Sunny Saturday

We only put up a small tree this year, but I thought it looked very happy. I covered it with all manner of light, some twinkle and some not so it is very bright. Have a great weekend and enjoy all your new Christmas loot. What a difference a day makes, woke this morning to a beautiful clear day. Still very cold, but pretty. You can see from the windows on the garage how the wind blew the snow around, the windows on the house are coated also on the East side.

The drive way was not as bad as we feared so Jim has gone to the "big" city to

pick up a few things. Made Charlie's day he loves to ride in the car more then most anything else.

I thought the trees looked so pretty with all the snow stuck on them. Molly had a great time running all over the place, she would still be out their if I had not gotten cold. The new boots I bought for the barn only have a light lining so cannot be in the snow for too long. To give you an idea as to the height of the drifts, behind Molly is one of our Pathfinders that Jim is going to work on. It is pretty much buried.

Best to you, Barbara

Merry Christmas

Sending warm wishes for a wonderful Christmas day your way. All best wishes for a loving, prosperous New Year.

As the song says, The weather outside is frightful so I am glad we have no need to travel anywhere. Looks like it will be Monday or Tuesday before we will venture out.

We have had major amounts of snow, then sleet, snow, rain and now back to snow. I took these pictures this afternoon there were big fluffy snow flakes but could not really catch them. Pretty much of the day has been white out conditions with the snow and wind. With the rain the snow is very heavy so I made sure Jim only shoveled a small path for me to get through with my sled. With the onset of cold weather I now take 5 gallon buckets of hot water out to the animals twice a day. We purchased a new 16 gallon heated bucket for the goats, the two 5 gallon ones we had were just not enough. The chickens have their own heated water dispenser, so there is 3 gallons for them every couple of days and the cats have a heated water dish also. I am so pleased that our panels across the bottom of the door are working so well.

The chickens are now giving us 3 and 5 eggs a day. They are so funny, now stand by their door to be let out to play with the goats. They keep all the grain that the goats miss cleaned up. When you go out there the chickens are just clucking away, sound very peaceful.

Our day was quiet spent playing on the computer, eating and reading. I bought Jim a game for the Wii so that has kept him occupied. When he gets fed up with that then he is back to channel surfing. A none stressful day all around, even the dogs did not want to go out much.

Tomorrow if I can summon the energy I want to do some baking. I am practicing my cookie decorating, practice makes perfect. The big plus is we get to eat my mistakes,lol.

My big holiday fun will be going to the sales, I enjoy buying all kinds of pretty wrapping paper, bows, ribbons for half price. Will be heading to Hallmark to see what there is in the way of decorations, then will hope to find a new Department 56 piece to add to my collection. Jim always feels he should buy me something, but since I have so much I truly enjoy hitting the sales. Last year I bought some of the extra large ornaments for the outside tree. I am hoping next year we will be more organized and can decorate it, it has such a beautiful shape I think it will look beautiful.

Enjoy your holiday and being with friends and family.

Best to you, Barbara

Chickens on my head and goats on my toes!!!

There is never a dull moment with all the critters around, makes my days fun.
A couple of the chickens who are extra friendly have decided that not only will they ride the goats but humans are fair game also. Jim and I were standing in the coop discussing possible modifications when a chicken launched itself and landed on my head. We could not stop laughing and all the while the chicken is just clucking away.

Anything you are trying to do in the animal shed, the goats have to be part of. They are so curious, they want to stick their noses in, taste, in general get completely under foot. Of course my toes take a beating as they always seem to manage to tromp on me at some point.

Jim made a small trap door for the chickens to get in and out of the coop. I had just been opening the door a little bit and securing it with bungee cords. Welllll, the goats figured out how to get the bungees off and promptly ate the chicken feed, again!!!! Jim thought he had it all figured out, came in to get me to show me what he had done. We go out and look in the coop, no chickens in sight......... but guess who?? 7 of the goats were in there, shoo them out try and figure out how they got in. As we are standing there Milky Way gets down on her hands and knees and crawls through the door!!! So, back to the drawing board , Jim has to make the opening smaller. As you can see he had lots of supervision.

When you look at the size of the opening it is amazing to me that the goats could make it through, if I had not watched it happen I would never have believed it.

I found a surprise the other day, eggs!! Now I am finding one or two a day, good chickens!! The are getting so big and for the most part very tame.

I think this chicken is so pretty, still do not know what kind she is,lol.

This is my other mystery chicken, pretty isn't she?? Just do not know what kind. The one in the back is a Silver Laced Wyandotte, it is a real wacky chicken. Runs all around at top speed.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, ours was quiet. Jim was home from Wednesday night till Monday morning so we had some nice together time. I cooked ham and turkey so we had leftovers which I tend to enjoy more then the actual meal. Love turkey sandwiches with all the trimmings on them.

Best to all, Barbara

Link to growing potatoes in hay

Stasia shared the link to the site for growing potatoes in hay. You meet the nicest people in
Blogger Land. http://www.chirotoons.com/potatoes.html

Potatoes in Hay

I received a question about growing potatoes in hay. If you google it I am sure there are many articles about it. I did nothing special and have talked to others who know of people who do it. I got the seed potatoes, mine were larger so I cut them into sections, you have to make sure there are several eyes on each piece. I just put the pieces on the grass probably about a foot apart, then I put a layer of hay over that. As the plants grow and poke up through you add another layer of hay. The directions I had said to have the pile eventually be a foot high, I never got mine that high,lol. I probably put about 3 layers of hay and then got busy with other things and sort of forgot about them. I believe I have mentioned it is hard for me to stay on task!!

