Winter turns to Spring

At least it is working on it here. Let's be honest... this is the deep south. We didn't have "winter". At least not like the poor people up north that have been snowed in for months. But it sure has been chilly, and mostly grey and dreary. There has been nothing green in sight for months. I have been keeping busy, nonetheless. Taking care of my boys, keeping up the house, and tending to the animals is plenty to keep me busy most days. Having a baby around the house has been amazing! He has kept me the busiest and I am loving it. I can't believe my sweet boy is 6 months old already! He is spending less and less time nursing nonstop and being attached to mommy, and increasingly more time playing and exploring. 

That means that I have been able to get things accomplished (somewhat) lately and even a bit of extra time to be creative. I'm not what you would call "artistic" but I desperately need to be expressive and colorful. Usually the homestead quells that, but not during winter. So I have been turning these gourds that took over last summer...

... Into these birdhouses. Sunflowers even in the winter.

 It has rained, almost nonstop, for the last several days and is supposed to continue to do so for a couple more days. A sure sign that spring is here. During a short break this morning, little man and I managed to take some pictures. What was nothing but brown dead grass is starting to show signs of life. Hints of green can be seen peeking through. That means that soon the chickens will have enough to forage to keep them from gobbling down anything green they set their hungry little eyes on.

 Like the lettuce, collard greens, and cabbage I set out in several of my garden beds a few weeks ago. See them? No? That's because by the morning after I had planted them they had been gobbled up, despite the scratchy  fence around it. So I replanted and covered them in cayenne pepper which worked to keep them away from my flower beds last year. Apparently, when there is nothing else green in sight, a little pepper in the eyes is worth it.

 I did manage to get a bed of onions planted a couple weeks ago (and some peas to grow up that trellis) and they are coming up. I just managed to get the other 2 beds of onions and some garlic planted. Very late, but better late than never. Even small onions are better than no onions.

To get around not being able to plant anything until the chickens could be distracted by other greenery, my tax money splurge this year was a new greenhouse! I have wanted one for years and had planned to build one, but couldn't decide how to build one that would last. I found this one for an amazing price and it is super sturdy. Unless something drastic happens this guy should last for years! I plan to take it down during the summer to help extend its life somewhat. It is 8' x 10' x 7' tall. Now I just have to decide on what to do about shelving. 

Liam had a great time helping mommy plant seeds. There was soil flying everywhere! Never too early to get them started in the garden. <3 

I will need shelves for all of the summer garden stuff but I went ahead and started cold season crops. Lettuce, radishes, broccoli, cauliflower, several kinds of kale, cabbage, spinach, collard greens, chard... and perhaps a thing or two I have forgotten at the moment. The 4 covered plastic containers are filled with cactus seeds that I am starting for Keegan. It should be an interesting project. And maybe a money making endeavor for him. I also got sucked into the clearance section at the plant store. I got two little pomegranate trees for $3 each! I always wanted to try growing them but they don't over winter in this zone. But I have a greenhouse now! Now I need to find some avocado trees too. I have a mild avocado addiction that I really need to become self sufficient if I plan to keep.  The other ornamental plants were $1 each. I just can't pass up cheap plants... Also in the mix are herbs for the herb garden I am determined to get up and going this year. Some of it is mint... to replace the mint I managed to kill over the winter. Who said you can't kill the stuff?  

I was lacking planters so I used feed bags folded down for some and a box the greenhouse came in lined with feed bags for a big one. I hate throwing feed bags away and our feed store only sells cracked corn in paper bags. Yet another use for them. I would be more worried about the plastic breaking down if they were supposed to be more than just a temporary fix. Apparently it is working! Seedlings popping up everywhere. I believe that fresh grown salad is in my future! I have had to resort to buying lettuce at the store... ugh. 

The blueberry bushes are blooming! One of my favorite signs of spring! I gave them a little bit of compost fertilizer about a month ago, but it is about time for some more. I was a bit stingy with it. 

Some of the spring flowers are blooming.

And the chickens have started laying again! We went from not even checking the box for eggs for most of the winter to having them overflowing onto the counter. Just in the last week! We also had to deal with an opossum in the nesting box enjoying to new bounty a few days ago. Hopefully we won't have to deal with that again. 

The chickens are happy to have a break from the rain. They are also enjoying the warm weather! It has been in the 60's and 70's for the last week. This weekend begins the high 70's temps and sunshiny weather! I am so excited and am making my list of things I have to get done. 

My inside grow area is full too. The right part has been dedicated to our tree frogs and basically grows wild. The left section is filled with herbs for our herb garden. Six containers of Lavender. Brad LOVES lavender. He said it reminds him of Ireland. Chives fill another four containers, and basil fill the final two. We use lots of basil but it does well when direct seeded in the garden so I will plant more later. 

