Lilly

It has been a very sad day today. We lost our Lilly.



She had been with us for a lot of years. None of the kids can really remember a time when she didn't live with us. She was with us in Gulf Breeze. She traveled all over with us during our Hurricane Ivan evacuation. She was there as we picked up the pieces afterwards. She's gone for walks with us and on camping trips. She joined in as we started our homesteading adventure.



She will be missed.

All Hail Spring

At 4:30 a.m. yesterday, everyone jumped out of bed in terrified response to the jack-hammering golf ball sized hail battering our house. Hail fell in torrential sheets, while frequent lightening flashes showed us glimpses of a foreign, ice filled landscape. I have never seen anything like this hail storm. I prayed the windows and cars would survive the battering ice while the children prayed for the roof. About 15 minutes later, the ice turned to rain and we waited for sunrise to survey the damage.

Kurt left for class as the sun rose early in the morning. Creek water rushed over the small land bridge that forms the only way in or out of our property and no one knew if he would be able to get home later that day. Not much road survived the last wash-over and we didn't know if we would survive this one.

Praise to God's grace and mercy, damage was not as bad as it could have been. Enough road remains for us to get in and out of our property. Garden plants were smashed and trees defoliated, but the house remained sound as did the vehicles. (Except for a traveling crack in my windshield.)



Despite wind and rain throughout the day yesterday, leaves pulled down by the hail cover everything. Once these leaves dry we will need to sweep out the children's trampoline.



After struggling to survive flooding rains over and over this last month, the garlic suffered bravely through yesterday's hail and flooding rain. However, ice flattened much of it.



The onions fared worse.



Much of the sugar cane looked battered.



And torn.



Leaves snapped.



And bent over.



The smashed radishes have begun to rally, though it looks like bugs have started attacking the weakened plants.



The horseradish looks very sad.



Under all of the fallen leaves this bed was once filled with baby spinach.



The banana trees around our house look pathetic with their shredded leaves.



Our apple trees had finally grown to the point of producing abundant blossoms this year. Not many are left and those that are have few petals remaining.



Even the chicken wire covered coop yard sported a leaf covering. The turkeys and chickens are still trying to figure out if the leaves are good for food.



Our meat chickens are growing fast and eating tons of food every day.



The 70 of them also drink about 7 gallons of water each day.



They are already huge for only 4 weeks old.



The turkeys too are big.



Our rare breed chicken has feathered out as expected.



He looks a bit like Elvis.



What do you think?



He looks tiny surrounded by the giant meat birds while waiting his turn at the waterer.



Last week, I gathered the poke weeds for the first time and cooked my first poke salat.



I've never actually cooked greens before and didn't realize how little I had picked. We only had enough to just taste it. My recipe needs work. I don't know if I like poke or not yet. It takes a lot of work cooking it "in 3 waters."



Last week we got a couple deliveries from the power company.



As the power company trims their easements, they shred the plant material and will provide it free of charge for composting. I'm hoping to get a great deal more before Spring turns to Summer.



I cooked one of the turkeys we raised last year for Easter Sunday. After we picked the meat from the bones, I boiled the bones overnight with some onion, celery, garlic and bay for turkey broth. Yesterday, I canned 24 pints.



I love stocking my pantry with home grown and prepared food.

I have done a little knitting during the last couple of weeks.



I finished my Rogue Roses socks.



And I finally started my Rivendell socks. I have loved the Rivendell pattern for a long time and I can't believe it took so long for me to get started. I'm on the second chart and am already thinking I might need to make a second pair.

All in all, we're having a normal, crazy Spring.

My Beaded Sock Obsession

I love sock yarn. And I love beads. And I've discovered I love mixing the two together.



It all started a month or two ago when I knit my first pair of beaded socks (and gauntlets). I loved the look of the rich sock yarn colors and beads together so much, I knit another pair for a friend.



And then another pair for another friend.



And then I thought a fun, beaded pair of socks might cheer up my sister who has been having a rough time lately.



I can think of lots of other friends who might like beaded socks too, but I finally got to the place where I needed to try something else again. Something new.

But I keep thinking it would be fun to have a pair of warm, beaded stockings to wear under skirts in the winter.

One of Those Weeks

It has been one of those weeks. One of those testing weeks. One of those weeks when you stop and think carefully whether you've been praying for patience.

After weeks of dry weather, we finally got rain. And more rain. Probably 8 to 10 inches of rain. After a couple of days, the garden looked wet. Really wet.



Many of the new beds created by Kurt and Gregory looked like islands.



My salad greens, carrots, beets and radishes looked waterlogged.



And while my garlic and onions appreciated a deep watering, I can only imagine they are starting to look like fingers after a long bath.



I really hate when this happens though we plant in beds because this generally happens a couple times during the spring and summer. And worst of all, fire-ants float around in the water keeping you from getting into the garden to do any kind of damage control whatsoever (a bigger problem during harvest).



At least I won't need to hand water for awhile.



