Spring

Blooms on the Apple tree

Spring is here. The grass is nice and green, leaves are out on the trees, flowers are blooming and I am sneezing. We have peas, green onions, turnips, lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, garlic and swiss chard coming up in the garden. The perennial plants made it through the winter well and are flourishing. I already have blooms on the strawberries!!! The rhubarb is ready to pick...yum! Chives, thyme, catmint, spearmint and butterfly bush are getting huge!

My Little herb garden has oregano, butterfly bush, chives and catmint.

Rhubarb

Dill that reseeded itself.

The strawberries have blooms & little berries.

The strawberries are taking over the thyme.

Lilacs.

Dragonsblood sedum

Spring Has Sprung

After a long, miserable winter spring seems like it has finally arrived. Most of the snow has melted, except where there were huge drifts. The grass has started to turn green...the days are longer...rhubarb is poking its way through the soil. Stragely enough the strawberries and thyme looks like it never even died back over the winter. The strawberry leaves are huge and the thyme is probably at least 5" high...strange & I will try and get some pictures posted. Maybe the thick snow insulation that it had protected it from our bitterly cold.
We have a new baby goat, a buck, that was born on February 18th. It was an awfully cold morning and Im afraid that his poor little ears got some frost bite, so he may lose the bottom half of them, but he is spunky none the less. The other doe that we had bred miscarried her babies over the winter, which was sad. So this year we only have one baby. :(
The rabbitry has grown by leaps and bounds. We are up to 54 rabbits, including babies that will be weaned this week. Starting March 23rd we have 18 does due over the next 2 weeks. With an average litter size of 4-6 kits that could give us 72-108 new babies....that is if everyone ends up bred. In the past we havent ended up with everyone bred so even if we say that half of the does are bred that could give us 36-54 new babies. On March 6th we went to a 4H rabbit workshop for some hands-on learning for Carter. He did some learning while dad & I did some rabbit selling. It was amazing how fast the babies went. We had weaned them the previous week so they were over 7 weeks old and we wished that we had more to bring. We kept one for ourselves as he is a really nice black otter! Our first show was March 7th...Carter did really well getting BOV with Kellys Candy Cane and BOSV with Chases 8Ball in the first show and BOSV with Chases 8 Ball & BOSV with Chases Remington in the 2nd show. We have another show this weekend...will try and get some pics added!!!

Winter Has Arrived

Somewhere....out there, buried in a drift of snow is my Swiss Chard. Oh, how I miss it!!! I hope that the blanket of straw that I put on it will allow it to come back in the Spring. If it does it will be the first thing to come up in the garden. Mmmmm, I do have some dehydrated, but its not quite the same as when its fresh. Sauted in some onion and olive oil, devine!

Somewhere, out there....are you still there? Do you still stop by to see whats happening on the farm? It has been more than 3 months since I last wrote, but we have been so busy that there has been little time to get on and blog. Lousy excuse I know, but I will try and get this blog updated more often and tell you what has been going on! Lots of fun and some excitement too :D

Gardening Woes

2009 has been a dreadful year to garden here in Iowa. The weather has been unseasonably cool and quite damp. I didnt pull the peas until July. They didnt get pulled because they were done producing, but because I was tired of looking at them and needed to get the cukes in their spot. Now I wish that I would have left the peas where they were as the cukes like warmer weather and they are suffering in the cool weather that we have. The popcorn appears to be ok, which is fun. I got battered and blown over a couple of times in severe storms that we had but has pretty much straigtened right up. The swiss chard has flourished, yum. The pole beans were slow to start put have overtaken their trellis so I have hopes for them. I want lots to freeze and some to pickle. The okra, still on the fence about. I have picked one pod, maybe it is too cold for it this year. Bummer too, I love okra and so badly wanted to pickle some of that too. Will wait and see how it does. The seeds that were labeled Bush Delicata are sprawling so I dont think that they are a bush variety but thats ok since I have them in a seperate area and they are producing some lovely squash. It will be great if we have some tasty winter squash for the cold months. The tomatoes are lagging behind too. Some of the plants I think might have a virus so I am thinking about pulling them. The plants seem to be dying, so maybe they will just be made into green tomato relish. Next year planting spots are going to be rotated. The peppers and eggplant appear to be doing ok. Carters peppers in his 4H garden are doing super! His Giant Marconi and Golden Peppers are huge and very prolific! We really really like the Giant Marconi. They are a sweet pepper and are thick walled. I have used them in taco meat and enchilda casserole. They are supposed to be good grilled too, will have to give that a try, grilled then sliced and put on a grilled brat or pulled pork sandwich, delish! I am looking forward to next year, hopefully a warmer typical Iowa summer.

