant for only $9. Quite a deal.

But, unfortunately, that's all the update I have for today. I hope to get a lot more done tomorrow. For now, take care and have a good night.

More Weedeating, Muscovy Bully and Seedlings

Did some weedeating today. Didn't get any pictures of the before or after. Only got through two tanks of gas before I was just too worn out to do anymore. But I think I made some good progress.

I'm going to need to do something about my muscovy drake pretty soon here. At first he was only bullying my big black rooster and I thought that maybe he saw the rooster as a rival. But now he's bullying the other chickens also. I've got several hens that are missing feathers.

But I don't know what to do with him and the two muscovy hens. I don't really have any other place to put them right now. They have to have some sort of shelter at night or they'll get attacked. I know this because I lost several other ducks to predators last year. But the only places for them are the chicken coop or the chicken tractor and both of those are occupied right now.

My only other option is to build another tractor. And that's just going to cost more money. I eventually want to get all of the chickens and ducks out on pasture anyway so I can the coop as a brooder and for the bitties. But I didn't want to have to build another tractor so soon. I've got fencing to do! Oh well. I guess the fencing will have to wait a little while.

In other news, the paper towel/baggie seed sprouting method has worked really well for the borage and sage seeds. I don't know why I had such a poor sprouting rate in the toilet paper rolls because these seeds are obviously viable.

Borage seedlings.

Sage seedlings.

Transplanted those into the toilet paper rolls and watered them in real well. We'll see how many make it. Just because they're sprouted doesn't mean it's a guarantee they'll survive being planted. I was as gentle as I could be. But we'll see.

K, it's late and I gotta get up at 3:30 am to take the oldest to work. Take care all and have a good night.

Car Fixed, Bittties Go Outside, Bees and Naughty Chickens

So yesterday was sort of busy. But I didn't do a post yesterday because before I realized it, it was bedtime.

So yesterday started out with getting the kids up and off to school. As usual. Fed the dogs and cats. Took the dogs out for their morning potty. I tried to start the car one last time but she just wouldn't do it. Then woke hubby up. He called the tow truck. Once the tow truck got here, we headed off to the auto mechanic. Told them what was going on. Then we went and got breakfast.

Came home and fed the outside animals. Relaxed for a little bit. Then I got bored and went outside to plant strawberry plants and potatoes. Hubby was kind enough to come out and keep me company. I didn't take a picture of the strawberry plants because they just look like dead roots. But here's a potato going in.

Hubby watered the strawberries and potatoes for me and gave the ducks and chickens some fresh water in their kiddie pool. It was actually starting to get warm outside so he went back in.

I decided since it was so warm outside that I would bring the bitties out and put them in the cage below our bantam rooster.

As you can see from the picture, I put some house siding on the top of the babies cage so that the little rooster doesn't end up pooping on them. The cage was also hanging kind of wonky so I took some bailing twine and sorted of sewed the gap between the top and bottom cages. Basically used the floor of the top cage as a support for the top of the bottom cage.

I also decided to straighten up my hives a little bit. The longer/shorter ones are two half of the topbar hive I built. The other is the standard langstroth hive. That one belongs to my friend. She let me borrow it last year to try to get a swarm established. Another beekeeper gave me the swarm. But they didn't stay over the winter or they died out or something. There's still honey in the hive but some of it has crystallized.

But when I opened that hive, I guess some bees in the area smelt the honey and were flying around it. A couple of them landed on the hive but then took off again like they were undecided on what to do. I got this picture just before she took off again.

Finally, I took a bottle of lemongrass oil and put a bit in each of the topbar hives. Probably too much in one of the hives but that stuff came out a lot quicker than I expected. Maybe they'll like it better. Bees like the smell of lemongrass oil because it smells just like the smell they let off when they've found a new home and are letting the rest of the swarm know that this is 'home'. Some people call it the happy bee smell. Now, if you're around bees and you smell bananas. That means they're mad.

After that, we went to pick up my car. Apparently the idle motor had gone out on her. I guess it's a motor or something that keeps the engine running when you're not pressing the gas pedal.

So we got the car ($500, apparently the parts were pretty pricey. They did give us some discounts though.) and went and got dinner. Normally we don't eat out this much. But when you're running here and there, it's just easier to stop and get something.

Then hubby and daughter went home in his car and I ran by the grocery store. While in the checkout line I get a text from hubby asking if I'd let the chickens. No, I hadn't. Luckily my daughter ran out there and got them back in the pen. According to my husband she was almost like a military sergeant. Ordering them where to go and using a stick to guide them. She got them in there pretty quickly.

But apparently they'd been out enough to discover my freshly planted strawberry plants. Yup, they dug through my strawberry bed. I think they were more attracted to the freshly dug soil then the strawberry plants themselves. But they did dig up some of the strawberry plants and I'm sure buried most of them. I replanted the dug up ones that I could find and tried to even the soil out a bit. But we'll see what survives. I don't think they were in their enough to cause TOO much damage. But we'll see.

I don't understand how I didn't latch the door to their pen. I never miss that. Just for reasons like this. It's automatic anymore and I latch it without thinking. So I just don't get how I missed it.

After that I begrudgingly gave the chickens some food and fed the rest of the livestock animal. I took an extension cord and gave the bitties a light in their cage just in case they wanted the warmth. Then I came in the house, played a little World of Warcraft, realized it was past bedtime, took a shower and went to bed.

