Mid-Summer Update

It's good to be back, sharing a bit of our lives with you through this blog. We've been traveling some this summer, but it is ill-advised to mention that on-line, so I didn't want to post anything until we were home for good, lest I should let something slip. Needless to say, we had a good time vacationing in California and also spent 9 days in Wisconsin with Frank's mom, taking daily drives and making sure to find ice cream each time we ventured out!


This has been a really weird year for our garden. Some things are doing well and some things, that did really well last year, are a total bust this year. Of course we can always grow weeds, so Frank has been diligent keeping them manageable. Good thing we don't rely on our garden to get us through the winter or it would be slim pickin's!


As usual, we seem to be able to grow potatoes well. Ordinarily we wouldn't harvest any right now, but those dumb chickens got in there and dug up a few for us so we had to get them out of the sun. Boy are they good! We planted four kinds this year...reds and yukon golds for our main eating, and some purple and red-fleshed ones for fun. Now that we've got those purple and red ones, what in the world am I going to be able to make with them that will look reasonably appetizing? You got me!


These are my new wheels! Cool color, huh? This will be my buddy for the next 8 weeks or so starting Wednesday when I have big foot surgery. It's called a knee scooter, and I will rest my knee on it and push with my good foot. I've played with it quite a bit already and it seems fairly easy to manage. Inside I'll have to use a walker at first, then crutches. My surgeon said earlier in the year that I would have to be non-weight bearing for 4-6 weeks, but he has a new procedure now that will let me bear weight from the beginning as I can stand it. I will have two bones severed then screwed into correct position, so there will be lots of bone healing, so I'm sure I'll get to enjoy some of the fun drugs he prescribed for me!


In anticipation of not being able to stand much, I decided to chop off all my hair since I couldn't stand and blow dry it every day. I'm actually really liking this cut and am thinking about keeping it like this. I need a head shot for my class home-page and this is the best I can come up with so far. I think I look slightly maniacal. I'm not so sure that's a bad thing for that purpose! Hahaha.


Lastly, we have added a new little addition to Red Pony Ranch. Meet Shadow, who is standing here to the left of Maddie. He's a sweet little boy who is fitting in just fine. With Maddie getting old, I wanted to have another gelding for Yakki to become friends with and after a few minor squabbles over who loves Maddie more, the boys are enjoying each other's company. Technically, I don't own him, but he can stay here indefinitely, which is just fine with us!


One nice thing about summer is that our little lovebird Pete can be outside on the porch most of the day and evening. This porch is on the east side of our house, so we don't put him out until there is shade, but when he does go out, he spends his day either screeching at every bird in the neighborhood or taking power naps. It's nice to be able to roll him in and out to get some fresh air. In the winter he has a spot on the west side of our house right by a window so he can look outside and get what limited sun we have.

Well, Frank just informed me that he's taking the camera to the hospital on Wednesday, so I'm expecting that there will be another blog update next week. We'll see!

Out with the old, in with the new...

This is the time of year to ready our barn to receive the hay and pelleted bedding that will get us through the winter. This is the area in our barn that holds all our hay...last year it was 300 small bales of local hay and 44 bales of teff for our sweet old Maddie. Well, our winter turned out to be quite mild compared to the previous winter, so we have quite a bit of hay left. I'm not complaining, but poor Frank had to move the old stuff out of here. Nothing worse than moving stuff twice. So now we have to pick up all those pallets, clean out the old, spidery hay that's trapped underneath and get the cobwebs out so we can stack all the new hay in here when it comes.


So this is the last 9 bales of teff as well as my first ton of pelleted bedding. I have 1.5 more tons of bedding coming yet. I am going to buy more teff this year, so I can give it to everybody, not just Maddie. My farrier and I are going to go together and bring in a truck load. I think I'll need about 8 tons.


These are the 30 or so bales of local hay that are left. We put up a temporary gate at the end of the barn, so of course Daisy has to check everything out and nibble on the bales she can reach. She'll be 4 on this Thursday. I can't believe how quickly time flies.


Frank has been working over the whole barn, sucking up cobwebs, with our trusty new shop vac. Ever since we heard that cobwebs are flammable, we made it a goal to get this done. This little vacuum from Sears is great...lightweight and great suction. I don't even want to think about how many spiders are in there!


