Garden Update and Baby Chicks!

Hello!  Since I last posted we have had a successful hatch day! We also finished up a lot of the planting.  I took some photo updates and a couple of short videos.

This first photo is the squash.  Zucchini and yellow squash.

I bought these cabbage plants, since cabbage takes quite a long time from seed.

The next two photos are tomato plants.  This year I have heirloom tomatoes, and Roma, Beefsteak and cherry.

 The whole garden before we put up electric wire around it.

 Dad and I beginning to put up the electric wire!  This is to keep deer out.  We have at least 12 in the back of the field.

I just planted these seeds.  Jalapeno, Chile Piquin, New Mexico Hatch and Serrano!  In the greenhouse.

 The bamboo next to the garage is getting big!  It's at least 6 ft high at this point.

The next two photos are Cilantro and Basil sprouts that I planted in the sponge!  I had never heard of doing this before.  My mom found these natural sea sponges that can be used for this purpose and they've sprouted!

Here they are!  My 12 baby chicks that hatched in the incubator a couple of days ago!

In the video below, its just my chicken Freebie taking a dust bath.  

Short video of the hatchlings!

Unusual Foggy Sunset

I took some photos last night when I went out to close up the chickens!  It was unusually foggy so I took some photos and a short video.  I don't remember the last time I saw fog around here in the daytime!  Check them out!

This video looks like the beginning of a scary movie!

May Gardening Update

Hello! I thought I'd post another update on how the garden is coming along.  I am in the process of getting a new chicken barn and we've been clearing space for it.  We "candled" the eggs in the incubator (holding a light up to them) to see if any embryos were forming and there are at least 6! I didn't check all of the eggs, but I wanted to make sure we at least had something forming.  Hatch date is the 27th!  They could begin hatching a day or two early.  I have gathered all of my baby chick supplies and just need a large box!  Here is a photo of the chick supplies, feeder, waterer, brooder light and thermometer.

Another project I just started is a sponge herb garden.  My mom got these two sponges for me and they say you can plant seeds in them without soil.  So, I am experimenting with Basil, Flat Leaf Parsley and Cilantro.  Here is what they look like, the seeds are already in them!  I'll take more photos if they sprout.

Here are a few things up in the garden.  Onions (top photo), Zucchini (2nd photo) and Radishes (bottom photo)

Here are some photos of what the green house plants look like at this point.  They're leaning sideways because we had to bring them inside due to a frost warning.  They'll straighten up now that they're back outside.

The cabbage I bought, I don't usually grow that from seed.

The next few photos I took while outside today between clearing the area for the barn.

This is a photo of the bamboo we have growing on the side of the garage.  My dad got a start of this from someone and it gets huge every year.  I am considering starting it in other places also.

I've shown this to you all before its dad's farming rig.....1946 Farmall Tractor.  We have another tractor we also use to mow the field with.

Below is my farm rig. ha ha Not too big but that's OK. I use that cart to haul all sorts of things.  Water jugs for the chickens, bags of chicken feed, rocks, bricks, cement blocks and we've put tree limbs in it also.  It looks small but it can haul 800lbs of stuff!

I will update in about a week, there should be some video of day old baby chicks to post!

May 2014

Hello everyone! It's been a couple of months since my last update.  Many things have happened.  This was a very hard winter and I had lots of problems with my chicken flock.  I had a couple I lost to sickness, and a fox got 6 of them.  My buildings are starting to really shift in the ground since they are close to 80 years old.  We are getting a new small barn this spring and I got 2 dozen hatching eggs to hatch!  Here are a couple of photos of the hatching eggs and one of them in the incubator! Our approximate hatch date is May 27th!  Exciting!  Blue egg customers will be happy, 8 of the hatching eggs are blue! If those hatch there is a chance those chickens will lay blue eggs!  This incubator is the same one we used when I was a kid!

So far we have some tomato, pepper and cucumber seeds started in the greenhouse!  Here are some photos.  We also planted kale, swiss chard, beets, carrots, radishes, lettuce and dill.  We still have many rows to fill.

Ok, here are some various photos of just things happening around me.  Some of these are just blooms from trees, some hyacinths, a succulent ground cover my mom has, and some mushrooms I found.  Also, I had this decorative haunted house birdhouse my sister gave me.....during the winter, a mouse was in it inside the house!  I put the house outside and now a couple of wrens have started making a nest in it! I took some photos of that!  Yesterday I found a robin's nest!  The robin isn't too happy as we pass by and often times swoops down at our heads.  Enjoy the photos!

I will update again soon with some more photos of what we have planted in the garden and how the plots look so far.  I got rained out today! I was going to take some video!  Enjoy the photos!