The beautiful basil is already coming up. I keep having to control my urge to pick some and rub it between my fingers so I can smell that wonderful smell. Liam loves smelling herbs too. I pick a leaf and roll it between my fingers and hold it under his nose and his wrinkles his little nose up and smells. It is the only time something can be near his face and he doesn't try to shove it in his mouth. I may have a little gardener on my hands! 

Blueberry Pickin'

Officially commenced tonight! That is, picking for them to be picked, rather than stealing the precious few that could be found to eat on the spot. There weren't many (maybe a pint?) but there were more than I could leave to be devoured by the birds without feeling guilty. Especially after the miserable failure of a garden last year. Anything I can successfully "put up" I need to take advantage of, or else be found wasteful and risk being smited again this year.

Those baskets that we got from picking strawberries are going to come in so handy for picking blueberries! We usually use a variety of bowls or a large plastic strainer that need to be either held in one hand while trying to pull down branches and pick berries with the other, or set on the ground for the greedy chickens and turkeys that are always swarming our feet like little sharks to pilfer from every time we move more than a foot from it. These baskets are light weight, have a handle that can be strung over an arm, and are woven plastic so the warm berries can breath rather than mold if they are left over night. The only thing that could make them better is if they had shoulder straps like they use at real berry farms. Even better, we have 3 of them so each of us can have our own! 

Also of note, our little water barrel/ garden came alive today. For years I had an old wooden half barrel on the corner of the house to prevent a giant rut where the water came off of the roof the hardest. Sadly, when I moved we had to empty it to bring it with us which apparently caused the boards to dry out and come loose. It never held water again and eventually rotted away. My brother somehow became the owner of a GIANT heavy duty plastic flower pot. It is at least hip high to me, and I'm almost 5'10". It was in perfect shape other than the very spotty coat of black spray paint that someone had splattered across half of it. It didn't have drainage holes in it, so every time it rained it filled completely full of water. I immediately envisioned a water garden. My brother collects things that he may be able to use someday (it must run in the family) and he really didn't want to part with it.  Reluctantly, he gifted it to me with the promise that I would get Keegan some fish to put in it. I easily agreed since in order to have anything around here with standing water in it you either have to have something in it to eat mosquito larvae or put poison in it. I don't do poison. 

I bought some lovely green spray paint that adheres well to plastic and Keegan did a fantastic job of painting it. I figured it would be just the job for him. Artistic and creative, with a bit of a destructive feel to it. He dug out the elephant ear plant that I planted under the rain spout in January, and moved it out enough to put the planter on the other side of it. We added some fish tank rocks and sea shells that I had been saving to give the fish a bit of texture in the bottom. Finally, he leveled it well and filled it. After all of his hard work, today we took Keegan to get some fish. We got 20 Comet Goldfish. They are the little fish that they give away at the fair when you play that game where you throw the ping pong balls at a tiny bowl of water for like $5 a shot. Those things are tough little fish. My mom was telling me earlier today that she read that they can live over 20 years if properly cared for. I have had some live at least 5 years to be over 6 inches long. They sell them for like $0.20 at the pet store as feeder fish for small snakes and such. These ones will be put to work to earn their keep, but will hopefully live a long and productive life. Like all of the animals here. I am going to buy some kind of floating aquatic plants very soon to help provide them a bit of shade and to help oxygenate the water. I will use the water out of the barrel to water and provide nutrients (supplied by the fish waste and algae) to the nearby plants, which will be replenished by the rain from the roof. The roof is metal so there will be no harmful chemicals from it harbored in the water. I hope it will be a perfect system. Regardless, seeing the pretty little fish swimming around makes me smile. 

This Rain is Crazy!

There haven't been dangerous storms or anything. It just keeps coming! Total downpours. Repeatedly. It will barely stop for a few minutes and then the sky opens up again. I managed to take a quick walk about during one of the brief lapses earlier. No pictures because I didn't trust the rain to stay away for long enough... it was a good thing too. The big garden walkways are ankle deep in water. Luckily, they are raised beds so the actual plants are safe from the flood. They all seem to be enjoying it and are growing well. The beans in the little garden are beginning to twine up the bottom of the arbors. I was amazed to see the butternut squash plants that had been broken off by the chickens and I had thrown to the side looking perfectly green and healthy. I picked them up and realized that, because it has been so wet, they had started sprouting new roots instead of dying. I replanted them. I'm excited to see if they make it.