Today I hope to do some more weedeating around the sheep and pig areas so I can extend the electric wire a bit more and give them more room. But we'll see how the day goes. Wish me luck.

Anyway, almost time to feed the livestock again. So yall take care and have a good day.

Beautiful Eggs

I didn't do a post yesterday because I really didn't have anything to post about. Didn't really do much except watch some netflix and crochet. Just been kind of blah lately. Not sure if it's hormonal or what. Just no energy.

Today I was going to try to get some projects done but then my car decided it didn't want to work right. I could get it to start and it would stay started if I revved the engine. But as soon as I let go of the gas pedal, the rpms dropped to zero and it would stall. So today the husband and I have tried to trouble shoot it. We changed the spark plugs and wires. No joy. We changed the pcv valve and tube. No joy.

The things next to try would be sensors and the fuel pump. Since we have no idea what sensor is what, we're going to have it towed to the mechanic tomorrow so they can figure it out. Hubby is probably going to have to use a vacation day unfortunately. And it's going to cost us more money to get it towed and fixed. We've already put more money into this car over the years then it's worth. But we can't really afford to get another car right now either. Partially because we keep having to throw money at this car!

Since I don't really have much of a post anyway, here are some pretty eggs I got yesterday from our chickens. And one duck egg. The egg on left I believe is a maran egg. The other dark-ish egg wasn't that dark in person but I'm not sure who laid it either.

Anyway, that's been my last couple of days. I'm going to go kill stuff in World of Warcraft now to take out some of my frustration. Take care and have a good night.

Polish Chicks And Cleaning Out The Rabbit Pen

Sooooooooooo, these are 4 bantam polish chickens. I went to Tractor Supply to get chicken food and I saw these little guys. (Hopefully 1 guy and 3 girls.) But I've wanted a couple of these for quite a while now. So when I saw that there were actually some in the bantam bin, I just gave in. You can see their little poofs on their heads already. Aren't they so cute? That's how I knew they were polish. I believe they're going to be buff laced. But we'll see once they get more feathers.

I've also started getting the rabbit pen ready for them to come out of their cages. This is my compost pile and half of the stuff on there is from when I had the meat chickens in the rabbit pen. Hopefully I'll be able to get the rabbit pen finished this year and they'll just be colony bunnies.

I've yet to have much success with the cage method. They've only had a couple of litters and I've only had one bunny survive. Most have only survived a couple of days and then died. I don't know if these rabbits are just really bad mothers or if something else is going on.

K, dinner time. I is hungry. Take care all and good night.

Weedeating And Our Property

Today I did a bit of weedeating around the outside of the electric fencing. I only got one pass all the way around though so you can't really tell in this picture. Over the next couple of weeks, I hope to get a lot of this knocked down so I can expand the pig and sheep areas some more. This year I'd like to get most of the property fenced in, even if it's just mostly electric wire.

I also went for a little bit of a walkabout on the other side of our property. There's a runoff from our neighbor's pond that cuts our property in half almost diagonal. In this picture is the half with our house, the chicken pen and garden toward the trees and the pig and sheep areas more in the fore front.

I also saw some deer on our neighbor's property and took some video. But I only had my phone and it doesn't take the best video from a distance. You can see the deer but they're pretty much just silhouettes.

I also finally started my sage and borage in paper towels in baggies. Didn't take a picture of those because, honestly, it's just seeds in a wet paper towel and laid in a baggie.

After I got done with all of that, we went into town to get more weedeater fuel and an early dinner. A good thing I guess since as we were leaving the house, it started raining. And tonight it's supposed to snow again! For fuck's sake mother nature! It's almost April! Excuse me. I just had to let that out.

Ok, I'm going to go play some World of Warcraft and imitate a vegetable. Take care all and have a good night.

Canning and Lavender

No, I did not can the lavender.

I canned chicken vegetable noodle soup. Right now it just has the vegetables in it. Peas, green beans, corn, carrots and potatoes in chicken broth. Seasoned with oregano and basil. When they go to warm up the soup they can add the chicken and noodles to it. I've got the seven jars sitting there and another seven in the canner.

As for the lavender.I have a couple of the 'true' lavenders coming up in my seedling trays. But the ones that I really wanted to come up were the were the ellegance lavenders. They are supposed to be more suited for my area. But, only one came up and it's tiny and weak and I'm not sure if it's going to make it.

So while I was at Wally-world today, I was looking for luffa seeds so I can grow those this year and have some sponges to clean my jars with. I hate synthetic sponges. They didn't have any luffa seeds (gonna check some other stores in town but might have to order them) but they did have the ellegance lavenders in the large peat pot planters. So I grabbed a couple of those since I don't have anymore seeds to try again.

But that's been mostly what I've been up to today. Didn't do a post yesterday because the only thing I did was do some cleaning in the kitchen and catching up on my youtube subscription list. Not really exciting enough to write about. I know I should have at least posted a picture or something. But as usual, I lost track of time and it was bedtime before I knew it.

As a matter of fact, it's almost my bedtime now. As soon as this set of jars gets done, I'm off to bed. You should get to bed too if you're reading this, this late. Go on now. Get to bed. = ) Take care all.