Stiff, Sore, and Happy

The new coop. I told him we should just call it a chicken BARN. That is what it looks like to me. My Lovin' Husband does nothing in half measures. He just doesn't always measure... :) I don't encourage him to, either. Then we'd NEVER get done... Things like this amuse me. A bee in the beebalm. That makes me happy. Do you think that when beebalm was first called beebalm it was for this reason? I mean, bees like other flowers, too, right? So why was this plant INPARTICULAR called beebalm? Maybe they liked these flowers more than any other. I don't know. I'll have to look it up.

Peas for next year.

I am going to put a weathervane on the roof and hang a metal windchime from the "predator perch" as Adam calls it. I don't know why. I mean it's not like there is a cat climbing on the new coop as I type or anything... ;)

Squash, corn, sunflowers... and BoJangles. Let us not forget him... The garden is coming along nicely. We have been weeding like fools and have clean beds to show for it. Not pictures, though, because my backside was right next to Adam's and we weeded and weeded. We weeded so much that when I close my eyes I can see them!

We're off to a town far away to teach a boy who is learning to tear up the guitar. It takes both of us and that kid can flat play.. He is going to be a very versatile musician (already is) when he finishes growing up. I've never been so happy to have to leave and go teach. The weeds can just sit there and wait on us til tomorrow while we have fun with the kid and his guitar.

Friday

Big honkin' cabbage plant... We (and I do mean WE :) ) weeded like fools yesterday. The garden is so big that it doesn't really matter how much you weed because there is always weeding to do. The cabbage and brussel sprout beds were pretty scary. I had started to refer to the crab grass as "living mulch". Really it is choking, take-over plant so we attacked those beds yesterday (among others) with fervor.

All of the "chicken food" in the wheel barrow did not come from one bed, by the way. ;)

Speaking of chickens... they know what he is getting ready to do and they are EXCITED...

I leave the clods of dirt at the rootball on a lot of the plants I pull up so that they can get the worms and bugs down in there... shhhh don't tell Adam I gave the chickens his precious dirt!!!

We put Bad Dog's tie out front. He was very happy...

We moved the little replacement chickens down to the pen. We have to get more netting and shade cloth, so we had to make a makeshift pen for them until we get more, but they still have waaaaay more room than they did.

Watch out!! Flying chicken...

We had let the run in this pen grow up so that when we put chickens in it they could eat it down. These are doing that one section at a time! They are so much happier in the sunshine...

Happy chicken....

Happy, sunny day, my friends!! I'm gonna go weed my garlic now...

Love,

Malinda

Onions Do Weird Things

I was "helping" Adam til up new ground the other day and got distracted. Not by the weeds in my onion beds, of course, but by the onions themselves. They are called walking onions. Let me show you why. Take a really close look at these onions. Do you see the what they're doing? Let us take a closer look. This onion appears as though it will be givning birth to some sort of alien life form in the very near future. When in all actuality it is getting ready to "walk".

So what happens is.... the new "green" growth has a seed pod at the end of it. You can see it in the picture below. They end up falling over and starting new bunches of multiplier onions. Multiplier because they grow in .... you guessed it! Multiples! This is all very exciting, I know.

Here we go again.

For some reason I always think they look "snaky" when they start to protrude all curled up like that. See the red blob at the top of the picture below? There is my baby - tilling away while I ponder on the meaning of onions with weird growth habits. What would he do without me?

Hello little baby onion.

And just so ya know, we (I actually did help WEED) did weed the onions. They are happier now - as are all of the baby chamomille plants that I found growing. Yay!!! Reseeding plants are wonderful things.

Have a good day, people. Warm weather is almost here to stay! Dwell on that if this latest cool spell gets ya down....

Some Sunshine and Some Rain

It is raining this morning. I'm happy for a break and I know Adam is. We're both so sore from all of the garden preparing. Our plants are happy, I'm sure. I didn't water them or the seeds I planted yesterday in hopes that the rain would come along and do a much better job than myself. I'm all about conserving some water. I found some pretty "weeds" blooming in the side yard and took probably a hundred pictures. There is such beauty in the unexpected!

Potatoes are doing GREAT. We're growing them differently this year and are just amazed at the difference in the plants. All of the beds have begun to sprout. *happy*

More sunshine.

I love the native plants of Tennessee and have decided that I will have irises til the day I die. I keep finding them in the side yard that we have been clearing.

Look for beauty somewhere today that you normally wouldn't. When you find it, show somebody else and enjoy it together

Lots of love,

Malinda

It's a Big World, Baby

Sometimes I feel like that snail. I tiny little girl in a big, big world. Then again, sometimes I don't. Furthermore, when I do, it isn't a bad thing. It is just nice to have some perspective.

I have to teach a make up lesson this morning and then we have a consultation with a new family for lessons and then... and then I get to put on my blue jeans and my tank top and head out to the garden to work out there.

It is my quiet time. All of the music that is constantly running through my head gets quieter and quieter until all I hear is the wind in the tall dead grass and the creek when it has rained enough. The birds yell at each other across the fields and the chickens coo and sing when they're happy. (This time of year they are because they get the weeds we pull.)

I hope today that you can find some good quiet time like that. It is good for the soul...

happy day...