Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Last Blast of 'Winter'

I feel the need to put 'winter' in quotations this year... most of the year, it was so mild and lovely, it really didn't feel like winter at all! Officially, it has been my favourite winter of my life. Wish they were all so wonderful! True to form, however, winter decided to rear it's ugly head for a week there... we had some dumps of snow (which didn't last long!) and some colder temps... I blame myself, as it only gets cold when I plant my gardens... lol!

The cold snap didn't seem to do much harm, however... I have radish and arugula coming up already. I LOVE seeing little green things coming up! I also planted my first ever asparagus plants... Jersey King and Purple asparagus. I won't get any crops this year, but should be able to start harvesting a bit from them next year. I've been working on filling and planting the rest of my garden beds... I am getting there! I now have 35 beds all ready to go, most of them planted already. I was so happy to have my goal of 50 beds in this year, but now I see it probably won't be enough for everything I want to do... I am going to slowly start building more as I go, and just keep plugging away at it.

I went up to my friends' greenhouse last week to check on my little seedlings. Everything is doing fantastic! The little cabbages will be ready to plant outdoors in just a couple of weeks... then I have to figure out how to keep the deer from gobbling them all down. grrrrr... deer.

A friend of a friend also gave me 30 more laying hens. This are just your regular run of the mill hens, but suddenly I have eggs coming out my ears... I am working on building up a good new customer base on those, too, so my fridge doesn't fill up completely with eggs!

I sent out an email to all my customers last week, to get preorders for meat chickens. I have now officially sold 46 chickens! I ordered 75, so I will have 20 for myself, and a few extras for some late orders. I am super happy with that! The little poults will arrive in a couple of weeks, and they should be ready for processing in early June. It will be nice to have a bit of extra money coming in at that time, too.

I am now off my EI self employment program, which is somewhat scary, but I am determined to do whatever it takes to make a living from my little farm, and I know everything will work out just fine!

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

It's Officially Spring...;-)

Oops... haven't updated in a while! My dogboarding business has had the busiest 3 continuous months, and I've been up to my neck in dogs day after day. This is NOT a complaint! I've loved every moment of it. I am finding I am getting better and better and nicer and nicer dogs in here all the time. This week is a slow week, so I am using the few days I have to try to catch up on everything else in my life. Not an easy task!

Let's see.... what is new? I've been going gangbusters on the garden beds, and I now have 46 beds made, with the lumber for 3 more. I just have to go to the lumber store one more time to get the rest of what I need. Yay! I'm so stoked I got this much done, considering how busy I've been. I have a small load of compost coming in on Monday, so I will use that to start filling the empty beds. The load I'm getting won't get them all done by any stretch, but it will make a good dent in it.

Yesterday was March 1st. In Kelly Land, this is officially spring. I don't care what the calendar says, I don't care what the weather is doing. March 1st comes, and I want to be in the garden. Well, this year, I am! I started planting yesterday after checking the weather for the next week. There is no frost expected in that time, so I have been busy turning over the fall rye, and weeding and planting all the beds that are ready. I've got in 2 varieties of peas, 3 varieties of beets, arugula, several lettuces, walla walla onions, mesculin mix, and a couple of herbs- rosemary and oregano. If I think it's going to get cold, I will just cover the beds with newspaper to insulate the little seedlings. I also went to a friend's place who has several greenhouses, and planted basil, cabbages, tomatoes, and peppers, to be ready for me when it warms up. Very cool of him to let me do that... it will definitely give me a head start, and everything can be grown organically so I can keep my Certified Naturally Grown status.

I had to mow the lawn last week for the first time this year.... a huge bit earlier than last year! The mower started up just fine, and I got it all done just before it started raining again. I guess if it dries out a bit here and there, it will be my weekly chore again. So much to mow... I do almost 2 acres each time, all hand mowed... no ride 'em mower for me! I used to hate it, but now I don't mind so much. It's good exercise, and a great time to just plan what I want to do next.

There are green things coming out of trees all over the place, and the cherry blossoms are starting to come out. I think Mother Nature agrees with me that it should be spring now... !!

Flooded Driveway

Flooded Driveway
Too much RAIN!