IDA slowed down in it’s approach to the coast line and just made landfall around 5:30 AM this morning.  It’s still raining outside and the wind is blowing pretty good but nothing really bad.  It’s light out but there is no sunshine LOL  Here’s a pic from the front yard looking into the oaks and the sky:

Of course you can’t tell in the photo that the wind is blowing but you can see some of the rain drops that are falling.  I took the photo when it has stopped raining for just a bit.  Most of the rain is really gone through and we’re left with the wind portion of the tropical storm.

The garden has really gotten a nice watering yesterday and overnight.  This will definitely give my seeds that I planted this past weekend a nice boost :-)  I am working on planning what I will be planting in the remainder of my garden…  I still need to plant more lettuce and more turnips… those are things that we love to eat during the winter months and, they are veggies that also grow very well during our mild winters here on the Gulf Coast.

Well, I need to run and get going for the day.  Hope you have a good one!

Too bad I never went to sleep last night LOL!  Long story but I’ll give you the short version after I share some gardening news with you.

Saturday morning and afternoon we had a great time outside in the garden!  It just felt so good to get out and dig in the dirt, ya know what I mean?  There’s just something about getting back to the Earth and enjoying the great outdoors with the plants (veggies in my situation) and animals (cows and chickens for me!). 

Kitty and Davison (our Black Angus “puppy” cows) are getting so fat!  And they are so spoiled too.   I would have never imagined in a million years that I would begin to love cows!  But I’m really attached to them and I’m glad that we’re going to keep them through the winter and into the Spring.  To the casual passer-by they are just two black cows or steers.  But we can see how they are both so unique and different in everything they do and how they act.  Kitty has a “moo” that sounds like an elk call.  Davison has a very deep “moo” that will rattle the windows LOL  The shapes of their faces and necks are different, the “tuffs” on the top of their heads are different…. we can just see how beautiful they are and how individual each of them are.

Now the chickens, we’ll they are just so entertaining!  I had a little fun with them today.  Most of the hens had already gone into the next boxes to leave their “presents” for me (eggs) and I thought I would give another peek just to make sure one of them didn’t slip back in to lay another egg.  Well, I interrupted “Miss Priss” (her nickname for today).  She is one of the Rhode Island Reds.  She gave me a look like “Hello, can’t you tell I’m busy in here?”  Take a look:

So I quickly excused myself and went back to the garden to work a little more.  I decided I would go back later (which I did) and this time she was ready for me… head first waiting for me to open the nest box door…

For some reason she was just taking her own dear sweet time laying her egg today….   Now Buffy, she wanted to play Peek-A-Boo…

And she caught me in this pic:

DH worked on flipping the compost bins which is a big job considering they are 3×3x4′ tall and… there are 4 bins!  We really needed to flip them so that we could get some air mixed up and fluff them some AND, we also needed more room because we’re running out!  I was able to use a couple of wheelbarrow loads from the compost bins.  Some of the material on the very bottom was close to being finished - so that is what we used to supplement several of the raised beds that I was going to plant in today.

Later this morning (after I’ve had a little sleep), I’ll be going out to do some planting in those beds that DH prepared for me.  I am so excited that we are making our own compost from the leaves that fall out of our trees, from our kitchen scraps, from our steers’ manure, from our chickens’ manure, and from the lawn clippings that we obtain from our yard.  It’s had to tell in the picture above, but this stuff is rich and black. 

DH asked me what are we going to do with all of this compost.  That was an easy question to answer…. I told him that we’d be using it in the new raised beds we are going to build for the Spring planting LOL  Between that and supplementing the raised beds we already have, I’m sure that I’ll find a home for all of this compost.

Now a quick explanation of what I was blogging about with the peas and the tomato cages…. I planted “Alaska” which is a shelling pea.  The vines are supposed to grow to be 2 1/2 feet high.  So I planted the seeds around the base of the tomato cage and I’m using the tomato cage as a mini trellis.  And, around the tomato cages I planted some lettuce and some chard in the empty space.  Here’s a pic:

OK, time for me to end this post and get some sleep…. now for the reason that I haven’t been to sleep all night.  Well, around 2 PM I headed up to the office to meet another volunteer who is working on “the project”.  Well, we have so much work to do up there and we stayed until very late and until we were very tired - until 3 AM.  As we locked up and were headed to our vehicles, I saw a dog in the parking lot.  At first it scared me because you never know if stray dogs are mean or nice.  Well, the office is right next to a 5 lane highway…. I told the other volunteer that I was afraid that the puppy would get hit by a car.  Well, when I said “puppy”, he stopped, turned around and looked at me and wagged his tail.

