There's Nothing Quite as Beautiful as the Sunshine After the Rain

And OH the rain! The sheer amount was amazing! We nearly doubled the rainfall record in the area. Everything always feels so fresh and clean after a good hard rain. It is refreshing and beautiful when the sun come out. I feel kind of guilty saying that. Luckily, we escaped the really severe storms. My thoughts and prayers go out to all of those effected by the damaging storms north of us. We just had flooding to deal with. Yet another moment when I am thankful to live on a hill! One of the few in the area. Our driveway needs some serious work though. It did already, but the ruts are now beginning to resemble the humble beginnings of the Grand Canyon in places. The work Keegan did a couple of weeks ago saved the top of the driveway (near the house), but the other side took in all of the water from the main road and now "the bottom" yard is full of what little gravel my driveway still had. Hopefully I can borrow the big bucket tractor from my in-laws soon to fix the driveway and bushhog.

We still have the small tractor. It overwintered here. A small bridge down the back road that separates our homes was torn down last spring (2013) so they could replace it. That was the only way to get the tractor from place to place without loading it on a truck. It hasn't been completed yet. Over a year later. Did I mention that it was just a small bridge on a country back road? Once the bridge was basically joining the two sides of the road and could hold the heavy road equipment, the locals just started moving the signs and driving across it. Eventually the road crew just stopped putting the signs back. I need to make sure that the water didn't wash the road out so we can trade tractors. The bushhog attachment on this one rusted through and broke at the end of last summer so I can't mow with it. I normally wait to bushhog until the dewberries have been picked but for some reason they don't seem to be doing as well this year. What are normally the best patches are pretty much bare this year. I will have to check on them again before I mow them down though. Maybe I will still find some. Maybe the addition of guineas is the reason I can't find any berries this year when there were TONS of flowers just a month or two ago? The blueberry bush look AMAZING though and are so full of little berries that I have had to prop them up in several places to keep them from collapsing under the weight. Hopefully they all make!

Yesterday I transplanted my peppers into larger pots. Since the tomatoes are no longer under the grow light in my kitchen I had lots of room to plant other things! Which, of course, I did. I planted herbs and flowers. Some of the herbs are from seed that bought from a company last year that I didn't have too much luck with. Hopefully they will come up. If not, I needed to use them anyway because I can't just throw seeds away. It breaks my heart. Inside I have planted mint, lavender, oregano, garlic chives, sweet basil, long leaf basil, parsley, cilantro, dill, sage, and phlox (flower). Also, outside I planted 5 larger containers of marigolds (seed my parents gave me when they visited for Christmas), and I transplanted a pineapple plant that I had rooted inside. I wish I had more space, pots, and potting soil! I have a seed starting addiction...

I didn't mention before, but a little over a week ago I had my first batch of turkey babies hatch! It was a poor hatch though. I'm not sure what could have been the problem unless the temperature was too high. It is set to stay steady at around 100F. Only 10 poults hatched. Several made it to the end but never absorbed the yolk completely and either pipped and never made it out, or just never even pipped. Only 1 guinea keet made it out but it wasn't doing well and the turkeys were being too rough with it. I put it under a broody silkie who took great care of it until she went for a potty break and another hen killed it. I feel terrible about it. In all honesty, I'm not sure if it would have made it anyway. I kept the poults for a few days to make sure they were thriving, but all have now been sold. I'm not sure if I am going to keep any babies this year. We have tweaked the temperature and will hopefully get a better hatch this time. I set turkey eggs a little over a week ago and then a couple of days ago I added Easter Egger eggs to all of the empty spots. Turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch while chicken eggs only take 21, so this way they should all hatch together. I have a friend who is wanting baby chickens so I am hatching her some out.

The baby chickens are loving their new freedom in the larger hoop coop tractor! They are still the friendliest chicks I have raised. They also seem to be more dependent on me to care for them. Or at least, they know if they need something to let me know. Loudly. The second they run out of feed, rather than foraging in the grass for bugs or plants to eat, they chirp (cry) constantly until I go feed them. I have been keeping them close to the house while they are still little so they are a bit more safe so there is no escape. Maybe it is that the "baby crying trigger" part of my brain is already more active than it has been in the recent past, but I can't stand for them to sit and cry like that. They actually got me out of bed at 6am the other morning because I could hear them crying through the window and I couldn't sleep until I knew they were fed and quieted. I was looking forward to a few more months before that happened! Oh well...

I need to work on the garden some more. The tomatoes made it through the storm. The mulch wasn't even disturbed. I am thrilled! I was worried about them. Having them in above ground beds helped the water drain off well. I did something a little different this year. Last year I used long sticks to stake the plants. The stakes kept falling over under the weight of the tomatoes. That, and the unending downpours we had, made them succumb to blight really early on in the year. The caterpillars, stink bugs, and aphids finished them off. This year, I decided to use a trellising system instead. Brad put in three 8ft posts at either end and the center of the tomato row. He also helped me stretch woven wire onto the fence. It is aligned with the top of the posts, leaving over a foot tall gap at the bottom. I will secure the plants to the fence as they grow. I let the plants get really tall and leggy this year and buried them on their sides in a ditch, only letting the upper leaves remain above ground. This should allow the plants to root along the entire length of stem underground.  I am also prepared to use several different organic pest control options this year. I really hope that we have tomatoes this year! I still need to transplant the spare tomatoes into the bare spots. Broccoli and peppers are also waiting in the spare hoop coop to be planted soon along with lots of seeds!

Brad is amazing and got me a speed charger for my weedeater and chainsaw batteries! Now instead of it taking 8 hours per battery it will only take about 1 hour each. I should be able to get much more accomplished now! The rest of the garden needs to be cleared. Also the azalea bushes in the front need to be pruned, which is much easier with my little chainsaw than shears. And the bigger stumps need to be cut down from the back so that I can bushhog the brush back there when I get the tractor. That surpasses the azaleas. The pig electric fence also needs to be taken down so I can mow that area. I'm not sure if I will have pigs this year or not. Unfortunately, the electric fence charger seems to have stopped working! Brad took it apart and fixed it, but it only worked for a few hours and stopped again. It is finals week so we will see if he can fix it again once he finishes the semester up and has time. I sure hope so! Regardless, the fence is fast and easy to put back if we need it later.

While Brad was being amazing, he also got me a new pneumatic door closer for my front storm door! I know.. it doesn't sound like much but it made me so happy! I only mentioned it in passing and then it appeared at my door. My front door no longer slams shut every time it closes like it has for years! I'm still getting used to it. Keegan keeps picking on me for needlessly trying to grab the door before it slams behind me. I guess it takes me a bit longer to adjust to change. Oh the little things that make me so happy! It was just one of those little things that I always wished would get fixed, but never made it to the actual list because it was so trivial. I can't help but smile every time I walk through the door and I open it from time to time just to watch it close slowly on its own.

Well... time to stop writing about getting things accomplished and actually accomplish things! Hope everyone has a beautiful sunshiny day!