This Fall as Jim and I were out walking around he asked how the potatoes did, my reply was "I don't know , I forgot about them" So they had gone with no extra watering or anything. We looked and I did not see any plant so thought they were dead. I got a rake and started pulling the hay back and there they were, little nests of potatoes. The red ones did the best and there was not much in the way of dirt on them. I mentioned to a friend of mine about doing this and she said her friend had grown hers that way for years. Now, the friend puts down a thin layer of hay first, so I may try that next spring. All in all a satisfactory way to plant. Hope this helps.

Chickens, Goats and other stuff

So far we are having a fairly mild fall, more 60 degree days in October then September. Mostly we are running 10-15 degrees above normal. I am not complaining at all, today is sunny with a bit of a breeze.

Jim and I worked on winterizing the barn this weekend. Jim is so good, he listens to what I want and then tries to make it happen. I was trying to figure out how to block the breeze and still have some light in the barn. This is more an animal shed then a real barn, it has half doors with hinges that allow them to be swung up in the summer and down in the winter. Thing is that there is still that bottom half which allows the winter winds to whistle in. I came up with the idea of using some of the hog wire which is very heavy duty, covering it with plastic and then chicken wire to prevent the goats from tearing the plastic off. I think the goats got the reputation for eating strange stuff due to their habit of tasting everything. While you are working out there you have your jacket, pants, gloves all nibbled on. They have it all over cats when it comes to curiosity.

I am now letting the chickens run free during the day, I leave their door ajar so that they can come and go. I have to be careful not to leave it too open as the goats go in and eat the chicken's feed. The chickens have a new game, riding the goats, cracks me up.


When the first taste of cold weather hit I decided to dig up my herbs and try bringing them in. They were growing so nicely I thought "what the heck, give it a try". So far success. I have oregano, basil, parsley, thyme, marjoram all growing nicely. I have just planted some more basil in another planter. In the back you can see the Tarragon. I missed it the first time and it got frosted, does seem to be coming back. This is one of those nothing ventured nothing gained things. I also brought in one of my planter with Petunias and they are happily blooming away.
I also learned that those row covers work very well. When I was out digging things up I got pooped out, there was still a patch of Oregano, so I tossed the row cover over it. Several weeks later after snow, freezes etc I was out and happened to pull up the cover, lo and behold there sat the Oregano doing fine. I am very impressed and plant to buy more to cover the Spring crops. I am busy planning for next year's garden.

Last year I learned that yellow squash grows huge and can take over the garden. This year I planted the squash next to a fence and had success with it growing up the fence. This year I learned that Broccoli and Cauliflower also grow huge , who knew!! I have a hard time finding the words to describe how wonderful vegetables fresh from the garden taste. The stems on the broccoli are tender, not the woody stuff you get in the stores. So, I have staked out a whole new area so that the plants will have plenty of room to spread. I also will move the strawberries as they need more space.


I mentioned that I had read a hint on another blog about growing potatoes in hay, so I gave it a try. Anything that does not require me to dig is high on my list. The results were great, this is even with my forgetting about them and not giving them much in the way of care. We harvested about 20 pounds of nice red potatoes, and again the flavor of fresh is so wonderful. You rake back the hay and there is this little nest of potatoes of all sizes. I will be doing this again next year with more of a variety. There was so so luck with the onions, much of the garden really needed more sun and heat.


Making more progress in my attic craft/sewing/painting/office area. I am in the process of painting a couple of shirts as Christmas presents for a friend. This was the motivator for my latest spurt of organizing, I could not find the pictures or the shirts, yikes! So a day spent moving things around, found the shirts, pictures and much more. Makes me feel better when I can make some progress in the organizing department.


Wonderful to be back, I am busy doing catch up on everyone's blogs. Best to you all.

Cannot believe how much time has passed!!

When I saw the date on my last post I was amazed. I have thought about things to write but never sat myself down and made that post. I hope all has been well, we continue to bumble along with highs and lows. The Summer was the Summer that never was, I think I only turned the air on a day or two. My garden did not do as well as hoped due to cool temps and too much rain. Once again it was a learning experience so all is not lost.

Earlier today I was gathering up my pumpkins and was surprised that there were more then I had thought. They did fairly well, more heat would have resulted in larger and riper pumpkins, but I am happy that for the first time I actually had ones to pick!! The largest one on the right I was barely able to lift, was also hard to get my arms around it. Right behind is a pile of vines with the mini pumpkins I planted, they are so cute. As you can see many did not ripen, this was a problem for many growers, of course they grow hundreds,lol.

The goats continue to amuse and eat and eat. They are all healthy and active. Now that the soybeans have been harvested I can once again take them outside their pasture to roam in the woods. Once the soybeans were ripe they would head that way which was a huge no no!!

They started on the fields around the house yesterday morning and by the afternoon all was done. The machines they use are amazing, they had two or three harvesters and a couple of tractors

which follow along with the harvesters to load the grain. From there the tractors go to the semi's to off load the beans. Every time I see this I wonder what the original settlers would think to see this. How hard they had to work with their wooden plows and one horse or manpower to plow and scythes to harvest.

The Chickens thrive, no eggs yet but soon I am sure. I like my variety pack. Sorry this picture is a tad bleary no sure why. She has the pretties colors, what kind she is remains a mystery. I think the hatchery got some extra ones in by mistake. I ordered 10, but later realized that I had 12. Within a couple of days I lost two. The count is still not right as I have 3 Gold Stars, 1 Silver Laced Wyandotte, 1 that looks like a pheasant as in the picture. There are 2 Black Australorp, 2 Buff Orpinton and 1 that is black with white you can see her in the picture. . They were busy eating the grain the goats spill.

Nice to be back, looking forward to catching up.

Best to you Barbara