That was it… I couldn’t leave him.  He came over to me wagging his tail and was the sweetest thing ever!  He was a full-grown chocolate lab.  No collar or tag.  I took him inside the office and locked him up in the bathroom while I ran to WalMart and purchased treats, a water bowl, a food bowl, a collar and a leash.  Oh, and I found him a huge rawride bone to chew on.  When I came back to the office, I got the collar on him, loaded him up in my vehicle and took him home.   So this morning, he is in the living room, relaxing and occasionally looking over at me and wagging his tail almost like he is saying “thank you” for saving me.  I woke DD and DH up and they are both in love with him already.  He’s just the sweetest dog.  He even knows how to sit for a treat and he minds pretty good too.

He’s definitely someone’s pet because he teeth are pretty and clean, he’s been trained a little, and even his toenails are clipped (meaning he’s a dog that also lives inside the home).  Let’s hope that he’s “trained” too or I’m going to wake up in a couple of hours to a mess by the front door LOL

And wow, it’s almost 10 AM LOL!  I have lots to do this morning…. heading down to the office at 2 PM for some volunteer work.

First though, we have to finish up in the garden area this morning.  DH has just left to go to the feed store to purchase more calf feed for the boys, Kitty & Davison.  We are trying something new - we feed them 1/2 of their daily feed in the morning and the other 1/2 in the late evening.  Inbetween they eat all the hay that they want.  This new schedule is working better for them…. hmmm, how do I know?  Well, you can tell alot about an animal by its poo.  When we feed the entire amount of feed for the day all at one time, it’s just too much for their stomaches I think.  By splitting their feeding schedule between the morning and late evening, they seem to do better.

This morning I’ll be planting at least 2 more raised beds with some carrots and some beets.  Last year the carrots were so sweet!  The difference between the carrots we grew in the garden and those I last purchased from the store… well, let’s just say “no comparison!”.

I want to do something with the SWC that I grew tomatoes in this past summer but I’m just not sure what would really be a good veggie to grow in them for the fall/winter.  EG seems to be having very good results with broccoli so I might try something like that… maybe some broccoli raab since I haven’t had very good luck with broccoli. 

You’ll get to see some updated pics of the garden this evening… I plan on taking some pics if I can find my camera today LOL.  I want to show you how I will be using the tomato cages as a trellis to grow the Alaska Peas on.  Plus, I am using the space around the outside of the tomato cages for my lettuce and chard.

Something else I planted yesterday was some of the garlic that I purchased a while back.  I know… a little late getting it into the ground LOL   I was hoping to get it planted about 2 months ago but the lack of time interferred with the garden.

It’s time to start thinking about some of the goals that I would like to set for 2010.  Can you believe it’s already November?    One goal that I have for 2010 is to acquire 2 rabbits for our little farmette/homestead. 

I already have the perfect spot for them (pre-planned of course).  I don’t plan on having the rabbits for meat initially.   It’s their manure that will benefit us the most.  Rabbit manure can be used straight in the garden without having to worry about it burning the plants,  So it’s a great way to improve the soil in raised beds as well as supplement feed the plants.

Another way that the rabbits will be beneficial — worms…. I plan on growing worms under the rabbit pen.  And guess who will get some of the worms?  The chickens!  The worms will be an additional source of protein for my chickens.   So there are 2 immediate benefits to having the rabbits here on our little farmette — manure for the garden as well as a place for me to grow worms for my chickens.  Of course there’s always the benefit of having rabbits to pet, hold and love :-)   When I was young I had rabbits for pets.  Rabbits make great pets because they are nice and quiet LOL  Plus, they are a great way to quickly dispose of garden scraps and green vegetable scraps - they turn this into a great manure that is mild and can be immediately used in the garden.

A 2nd goal for 2010 that I’ve really been thinking alot about is a chicken tractor.  Patti uses her chickens to prepare her raised beds for planting.  How?  Well, they consume the spent veggie plants, scratch and eat bugs in the raised beds, and till up the soil all while leaving poo to supplement the soil.  What I would like to do is build a chicken tractor that can also function as a rabbit tractor too.  We have plenty of grass and land and I could also use the “tractor” to graze the rabbits.

Just some ideas to think about for next year.  Well, I need to get outside and get busy!  I will check back in later this evening with some pics!  Have a great Saturday!!

Well, today I decided that I needed a day off.  I needed a day to “catch up” on sleep and things around the house and garden.  I’ve been working until pretty late every night and sometimes into the early morning hours.  Unfortuately, that hasn’t left me much time to do anything around the house. 

