img_0470…the number 9! We’re starting today’s blog off with the Egg Report, just to mix things up a bit. Nine eggs! Yesterday and today, this seems to be the preferred number from the chickens. They are laying happily and steadily… occasionally we receive an egg from everyone, but that is still a rather rare happening. We’re just happy that they are producing regularly. And today, there’s that one ginormous Easter Egg again. We haven’t come across another double-yoker, but Sue’s pretty sure that the one she had isn’t going to be an anomaly.  We’ll be sure to document that if/when it happens.

Monday I didn’t do the weekend update, so we’ll try to cover some of the goings on today. The weekend, through today, saw the wrap up of a few projects that were still hanging out there. Saturday though, a huge portion of the day was spent working at P.O.W.W.O.W. (Produce On Wheels With Out Waste).  We didn’t get there early enough to help set-up, so things were well underway when we got there. We handed out vegetables and helped keep things moving from around 7am to 10am. The vegetables were beautiful: eggplants, anaheim chilies, sweet peppers, red peppers, orange peppers, hot peppers, roma tomatos, cherry tomatoes, some grape tomatoes, wonderful tangerines. We ended up bringing home a case of tangerines and a case of roma tomatoes; we’ve been sharing them around.

IMG_0449Saturday afternoon, while I was watering the newly planted seeds, Sue was working on cleaning out the goat shelter. Even though it’s getting warmer in the evenings, the goat boys still enjoy  using the shelter at night and during the day when it’s windy. Therefore, it was getting a bit rank. Sue cleaned out the entire shed, then put in this fresh fluffy layer for them to make their little nests in.  The old stuff she carted up the hill and used to cover the lower berm of the bio-swale. Covering up the dirt portions will help keep it from blowing away in our amazing winds (what? we have winds? I know you’re surprised).  Also it will help keep the rain water from evaporating when we start planting the berms. I’m
including a photo of the berms here, it rather all blends in  in the evening light, but you can see a little of what I’m talking about. Hay on the lower berm and past that, the uncovered dirt mound of the upper berm.img_0450-1.jpg

IMG_0473Sunday is our Sabbath day, so we didn’t work on anything really.  Monday, Sue worked on the ditch for the electrical run out to the dinky house. She’s having an electrician run it from the main house out to the Dinky, but to help keep the costs down she is digging the ditch herself, with the back hoe. There aren’t always good days to work on with the back hoe, the wind often puts a damper on this project. Here you can see the tractor and ditch going through the lower field, which is growing greener and greener each passing day.  Soon, Sue will have to switch the back-hoe out for the mower deck… just this one project to finish first.

IMG_0476Tuesday, Sue took a few moments to cover the horse manure between the house and the rock walls with some of the mulch we still had left over. The dogs had been regularly munching on the horse apples and she thought that perhaps enough was enough.  I think it does look really nice this way. Eventually we’ll have more around the house and immediate area.

The other projects that Sue completed were the Chickshaw and the electrical ditch to the Chicken Coop.  The Chickshaw needed one front leg replaced and the hooks that keep the lid from flying off in the wind. Check! Part of the electrical ditch was still open because a pipe had been broken during the excavation phase. We couldn’t really tell what it was for, where it went, nor whence it came; it did have a small amount of water in it, but it certainly wasn’t gushing from anywhere.  Still, not knowing exactly what it was for (there are many things like that on this property), Sue went ahead and mended the pipe and then covered it over. Check!
IMG_0472    IMG_0474

As you may have seen in the photos from the last blog, many of the seeds we planted in the trench, around the fruit trees, have started to poke through. We’ve been keeping an eye on them. We’ve had such a better return on the seeds planted there, than any where else on the property.  We are in a war with the gophers; they seem to sense when the seed are just starting to germinate and then gobble them all up.  I’m getting ready to set some traps. Darn things. At least we didn’t have a huge payout for seeds. And I’m quite surprised at how many of the older seeds still were viable. That’s really good news for seed saving! Over the next few days, we’ll see what may or may not come up out in the garden. We’ll keep you posted on that. I’m off to California for a quick couple of days, so when I get back I may find that we need to start some more things indoors and perhaps plant some root vegetables in the trench, rather than out in the garden.  It’s all an adventure, to which you are all invited.  Come see us, come eat with us! We’d love to have you visit.  Until then, as always~
Thanks for reading!

Today’s Weather: More of the same, with the addition of wind. It’s been just gorgeous, but today the wind gusts were extremely powerful. High was 82°, right now it is a wonderful 64°. low is forecast at a rather cool 48°. Then we’re going into a cooling trend and having some very low overnight temperatures. Hopefully no frost, I’ve been assured this is true because the Mesquite has started leafing out, and it only does that after the danger of frost has past… we’ll see if that is accurate!