Do You See What I See

 Blueberries on my littlest blueberry bush-wheeeeeeeeeee!


The biggest show I've ever gotten from this clematis. I remember the little guy who brought it to me on the last day of school. He's driving now to pick up his little sister, the last sibling in that family for me.


Ahh, a scraped out Cluckingham Palace.  All the nest boxes washed, bleached, cardboarded, with new bedding. Turpentine on the bottom of all the roosts and diatomaceous  earth all over everything.  Too bad you can't smell it-not too shabby.

A few cabbages planted.


If you remember I had the tree trimmers dump all the trimmings in the yard.  The kidlets have enjoyed climbing it.  Anyway, you aren't supposed to use fresh would wood chips as mulch. It will pull nitrogen from the soil to help with the breakdown of the wood.  Well, there was no way I could manage that mountain of chips as far as the turning it would need to compost, so I decided to try something.  I put cardboard down, then layered the wood chips with weeds and grass clippings to provide the nitrogen.  For now, it will be a weed barrier, but next year, compost to till back into the soil.
A wheelbarrow of the palace bedding went to the spot where I'll plant winter squash for our spring babies and another where I'll plant tomatoes.  All the rest went to the up garden.

So, last year, I embarked on a new adventure, hatching purchased eggs of a rare sort of chicken.  It ended up that the hatch produced a rooster and hen Americauna,  a rooster and hen Penedesenca, and a hen and two rooster Black Copper Marans.  Well the BCM hen never laid eggs and developed some awful growth and let's just say, that did not end well.  Handy Man fashioned a little run where we could separate the breeds before hatching this year.  We did, the hens refused to lay.  The Americauna and Penedesenca, who were previously laying almost every day, have not laid an egg in three weeks.  Ever want choke a chicken?
Anyway, the girls cannot manage the stress of five roosters and I haven't been able to find someone who wants them, so they are about to become chicken soup.  They are awfully handsome fellows though.