First of all, I went to bed early last night and slept until around 1 AM.  I got up, got on the internet and started browsing through all of my favorite blogs that I needed to catch up on.  It seems like most everyone is slowing down on their gardening efforts with fall and cooler weather kicking in.  Here in the South, it’s awesome weather to grow so many veggies!  I got sleepy again about 3 AM and went back to bed.

It was time to get up this morning at 6 AM so I could get my day started and get DD to school.  But, even with all of the sleep I had, I just felt pretty run down and worn out.  So after I took DD to school, I went out and fed/watered the chickens and calves and visited with them for a little while.  I came back inside and decided that I would lay back down for a little while.  Well, that little while turned into 1 PM!  I guess my body just needed some R&R for a while.

After picking DD up from school this afternoon, I went back out to feed and water as well as get some more seeds into the raised beds.  In the garden I have the following veggies planted:  lettuce (Red Sails & Romaine), peas (Sugar-Snap & Alaska), carrots, turnips, broccoli raab, radish, and some swiss chard.  I’m really getting excited about growing cool weather veggies.  In the South, we have so many bugs to worry with during the summer months.  About the only time that we get any relief is during the cooler winter months.  We rarely have freezing temps (only a couple of times over the winter months) and when we do, we try to cover the garden to keep it from freezing, which has worked so far.

The two types of peas I have planted are Sugar-Snap and Alaska.  The Sugar-Snap vines can get as tall as 55-65 inches!  I have them planted so that they can grow up the 7′ high trellis that I used for the tomatoes last summer.  I also have more of them planted where I normally plant my pole beans.  So these peas will have plenty of room to grow :-)  I can’t wait until they start producing!  They are 66 days to harvest.  I hope that I have enough planted to allow us to eat fresh snap peas as well as plenty to blanch and put in the freezer.

Now the Alaska pea vines do not get that tall.  The package says that they will grow to be about 2 1/2 feet tall.  These peas are the shelling variety (like English peas).    I have them planted next to the 3′ high fencing that surrounds the garden.  I also decided to use some of my tomato cages as trellises to grow this variety on.  I will try to take some pics and show you tomorrow on my blog.  I placed the tomato cages inside the raised beds and planted the pea seeds on the inside of the tomato cage.   They have already germinated and aren’t too far from grabbing hold of the tomato cage.  On the outside and around the tomato cages, I have planted some Swiss chard.  This raised bed is going to be beautiful once it’s mature.  The chard I planted is the 5 color chard.

I took a pic last week while I was outside working one morning…. it’s a picture that only a gardener or farmer can really appreciate LOL!  It’s 3 days worth of what I picked up behind the calves to put into my compost bins….  DH and I keep the grazing field “picked up” of the bombs that Kitty and Davison leave for us.  We do this for 2 reasons.  The first reason is that I don’t want my back yard smelling like a cow pasture and the 2nd reason is that this stuff is GREAT for the compost pile!  I like to keep everything cleaned up and tidy even if it’s in the calves’ area.  We keep it picked up using the pitch fork and the wheel barrow and then toss it into the compost bins and cover with some leaves.  You wouldn’t believe how that keeps the smell down.  When you walk into our back yard, other than hearing the calves mooing and the roosters crowing,  you don’t “smell” them and wouldn’t know that they are there.  Anyway, here’s an idea of how much manure 3 day’s worth looks like:

Our wheelbarrow has been used so much… unfortunately this week while I was going around picking up “bombs”, one of the handles broke and part of the underneath bracing broke.  That on top of the tire that must be air-ed up on a regular basis and it has several holes rusted through, well… we need a new wheelbarrow!  This is a tool that we just can’t do without around here.  For my birthday last week, my mom sent me a check — guess what I’m going to use that money on?  LOL

In closing, I would like to share a video that I took with my cell phone.  The quality is horrible but still, you will get to see how sweet Kitty and Davison are and how they are like big puppies.  I took this video last week when I went out to feed one morning.  You’ll get to hear Capri crowing several times - he’s such a loud-mouth!  I am hoping that I can get another video with the calves moo-ing so you can hear the way Kitty moo-s.  He sounds like an elk!  Anyway, enjoy!!

Where has fall gone?  LOL!  It’s already November…. time is just flying by!

I’ve been busy at the office doing volunteer work…. every day, every night, every available minute it seems.  Unfortunately, that doesn’t leave much time for gardening, ya know?  But I have managed to get a few things in the ground, so that’s good.  I have planted more peas, turnips, broccoli raab, radishes and swiss chard. 