The animals look positively miserable. There are few things that looks more pathetic than waterlogged poultry. The turkeys especially. They don't have enough sense to get in out of the rain most of the time. They do better than the guineas though. Whenever it starts raining the guineas just stop. Where ever they may be. They stand as still as statues until the strange wet stuff falling from the sky stops hitting them in the head. I don't remember if I mentioned before, but we lost a guinea the other day to a car. Two others have rarely been seen in a while. I think they they are a mated pair. Hopefully they will show back up soon followed by a bunch of little keets. If nothing else, I hope nothing eats them while they are nesting. The chickens at least have enough sense to get in out of the rain when it is really coming down, but since it has barely stopped they still get soaked in order to eat. Have you heard the saying " as mad as a wet hen"? Yeah... they don't enjoy the rain much.

Keegan and I had to make an emergency repair to the babies' hoop coop tractor. The rain had waterlogged the untreated boards and the weight of the water bucket pulled the "spine" of the coop loose from the front. It will hold for the time being but when the wood dries out we need to do a better job. The babies are getting big and are managing to stay remarkably dry.

The bottom half of the driveway (near the road) has washed out again. It has a bigger gully than it did before it was fixed last time. The top half looks great though. The water has been running down the road like a river. I had to stop on my way out of the driveway earlier to move a water turtle out of the road. Poor fella must have washed out of the swamp down the road. He seemed perfectly happy until I picked him up though. The flow may wash our mailbox away if it speeds up anymore or gets much deeper. The ravine in the woods on the north side of our property sounds like rushing rapids. It is normally empty except for when it rains heavily. I wish I could see it without climbing through thick brush. Its relaxing to listen to though. The frogs also seem to be happy. The water is difficult to hear between the chorus of frogs when they really get going.

Being stuck inside is making us all a bit stir crazy. I have been passing the time by cooking and baking. A lot. Probably too much. Not even the bottomless pits that I live with have been able to keep up. I need to be washing windows and wiping down walls instead. Alas, it doesn't seem nearly as pleasant. The guys have been cleaning a bit in preparation for carpet shampooing soon. As soon as the rain ends. We may float away first. The 10 day forecast is calling for rain every day. Good thing it is usually wrong. :)

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!

Post Isaac

Even the flat areas of the yard are pretty marshy

We survived Isaac! Luckily it turned west before it got here and didn't strengthen as much as they thought it would. The one tree we lost right as the storm started was the only one we lost. We were VERY lucky. Even though it didn't hit too hard here there are still many people in our town that lost everything due to flooding. People closer to the coast fared even worse.
The turkeys actually seemed to like their playtime in the cattle trailer. I have a big tree limb in there for them to perch on and they rode out the storm really well. The chickens did as well, although they didn't like being locked up. I kept them in all day on Wednesday because the storm was coming in, but by Thursday afternoon, they were free ranging around the yard, despite the wind still being very strong. I tossed treats in to them while they were cooped up (sunflower seeds) so that they could scratch around and find it, rather than being fussy and mean to each other. The coop is large and has two levels, but they are used to having free range of several acres. I didn't move the turkeys back to their hoop coop until Saturday afternoon. The rain completely flooded where the coop was, as well as much of the rest of the yard. We had no place to move it where they wouldn't be ankle deep in water. I also didn't want to put the tarps back up until the wind calmed down some more. When I moved them back into their freshly relocated coop they all started chasing one of the toms (Big Man) around and biting him. I have never seen them do this before. I tried to rescue him but every time I put him back down they all came after him again. Finally, I put him on a roost and they left him alone. I'm hoping this is just a pecking order issue and they don't hurt him.
The rain was the biggest issue with the storm. There are many places in the area that are underwater. The wind scared me a few times. It is nerve racking to watch the trees bend and sway like they did and know that if they fell, they could reach the roof of the house. Aside from some tree limbs and branches being strewn around the yard and my Cosmos (6+ foot tall plants that grow orange flowers) being knocked down, we really didn't have any damage. I'm thrilled that we fared so well. I'm glad that we prepared, though. It was a nice drill for next time.
Another positive note, my hens are laying 5 eggs a day now!!! Even one of the EEs are laying and I have some pretty blue eggs. I actually have a full dozen eggs for the first time in... I don't remember when. I guess it was at least May. That is, I have a whole dozen eggs, even after Keegan eating his fill this morning! I think he made over half a dozen this morning, and the girls replenished them. I can't wait until I have enough to boil (without Keegan getting upset that I used up all the eggs. He doesn't like boiled eggs that much unless they are deviled eggs).

Randy was keeping an eye on me while I was doing my
walkabout to check on things. 

One of the hens checking out the new "pond" located next
to their coop. 

The turkey coop was pretty well flooded. Randy wanted the
frogs that were enjoying the water. 

Egg production continues, and gets better by
the day. 

The chickens enjoyed scratching around in the mud for
bugs that they couldn't get to before. 

