Happy new Year!

Wow! The new year has really snuck up on me. By now, I usually have an array of weird things lined up for my garden. This year, I think I'll stick with things that I know will work. I ordered some onion sets from Brown of Omaha. I have ordered their onions every year for the past 3 yrs and they always do really well. In Mobile, onions need to be planted in January. I know it seems too cold, but onions are a cool season crop. Also, I plan to plant some snow peas and some English peas by the end of the month. Brandon has a couple of projects lined up as well. He plans on building a fenced in area for the chickens. When chickens are left to roam the farm, they are healthy and happy but they eventually become un-ruley and forget their place. Mine have started roosting in the goat's hay rack, pooping all over their hay - a condition that is both inconvenient and unsanitary for the goats. Due to the population boom of all those fall chicks, they have scratched several bare patches in the yard. We already gave over half of the chickens away, however we can't replant the bare patches with the chickens loose because they will just eat whatever grass seed we put down. Also, Dolce (FYI he was named prior to the popular Maria Sharapova commercials and to my knowledge several years before Maria's dog was even born), our faithful guard dog has been feasting on eggs that the chickens lay in the goat's stall on the ground. Fencing the chickens in for a while will allow the grass to recuperate and will retrain them to lay in the right spot and roost in the right spot. Chickens are creatures of habit. Once trained to sleep, eat, and lay eggs in certain areas, they will keep doing so for sometime (in my experience ~ 8 months) before they need to be caged and retrained.

Shitake!

We had a cold snap that was accompanied by what seemed like a week straight of rain. Then, like is so often in my beloved home town on the bay, it warmed right back up. Yesterday morning was choked with fog. After I returned home from work, I stepped out of my car and was hit with a the same euphoric sense that I get when hiking in the mountains. The air had a texture and an aroma reminiscent of a walk through the forest just after a rain. And I knew - Shitake!! After settling the baby, I rushed outside to my shitake logs. These are oak logs that we inoculated last year with shitake mushroom spawn. We have gotten a few during the summer - but I almost felt like I had failed in this venture. When I got my first visual of the log - I saw a fruiting body the size of my palm. Yum, yummy. I sliced it up and put it on our otherwise boring frozen grocery store pizza. It was great and made the pizza seem like a special creation. Next time, I'll try to take a picture to post prior to devouring the wonderful delicacy.

Early winter update

RABBITS: Unfortunately, my female rabbit did not get pregnant as I had hoped. Yesterday was day 31 and there were no babies. We'll try to re-breed her and wait to see what happens. I think she was probably just too young. I was not surprised, because I did not feel the tell-tell marble lumps in her abdomen that indicate that a rabbit is pregnant. I'm stubborn and rabbits are fertile, so I'm sure we'll eventually be successful.
CHICKENS: I gave over half of my laying flock, including the ducks, to one of my uncles. There were too many mouths to feed, and being winter, there weren't many eggs. During the winter, the grass does not grow resulting in a lower feed threshold for my yard. This unfortunately results to bare patches.
GOATS: The 21st day of both of the girls' cycles came and went with no signs of heat. This means that the breeding was successful!!! I'm so excited, but nervous too. Sudsy needed significant help from me during her last labor and she and her first born almost died during the process. Hopefully this time around will go much more smoothly. The due dates are April 14, 2008 for Sudsy and April 17, 2008 for Sky. I'll be ready to play midwife, just like last time. This time, I'll make sure I order the gloves that go to the elbow.
VEGETABLES: Ava and I harvested some carrots from our 'bathtub' garden. We purchased the bathtub from Lowe's in the dinged up section of appliances for $25 last year. This fall, Brandon put some aluminum cans in the bottom for drainage and left the drain hole open. (I'm too cheap to buy gravel when I have a plethora of recyclable aluminum cans) Then he filled it with potting soil. I planted the carrots in September. They were really yummy and Ava had a good time. The neighbors' children watched us so we gave them each a fresh carrot straight from the ground. They seemed to get a big kick out of it and ran off to show their mothers.