I’m having some trouble with “SOMETHING” and I’m not sure exactly what it is…  For example, every collard transplant was plucked!  Also, something was munching on the leaves (as in the ENTIRE LEAVE) of some of my chard transplants.  And now, something is either digging up or plucking my swiss chard seedlings that are coming up.

I can’t wait until I have more time to get into the garden and really get to planting!  The weather is perfect right now but I’m busy and locked up in an office all day

How’s things going in your garden?

Well, I played hooky from the office today…. but I had a very good excuse!  See, I’m babysitting my friend’s 4-year old son.  That’s a good reason, isn’t it?  So I had a wonderful nap this morning while DD played with the midget.  Then when I woke up, we went outside and fed the animals.  I also spent some time in the garden and got the collards, lettuce and chard transplants in the dirt.  The 4-year old had such a good time digging in the dirt.   He likes planting seeds and plants too.  We tilled the soil with the cultivator, dug little holes with the spade and got all of my transplants into the ground.  He also poked holes in the soil and planted the pea seeds for me.   I explained to him that the pea seeds (which he said looked like peas!) would grow pretty plants that would make peas for us to eat.  He was just so amazed!

Children love playing in the dirt - I know I did when I was younger.  I followed my grandfather around his garden and listened to every word he said.  I’ll be 47 at the end of this month and working in the garden with my grandfather is still something that I can vividly remember.  He showed me the best size to pick the cucumbers, how to tell if the butterbeans (aka lima beans) were ready to harvest, how to dig potatoes and “side-dress” the corn. 

You know, you’d think that a 4-year old with a short attention span would be like a bull in a china shop in my 24×24 garden.  But he was the best little guy.  He “dug holes”, found worms, planted and just had the time of his life.  Now he wants to be a farmer when he grows up and have cows, chickens and a garden.  Wonder where he got that idea from?  LOL

I took off today…. decided that I needed to take a break, ya know?  Sometimes we just reach that point where we need a little time for ourselves.  I’ve been working on the “project” day and night and I just needed to take a little time off to spend with DH and DD as well as to do some cleaning inside the house LOL   With DH working and me volunteering 12-16 hours per day, needless to say the house is a wreck!  So many things need to be “DONE”….  I  started in the kitchen this afternoon and I just about have everything cleaned up and back in place.  I still have some more work to do in the kitchen, but things are looking much better.

This morning DH and I went to Lowes to look around a little bit.  I think I mentioned on the blog that I came home one night to find that my office, sunroom, kitchen, laundry office bathroom, and breakfast were all flooded with water.  Well, DH has done a great job of trying to get up all of the old flooring and now, we’re walking on concrete floors.   I’ve wanted to change out the flooring in the kitchen, breakfast and laundry for a while now but decided we’d leave down the linoleum we had until we  had the time/money to replace it.  Needless to say, the water leak moved that date up quite a bit LOL   So we looked at some ceramic tile this morning.  We’ll begin to start putting away some money from every paycheck until we have enough to cover the expense of buying the tile, the adhesive and the grout.  DH is going to measure and determine how many tiles that we are going to need and we’ll get an estimate based on the cost of the materials.  Then, all we will need is the time to install it.

We are very lucky because DH can do just about anything…. besides being raised on a dairy farm, he also built and remodeled homes in his father’s business.  So these things he learned as a teenager and young adult have really helped us through the years!   DH has already tiled 2 of our bathrooms and he did such a great job with them.  So we’ll save the cost of labor and I’ll help him install the ceramic tile in the kitchen, breakfast and laundry room…

Now back to our Lowe’s trip this morning.   Unfortunately, I haven’t gotten any seeds started inside for my fall garden :-(   I have just been too busy and didn’t have enough time.  So, we headed to the garden area where I found some Georgia Collards, Swiss Chard and Red Sails Lettuce transplants! I purchased several packs of each one :-)  Here’s some pics of them:

As you can tell, the lettuce and the chard transplants are a bit big so I trimmed both of them up a little.  Now, I have some chard that I’ll saute in a little butter to go with my scrambled eggs in the morning and I’ll have some baby leaf lettuce for lunch tomorrow!  Here’s what the lettuce transplants look like now:

I have them under the light setup I have in my formal dining room (where I usually get my seeds started).  I’ll leave them there for a couple of days until I have some time to get them transplanted into the garden.

How’s your fall garden coming along?

As you can see, I have a ton of links to various gardening blogs that I’ve found all over the internet.  I love finding new gardening blogs where people write and share their successes and experiences.  I learn so much from them!  And when I do find a new gardening blog, I make a small graphic and add it to the side bar on my blog so that I can always have a link and go back to read new posts later.  To me, it is so relaxing to spend an hour in the evening reading gardening blogs!  I don’t get around to reading every blog every day, but I just go down the list and pick up where I left off the day before.

