Attempting to start the garden!

 We attempted to get the garden tilled up....and when I say 'we' I really mean my oldest!  I just took pictures! LOL!  Anyways last week he tried to start getting it ready to plant but it was to muddy to do more than the highest level.

 My 11 yo is mowing behind the garden so we can try and extend it to plant some more potatoes and some mangels.

 The bees are very active in and out of the top bar hive!

 This was just a scrub tree my DH pulled from somewhere else and planted so my 9 and 11 yo dug it up because it is where I wan to extend the garden.

 Baby girl LOVES swinging on the swing!

She was even try to stand up on while she was swinging!  Sigh....she is to brave for her britches for sure!!

 9 yo was doing sit ups on the monkey bars!

Happy 9th Birthday!

           Sunday was my little man's birthday!  It is hard to believe that 9 years has gone by so fast!

We celebrated by having a cookout at my MIL's house and then we had an ice cream cake!  

My mom and I went together and got him one these Wilton Cake Decorating kits.

He wants to open up his own bakery some day.  He LOVES to make cupcakes and cakes and decorate them.

Survival Seed Bank!

My Patriot Supply offers the coolest thing for the person who is into gardening, being self sufficient, or for the person who just wants to be prepared!  It is the Survival Seed Bank: Genesis Garden!!

Genesis Garden

The Genesis Garden  is priced so that you can afford to buy two!  One to plant this year and one for long term storage for that just in case situation and keep one in storage or to share with a friend!  

• Convenient resealable storage container
• E-Z Lock resealable, reusable triple-layered foil packets
• 20 Jumbo size seed packets with easy to grow garden vegetables
• Seeds are open pollinated and can be grown, harvested, and replanted endlessly
• Dried & sealed airtight for long-term storage
• Varieties selected are zone-friendly to most all areas!
• Planting instructions and seed harvesting guide included!

Your Genesis Garden® seed order comes with:

• Blue Lake Bean 110+ seeds
• California Wonder Pepper 70+ seeds
• Scarlet Nantes Carrot 800+ seeds
• Marketmore Cucumber 150+ seeds
• Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce 900+ seeds
• Golden Acre Cabbage 530+ seeds
• Detroit Dark Red Beet 260+ seeds
• Lincoln Shell Pea 100+ seeds
• Lucullus Swiss Chard 160+ seeds
• Beefsteak Tomato 180+ seeds
• Champion Radish 320+ seeds
• Green Sprouting Broccoli 270+ seeds
• Waltham Butternut Winter Squash 100+ seeds
• Bloomsdale Long Standing Spinach 260+ seeds
• Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion 145+ seeds
• Golden Bantam Sweet Corn 130+ seeds
• Iroquois Cantaloupe 70+ seeds
• Snowball Self-blanching Cauliflower 285+ seeds
• Black Beauty Zucchini 50+ seeds
• Crimson Sweet Watermelon 60+ seeds

But if those seeds are not for you they also offer a customizable option!!!  The best part is the free shipping!  

My Patriot Supply


http://www.mypatriotsupply.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=GENGARD&Click=240

Want a kiss???

Baby Girl was covered in peanut butter....and then she decided she wanted a kiss and started coming after to get some smoochies!!! 

Cry Me a River!!

 UGH!  It has rained here so much that the chicken pen is nothing but mud.  Even where there was some grass left in the pen it is nothing but mud!
 Here are our two new ducks Alaina gave us.  I think they are probably the only ones that like all of this rain.

This is the water flowing on the back side of my chicken pen!  Sigh...   Hopefully the sun comes out SOON and this rain lets up some!

This is part of my garden!

This is the water hole in my garden!  So it does not look like we are getting in there anytime soon!

Setting the Bees! Top Bar Hive Part 3

 We bought our bees yesterday but we had to wait until this morning to set them....after the rain.  The gentlemen we bought our bees off of also sold us a nice hat at a super good price.

 He also gave us some waxy comb for them to get started with so that the bees would be able to get a jump start on their comb and to make sure that they start the comb the right direction.

 Here is our box of bees!  We had to pry the top off and then we were supposed to take the queen out and the food jar that was in there.  Yeah, things don't always go like they should! LOL!

 Then my fearless 11 yo dumped the bees down into our top bar hive.

 You can see in this picture that the bees have already found the main three holes for the entrance and a bunch of them were swarmed around it.

The Queen is in her own little box.  We had to remove the cork from the bottom of the queen box.  Then she has cork candy that surrounds that.  She has to eat it from one direction and the workers bees eat at that from the other direction to let her out of her little box.  It is supposed to take a day or so for them to get her out so that she is acclimated to the hive and does not take off and take all of the worker bees with her.  She has a little metal piece on the top of her box and we wedged it between the slats.  She is there on the back right opening.     Then we placed the lid back on top.

Right now we are letting the bees settle in and calm down.  We are going to go back out in a couple hours and put a feeder in the bottom of the hive.  We do not want the bees to die from lack of food with all of this rain and cold icky weather.

Turkey Babies!

Alaina hatched some of my turkey eggs.  She had a 100% hatch rate!  YAY!  5 out of the 6 turkey poults have the Bourbon Red markings and one has the Narragansett coloring.  It is hard to see all of the turkey babies in the top picture because they are mixed in with her pheasant peeps.  The three light colored ones against the back wall are some of the light colored (red) turkeys and the second baby against the side wall is the darker turkey baby.  

 Here is a close up picture of a light colored turkey baby.

Right now she has 6 more eggs in the 'bator and they still have a few more days before they are due to hatch.

Apple Mixed Berry JAM!!

I won a jar of homemade Jam from Arrows Flight Farm's blog: http://arrowsflightfarm.blogspot.com/ They live on a 10 acre homestead with their two kiddos in Arkansas.  

I got it in the mail yesterday and I could not wait to pop open the lid and try some on toast.  Well, of course you know that I have to share!!  The jam is super good!  The baby really loved it and when 6 yo DD tried to take a bite of her bread she screamed!!  She did not want to share!  I guess sharing only applies to the parents!  LOL! 

Recipe:

2 cups mixed berry applesauce (one strip of the single serve cups, unless you can find it in a jar)
4 cups of apple cider
3 cups of sugar
low/no sugar pectin
Thank you Arrows Flight Farm for the wonderful jam and the recipe!!