The water trough not only continued filling,
but overflowed from the rain. 

Some photos from an area in town. Completely underwater.

A man walking across a bridge that used to span a creek. I
think the creek pretty well spans the bridge now. 

A whole dozen eggs!!! Even beautiful blue ones, courtesy of Greta.

The turkeys enjoy being back in their hoop coop and are
starting to look/act very turkey-like. 

They are strutting around all puffed up. 

Complete with gobble!

Preparing for Isaac

Having lived on the east coast of Florida for several years, including the summer of 2004 when we were pounded with one hurricane after another, I am fairly practiced at preparing for a hurricane. What makes this one different, is that I have never had this many animals in my care at the time of a hurricane, or this much property to secure. Last time I lived in an apartment and had 2 pets, a parrot and a rabbit, both of which were inside. Now I have over 20 chickens, 13 turkeys, 3 dogs, and about 12 acres to keep up with.  I began preparing several days ago, when Isaac was expected to be a category 2 and headed straight toward us. Now, thankfully, it has been downgraded to a category 1 and moved to the west a bit. We still need to prepare to have power outages, high winds, possible tornadoes, flooding, and no access to supplies. I always like to prepare for the worst and hope for the best. The winds have gotten strong already. The chickens are free ranging still but will be locked up where it is safe in a couple of hours and will remain there until the storm has passed.  

The chicken coop has been tied down. We are worried about the tin roof remaining intact during the storm so we secured it. The coop has an automatic waterer, but a regular gravity waterer has been placed in the coop to prepare for the loss of electricity. We have well water so no electric, no well pump, and no water. Extra feeders have been placed in the coop to ensure that they will have plenty of food if it isn't safe for me to go out and feed them in the morning. 

A cattle water tub was brought over and filled so that we will have plenty of water for the animals. I'm expecting it to finish filling during the night, as we are going to have LOTS of rain. 

The turkey hoop coop has been evacuated. It is built to be light so that it can be moved around the yard easily. This means that in high winds, it just isn't safe. The tarps were removed so that they don't catch wind. Hopefully it will hold up through the storm. 

This is where the turkeys will ride out the storm. A cattle/horse trailer. It is sturdy enough to withstand the wind, and possibly downed limbs. It also has a middle divider so that if we need to leave, we can close the turkeys in one side, put the chickens in the other side, hook up to the truck, and all of us can go. 

The turkeys seem to enjoy the new settings. They are so curious. I had to rig the back of it because they had figured out how to escape. Who ever said turkeys are stupid have clearly never been around heritage turkeys before. They are too smart for their own good sometimes. I moved their automatic waterer to the trailer, but also gave them a gravity waterer and extra feeders. We also stocked up on chicken feed, turkey feed, and dog food when we were stocking up on canned food and water for ourselves. They are good to go!

The first feeder band made its way through as I was finishing up. We already had our first tree casualty. This was a large Oak. Luckily it was away from the house and fell into a wooded area. Hopefully we won't loose many more. Time to hunker down for the storm!

Rain!!!

I have never liked rain. It makes it impossible to do anything productive. The sky is gray and dreary. It just makes for a depressing day. I never liked rain... that is until I moved to the deep south and started my little homestead. Now rain is a godsend. The heat here only lets up after a good, hard rain. My chickens don't look like they are going to have heat stroke at any moment. I can actually go a day or maybe even two (!) without spending an hour, minimum, watering my gardens and my plants don't wither up and die. I plant fruits, veggies and flowers that are heat tolerant and need much less water than typical plants do. I even plant everything in above ground beds so that only an isolated area needs to be watered (and fertilized) and mulch heavily with hay, but it gets so hot here that it doesn't matter. It just slows the process. No water for a day and they are goners. I don't even mind that I have to go out and do chores in the mud and come back inside soaking wet. It is better than the heat. We have had rain for three days straight at this point and, though it does get a bit old after a while, it is marvelous. I never thought, before I had animals and gardens of my own, how important rain is. The very grass under your feet withers up and dies without it. So, who cares if the lawn looks like sandlot? Well, I don't, except that now I have animals that eat the grass and I really count on it being there. I don't water my lawn, preferring to only use it in what is precious, so with no rain it just disappears. Rain this time of year, at least this much, is rare for this area. I am so grateful. Rain seems to reset everything. It is almost like natures way of telling everything to take a break from the stress and toil of the hard, hot summer, and then start over, feeling more refreshed and renewed. I find myself taking the long way through the yard to cool my feet in the puddles (yes, like most southerners, I have taken to wearing flip-flops rather than muck boots to work outside). I have been finding more and more things to put tin roofs on so I can enjoy the soothing sound of the drops hitting them when they fall. I never liked rain, except, now I find that I love it!