Well, one of my favorite blogs to read belongs to Annie’s Granny.  And I found a post on her blog today that was actually a tutorial on how to make a seed mat for those tiny seeds that are so hard to plant individually.  The advantage of making a seed mat is that you can accurately space your seeds, single-sow seeds and eliminate having to thin seedlings!  Plus, you can make the seed mats while you’re not busy inside at night and this will make it faster and easier to plant in your garden during the daylight hours.

Here’s a link to Granny’s blog tutorial on making seed mats — check it out:

I read that Granny uses seed mats for carrots and lettuce.  I’m going to ask her what other seeds will work too…. I’m thinking turnips, broccoli, and radish.  Another advantage that I just thought about - not having to bring the entire seed package out to the garden where it can be spilled or subjected to unnecessary heat and humidity.

Well, it’s finally 5 AM LOL   I’ve been up for an hour and a half already.  I went to sleep fairly early last night and had just gotten enough sleep and I was awake much earlier than normal this morning.

Dan's Urban Veggie Blog

Thanks Dan (Dan’s Urban Veggie Blog) for the comment!  I’ve missed checking out your blog since mine went down.  I’m still putting up the blog links that I had and I got yours back up on my site just a minute ago.   I’ll be going over to your blog in just a bit :-)  I’ve got to catch up on your tomatoes!

This morning I’ll be going through some of my seeds and getting things together for planting in the garden this weekend (or for starting inside under the lights).  I’m really excited about my fall garden…. I have most all of the garden planned out using PlanGarden.com.

I still have to work out exactly which varieties of each veggie that I will be planting, but this will be a good start to get me going.  I have plenty of seeds to plant that are great for cooler weather.  But there are still a few varieties that I would like to try - for example, I would love to plant “Tall Telephone” which is a sweet pea from Freedom Seeds.  I believe this is one of the varieties that the Dervaes plant in their garden that seems to grow very well and looks to be productive as well.  I plan on placing an order with Freedom Seeds this week some time. 

Freedom Seeds is on the front lines of the battle to preserve open pollinated seeds. With an initial launch of 75 vegetable seeds from arugula and beans to kale, peas, turnips and much more, gardeners can be confident that the seeds they buy from Freedom Seeds have been carefully screened for genetic manipulation. The worth of these seeds has been proven by compatibility with their environment, instead of being made tougher and more durable by genetic engineering. They possess the nutritive properties of old and locally developed strains, based on eatability instead of portability.

Well, I’ve got to get started getting ready for the day now.  I hope that your Tuesday goes well!

I hope that your Monday was nice too!  I got alot of work accomplished up at the office today - so that’s a “feel good” thing.  DH took the day off and was home working on removing flooring - he made a good bit of progress too

As soon as I got home, I just couldn’t wait to go outside and see the animals and feed.  As soon as we opened the gates, we heard the cows start mooing.  They were waiting on us :-)  It’s funny, but we can tell the difference in their “moo’s” now.  Kitty has a high, shreeking type of “moo”.  I’ve never heard one like that before.  And Davison has a very low “moo” that sounds like a big, brass tuba playing the lowest note.

DH said that with the amount of rain we’ve had this past summer and fall, there should be plenty of hay available for a good price through the winter months.  If so, it looks like we’ll probably keep our cow babies until the Spring sometime.  They will be a year old in December :-)  We’re definitely going to miss them when it’s time for them to depart.  But, it’s already been decided that when that time comes, we’ll be ready to get a couple more baby cows to raise.  I really like the idea of raising our own beef and knowing how well the animals were treated.  Ours will probably be the most spoiled cows ever LOL   They are never mistreated and are always pampered.   When we do get our next baby cows, they will be younger and hopefully at the bottle raising age!  If you raise them from young babies, then they will be every more tame and gentle than the ones we have now

I am happy to say that this is the 2nd day that the broody Ameraucana wasn’t sitting on a nest when I went out to get the eggs.  So, I guess I can’t call her a “broody” Ameraucana anymore LOL   She’s joined the rest of the flock and hopefully will be laying beautiful blue-green eggs again soon.  Now the “broody” Rhode Island Red, well, she’s a different story.  I pushed her off the nest again this evening and made her go and eat and drink.  She had adopted an egg that one of the other RIR’s laid today LOL  And she wasn’t too happy with me when we went back to the nest box and found that I had stolen her egg LOL!

On another note, I’ve almost finished laying out and planning my fall garden :-)  I am hoping to get everything in the ground this coming weekend