A hawk has been hanging around our yard and garden. We've been leaving out bird seed pretty frequently resulting in unexpected sunflower plants, savvy squirrels, blue jays, house sparrows, cardinals, red breasted grosbeaks, and several other birds. The hawk in this picture is perched on one of the tallest post of the garden. Our garden is home to many sized frogs, snakes, and field mice.
On the front steps of our house we planted strawberries, red cabbage, kale, pansies, lettuce, basil, and the last one I can't remember (in order from left to right). The strawberries went missing but they definitely came and went. The cabbage is doing really well. The kale was eaten by worms (the ones in the garden are doing really well), the pansies are stalled. The lettuce is stalled but the basil is doing really well despite the lack of drainage in the pot. However, the heat has certainly compensated along with an occasional dumping out the extra water. With the exception of the missing strawberries and worms these plants have done pretty good.
We harvest our first veggies of the season -- broccoli, sugar snap peas, beat leaves, kale leaves, onion -- Aaron made a veggie stir fry served on a bed of brown rice. It was so yummy!
It's small but getting bigger. Aaron put a couple of branches in some water in a vase on our dining room table. It actually bloomed sooner than the plant in the ground. I am going to plant the branches. It's so beautiful! About a week or two ago driving around had views of mostly barren branches. Houses that looked plain and boring became vibrant and alive with the forsythia in it's wild self, manicured, and in sprays like fireworks. This one's a keeper!
The snow finally melted last month and we started to see the bulbs come up. When we first started our garden beds we took notes but then we switched beds and changed things around and I didn't do a good job of taking notes last year. This year Aaron and I are taking lots of notes. The above picture is of bulbs we planted and have now completely forgotten what they are. I want to say Hyacinth but I'm not sure. Any ideas?
Here is a bridge that Aaron's brother built out of fallen logs and a pallet. He also helped Aaron build the garden fence from trees on our property. I'll post finished pictures later. He was a huge help!
Here he is chopping wood!
It's official! We've ordered 8 Rhode Island Red pullets (young female chickens). They are supposedly friendly, easy keepers, who are well known for regularly laying brown eggs. We're not sure where the coop will reside but we are making plans for mid-May (that's when they arrive). We're planning to build a coop and hen house from re-claimed materials with the hopes of adding solar lighting/heating later on in the future.
I've joined BackYardChickens.com to learn all about raising chickens. Our main objectives are all natural fresh brown eggs, chicken manure for our vegetable garden, and "green" building. We're only solar panels away from being able to be "off grid" so the hen house will a little experiment.
We're finally reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle together. I had started reading it last year but loved it so much that I wanted to read it with Aaron so that we could discuss it as we go along. After taking a look at our basic staple foods I realized that most of them come from within a 100 mile radius as is the goal from the book. We're not sure what our goal will be or how we will incorporate what we learn from this book with our life style but living in New Hampshire makes it much easier. New Hampshire promotes buying local so many items are locally made and available.
Spring is finally here! We're ready to turn over our beds and plant our starters. This year Aaron wants to put up a fence to protect our garden. Last year 80% of our garden yields were eaten by local animals. We're hoping to actually be able to eat more than a few meals from our garden. :-)
Today was 65 degrees, heat wave!! I took pictures of our bulbs coming up and one of Finn & Sammy on the hammock. Enjoy!