Tomato and Pepper plants, July 22, 2009.

Strawberry popcorn in front, eggplant (hidden by corn) peppers, tomatoes and then swiss chard, lettuce and herbs hidden by the tomatoes.

Carters flourishing 4H garden, must be from all of the rabbit manure that we put in there. He has marigolds, parsley, golden peppers, basil, giant marconi and tomatoes.

All of these pictures were taken July 22, 2009

What a Mess!!!!

Sunday we got up early to head to the farmers swap. We had a few rabbits and a couple of saddles that we wanted to sell. The weather was fairly nice, not as hot as we expected it to be and there was a very nice breeze. However we could see very dark clouds looming on the horizon to the west of us and headed our way. At about 11:30am we decided to head home as everyone else was leaving. Once we were home we got things unloaded, checked the animals and came inside. Matt & I were going to go pick up some groceries, Carter wanted to stay home. For some reason I decided to turn on the TV and just check the weather. Good thing I did as we had a Severe Thunderstorm Warning. Boy, was it severe! The winds were straight line, not sure of the gusts, but the rain was coming down so hard we couldn't even see out the windows. We could hear things hitting the house so headed downstairs and that is when the power went out. The storm blew through and this is what we saw when we looked outside! What a mess!!!

We lost our apple tree :(


Huge mess in the pasture

Tree on a garage in Rowley

The Prespeterian Church in Rowley

Our driveway was blocked by the cedar tree that fell.

The goats enjoyed their snacks.

The kid enjoyed playing on the huge tree that fell.

Damage from Rolwey. The electric company is repairing lines down the street.

More damage from Rowley.

Woah!!!!

The sun was just barely up this morning. I was enjoying the early morning news, checking email and looking out the window. Now why is that goat out eating in the pasture by herself? Usually the goats are out eating and roaming in their herd. Squinting my eyes I yelled out the window to her, "Britches". She didnt lift her head? Maybe she found a good weed or some really tasty grass, so I yelled again "Britches". Still no look from her. Ok, so now I lifted the screen to get a better view. Well, maybe that isn't Britches. The binoculars are hanging on the door so I grab them to get an even better look. Woah, that isnt a goat but a coyote. What is that wiley coyote doing in our pasture???? They can and will take down a goat. I hustle down the stairs, slip on some shoes and get out to the pasture. Thankfully all of the goats are accounted for! I holler at the coyote to get out of here. It hurries to the corn and disappears. We are hoping that it will not be back but will be checking with the DNR on hunting/trapping rules of coyote. It would be awful to have a coyote coming onto our property for free pickings. The camera is pretty much on the fritz as I cant zoom in too much so I didnt bother with any pictures. Sorry. I did take some garden pictures, but will try and blog and post pictures tomorrow.

The Fair

Monday, July 13th was the opening day of the Buchanan County Fair. We really enjoy going to our county fair to see the animals, watch the 4H kids show & eat some great food from Iowa Beef, Pork & Dairy producers! YUM! Since this was Carter's first year in 4H he was involved in the fair this year. On July 7th the 4H garden judge came out to evaluate his home garden project. Carter was super excited to learn via mail that he had earned a blue ribbon for his project. Of course we had to walk through the fair buildings to find his name posted :)

Thursday, July 16th was the pie baking contest and at 6pm that evening the pies were auctioned off. All of the proceeds from the pie sale went to support 4H activities. After I got off of work we hurried out there to see the end of the auction and couldnt believe it when the pies were going for $400+, yes that is not a typo. Some of the kids also made "flower buckets"....5 gallon buckets that were decorated and filled with flowers & plants. Those great looking buckets were bringing in $150+ dollars, all for a great cause! It was getting kind of late so we decided to leave as I had to work friday morning. As we were heading out they were just starting the Lumberjack Show so we decided to stay and watch. Carter sure did get a kick out of it, especially the log run.

As you can see this 9 time world champion log runner landed on his, as Carter so tactfully put it, balls.

Friday was the cattle shows. They even had a youth fun show which Carter participated in. We dont have our own calf yet, but a very nice girl let Carter borrow her milking shorthorn calf named Mask. The calf was nicely trained, Carter had a lot of fun and got a blue ribbon for that class also. He is looking forward to next year so he can do his bottle/bucket calf.

For the price of parking $2, no gate charge and the delicious food you sure cant beat that for a day of family fun!

enjoy the short video of the Fun Show