I took these pictures while we were still expecting another couple of inches of rain. In an act of desperation, Kurt and Gregory got on the tractor, in the rain and plowed a hundred yard trench from the worst part of the garden, across the yard to the creek. Probably 50% of the water drained off through the trench. Our yard looks like we have a problem with giant moles. But we have some hope of the garden drying out before the next rain.

If a flooded garden isn't trial enough, my computer has been acting up in the worst way. It freezes up constantly. Lately, it hasn't rebooted at all. Unless my husband is around or I take it to the repair shop. Then it works perfectly. Sometimes it scrambles stuff.



But I out-smarted my computer. I took a picture of it misbehaving and figured out how to use the display on the camera to show Kurt.

Because the kids can't do school without my computer functioning (it is the server), Kurt came home from work a couple days ago to see if he could fix the problem. He figured out the fan on my video card had gone bad. (He is a very smart man.) Yesterday he bought a new video card for my computer.



The new video card is defective.



It wouldn't work in my computer and it wouldn't work in his. Finally in an act of desperation, Kurt slapped his video card into my computer. The kids can do school if Gregory works on my computer, though Kurt cannot do his homework. But he bought the video card out of town and we had to get the kids back to school.

Today, instead of finishing up with the computer problems, Kurt shopped for a scope for my 22.



We have another fox killing our chickens. This one is brazen, attacking chickens in the middle of the afternoon with the family on the porch. Gregory, Kurt and I took shifts last evening/night with the 22 hoping to end our fox problem for the year. Gregory got a shot at it, but without a scope to guide him, he missed. He has never fired a gun the old fashioned way. Kurt took the early night shift, but the poor man has been working so hard fixing things around here and not sleeping while he commuted back and forth from work that I found him asleep when I went out for the late night shift. I am a good shot without a scope, but without light (the fox wouldn't cooperate and go into the area we lighted up and baited with the chicken carcass left over from dinner) or young eyes, I had no way to aim when I got a chance at the fox. We are hoping tonight will be better for us and worse for the fox.

Things sure never get boring around here.

An Unexpected Start to the Day

We received a completely unexpected telephone call this morning. Barely awake, I was preparing to make breakfast before church. I knew Kurt had awakened, but he continued to lay in bed, nursing the last bit of sleep out of the early morning. And the telephone rang. Since my mouth didn't feel like it had started working yet, I grabbed the phone and handed it to Kurt. The caller ID told us the U.S. Government was on the line. Sounded like a call for my husband to me.

Turns out the post office wanted us to pick up the chickens we had ordered and were expecting tomorrow. Kurt heard "chickens" and "post office" and jumped out of bed. I pulled on my "work" clothes and we started our day. I quickly put together some muffins for breakfast and Kurt slogged through the sodden, flooded yard to start getting the coop ready for an additional 65 chickens. (Moving? Us?)

We actually expected our chickens last week. But they were delayed a week. We did get our 15 turkeys and the 14 surviving ones had been in the coop for the last few days. This morning we had to bring things "backwards" to be ready for day old chickens.

While Kurt went to the post office, I cleaned out the feeders and waterers and finished preparing for our day old chickens. (I also called my friend Darlene and told her we probably wouldn't make it to church. She had never heard of anyone getting mail on a Sunday.) Finally, after an unusually long time, Kurt returned from the local post office - empty handed. No one was there.

I grabbed the telephone and called the number from our caller ID. I kept feeling like the subject of a practical joke. I got a recording that listed the post office hours. Nothing on the recording suggested they kept Sunday hours. Crazy.

A few minutes after Kurt returned home, we got another call from the "U.S. Government." This time I took the call (being able to sufficiently speak thanks to the coffee I'd been drinking). The woman wanted to know if we were picking up our chickens. ???

Turns out we'd received a telephone call from a neighboring town's post office. The lady swore she told Kurt to go to her post office in Evergreen. After getting directions and securing a promise to wait if Kurt got there after 10:00 o'clock when they closed, Kurt took off again in search of our chickens. He finally got home with these:



To the 14 resident turkeys (we ordered 15, but one didn't survive) we added 52 meat chickens (they sent an extra 2), 10 Buff Orpingtons, 6 Rhode Island Reds (they sent an extra 1) and a mystery rare breed.



The poor turkeys didn't know what to make of it all.



This one decided to plop down in front of the feed and secure his spot:



Probably a good idea since meat chickens are little piggies with the feed.

We think we figured out which chicken is the free rare breed: (He is on the left, sort of in the center.)



From the look of the little bump of fuzz on his head, we're thinking we've have another crested chicken. Our best guess is a Golden Polish Chicken.



Gabrielle is very happy about having another crested chicken. Personally, I understand why the little funny looking half blind things are rare. The last one we had kept trying to mate backwards. None of the other chickens could tolerate the poor little thing and one of the roosters finally drove it away. Gabrielle likes to think that little chicken lives happily on his own somewhere in the vast woods next to our house. I let her think that if it makes her happy.