Anyone who has donkeys will tell you that they are much more interested in what people are doing than horses are, and I find that to be very true. The horses will check in then move on to other things, while the donkeys will hang around and supervise during the whole project. I just love these sweet sweet girls. That's Daisy (the daughter) on the left and Lily on the right. Daisy ended up being a couple of inches taller than her mom, and Lily is a bit more spotted, but for most people they are difficult to tell apart at first glance. They're in the diet field right now as Lily got a little bit sore feet this spring, so we're waiting for the grass to get less sweet and our lower pasture mowed before they can have full run of the property again.


I keep taking pictures of dear Sandy as we will never be sure when it's going to be the last one. She is 14 years 7 months old, and still doing quite well. No health issues other than a bit of deafness and some old-age creakiness that we treat with some Rimadyl. She does have big trouble with fireworks (and thunder and guns) so we got smart and gave her a bit of Ace (tranquilizer) this weekend and she slept through all of it. Whew!

Well, the garden update is that it's been really hit or miss. Swiss chard and lettuce are doing great, as are the peas. I have tried green beans for three years now and still am not successful with them for one reason or another. Potatoes and onions seem to be coming along fine. Corn had to be replanted and is still pretty small, so it'll be interesting to see if we get any by late summer. The few tomato plants I'm trying this year (determinate instead of indeterminate) seem to be healthy and strong, but I'm not seeing any tomatoes yet as it's just been too cold. Hopefully that will change soon! Talk to you again soon!

Taming the Raspberry Bed

Two years ago we (Frank!) dug out about a 20 foot long strip, removing the sod, to make a bed for some raspberry canes I wanted to plant. It looked lovely and the raspberries grew nicely. Well, fast-forward to now and you can barely even see them in the picture above as they are being overwhelmed by the grass that is now growing and trying to choke them out!


We cut into the sod and put some heavy black edging around the whole area. We couldn't dig out the sod without hurting the plants, so my friend Ange suggested putting down a heavy layer of newspaper before mulching to try to kill the grass. It sounded like a good idea to us, so that's what we did. We also put two 4x4's at each end so we can string some wire and give them the support they need as they get taller. Don't miss sweet Frank in this picture who is always so willing to provide the muscle and labor needed to work on all the projects I come up with!


After we put the paper down around all those raspberry stems, we covered it with a thick layer of pine mulch. I know it looks just like dirt here, but it was pouring rain during this whole project and we also wet it down to make it as heavy as possible on that newspaper, so it looks more like mud than the dark red pine shreds that it really is. So not only did we hopefully deal with the problem of the grass, but hopefully the raspberries are happier and the solution looks nice too!


Totally unrelated to this topic: I caught this picture of my four barred rock hens hanging out on our porch the other day (you can also see Sophie on the railing above) and thought they looked way too comfortable. They have the whole farm to explore, yet this is where they want to hang out! Frankly, though, these are such nice hens...much friendlier than my other chickens (other than Sophie and Sylvia) and just a pleasure to have around. In the beginning I got a couple of quite a few different breeds, and I always keep coming back to the barred rocks as being my favorites.

Well, I'm off to Oregon for a week, so the soonest I'll have another post is next weekend. I hope you are enjoying your spring and getting at least some sunshine. It's been way too rainy here and we're ready for it!

Memorial Day Update

We have had the 6th rainiest May on record, and most of that came in the last two weeks! So needless to say we haven't been able to spend any time out on our beautiful new porch. I did, however, find some flower baskets that I have been wanting to hang on this porch since before it was even built. I also found a couple of planters in the 'damaged' rack at Lowes, but I thought they still looked pretty good and snatched them up for 1/2 price. We have also been seeing a lot of hummingbirds, so I hung a couple of hummingbird feeders and we instantly started seeing them lapping up the nectar. I am still shopping for just the right glider and also some nice cushions and our lovely new living space will be complete!


Our garden is coming along fine, with some some successes and failures to report. The plants that like cool weather are doing fine...like the peas, potatoes, onions, swiss chard and bok choy. In fact, we will need to eat the last of the bok choy this week as it is beginning to bolt already. The warm weather loving crops are not faring well, especially the ones that needed warm soil to germinate. I need to replant some carrots, corn, beets and basil, plus think of what I want to plant in place of the bok choy. Frank spent several hours out there today in the rain doing some much needed weeding, and since it looked so nice I had to take a picture. The still-weedy patch on the left is where the corn is, and the ones that came up are too fragile to tolerate much weeding nearby until they grow a bit more. I'm hoping for a non-rainy day soon so I can get out there and get my hands dirty again!


We bought our blueberry plants in the spring of 2008. Last year we were happy that they just took the transplanting and winter well, and they produced enough blueberries for about three batches of pancakes. This year I am amazed and so thankful that each of the four plants is just loaded with berries. I picked each plant specifically so that its berries would ripen at different times so hopefully we'll have fresh berries all summer and maybe even some to put in the freezer as well.

School is winding down and I'm heading to my Mom's next week to be with her after a bit of surgery. We've got trips planned in June and July to California and Wisconsin, respectively. Then, in early August I am having foot surgery that will necessitate me being totally off that foot for 4 weeks, so this should be an interesting summer! I'll do my best to keep the blog updated so that my faithful readers can follow our adventures!

First Harvest!

It's not even June yet and there are things to be harvested in our garden! Yeah! You can see in the picture above our bok choy getting ready to bolt already! So two of these plants ended up in a stir-fry tonight with beef, celery, onions, carrots and mushrooms. There is just something so rewarding about eating things you have grown yourself! We might actually have to eat all this bok choy in the next couple of weeks and plant another crop. I do notice that they bolt really quickly, so it kind of forces you to eat them while young. I also notice that this part of the garden still needs to be weeded. Oh well, it's a never ending job!


There are also radishes to be eating now too, as you can see in this picture. I decided to try growing a variety of radishes called 'icicle' that is shaped more like a carrot than the round, red kind. They taste the same though! Frank was kind of bewildered when he found these radishes drying in the dish rack after I washed them. OH well!

Thanks for reading this first of many more reports of things we've harvested and eaten from the garden! It's amazing I still have faithful readers after all these mundane and boring posts. I'm glad you're hanging in there. :)

Finally Done!

Well, a normal spring in the northwest has conspired against us in our efforts to finish painting the deck. We prevailed, however, and the last coat of stain was completed just in time to dry enough that another spring rain didn't do any damage. Here is Frank doing the last steps. Notice the little white fence at the foot of the stairs. Now this certainly couldn't and wouldn't stop any chicken, but it was enough to stop people (namely US) from forgetting that we couldn't step on the deck for a couple of days.


I took these pictures at 6:30 pm, so the light isn't that great, but you get the idea. I'm sure there will be many more pictures to come of us enjoying this lovely addition to our home. We have yet to add a couple of nice hanging flower baskets, as well as cushions for the bench and a glider. Also, we'd like to hang a hummingbird feeder, as they seem to be all around this spring.


We're off tonight to watch the finale of LOST at a friend's house. I made fresh strawberry crepes to bring. YUM. I can hardly wait for the good company and the good food! See you later!

No Chickens in the House!!

A little background information first: We have a sliding glass door/screen that we leave open on nice days so that the cats and dog can go in and out on their own, instead of making us be their personal doormen every 5 minutes. Generally, this works out well. See the elusive Jake above, hunkering on the corner of the little porch out there, surveying his land and ever alert for something he can kill. (Luckily, chickens, even little ones, are not on his menu.)

So last night Frank and I are enjoying our new porch for the first time by sitting at our new table and playing a game of Settlers of Catan. Then came some tapping from inside the house. First tenative, then more insistent. What the heck? Well, we look toward the tapping and see something so incongruous that it took a while for it to even register...it was Sylvia!! She was in our living room, walking back and forth on the sills of the windows to our new porch!


So, with my faithful blog readers ever in mind, I ran in and was able to snap off this one picture before territorial Katie the yellow kitty decided that she didn't think a chicken should be in the house either and thus commenced the cat/chicken rodeo. Too bad I didn't get any pictures of that but I was more concerned about keeping them apart than capturing the moment! Needless to say, Sylvia was happy to go out the front door that Frank so graciously held open for her. And to answer the question that I know all of you are thinking: No, she didn't poop in the house. Whew!