Garden Update

I'm not as far along with my garden as I would like to be, but I think I'm still within a good timeframe...








My peas are coming up nicely but something is eating my lettuce. I don't think I'll be getting any lettuce this year :(












I got my tomatoes in today - the rain was kind enough to hold off while I weeded and got the dirt all set. I'm playing it smart this year and only putting six plants in the 4 x 8 bed. Every other year I try to put eight or ten, and by mid summer the plants are so overcrowded it isn't even funny. This year each plant will have plenty of space to produce sweet, luscious fruit - Mmmmm! And pay no attention to the wayward plant on the right - that is a volunteer sunflower that I have plans for. It won't be staying there :)
















Little green berries are appearing on my strawberry plants!

















...and like everyone else - iris' are in bloom!












If the weather cooperates, I am hoping to finish up by this weekend... but if it takes me an extra week, I won't be really upset.

Happy

Tonight I was on the couch reading a book. I put the book down for a moment and as I looked around, a feeling of contentment came over me. I felt happy.

I didn't get as much done over the weekend as I had planned. Tractor Supply didn't have the battery I needed for my tractor in stock. I didn't get to visit with a friend that was in town for a couple days. I still have a list a mile long of things I want/need to do. I still need a better paying job. My body still has aches and pains that I wish would go away.

But my truck is running fine for the moment. The weather has been absolutely gorgeous. I *did* get stuff crossed off my To Do list. The aches and pains could be worse.

I feel happy inside.

And I have tomorrow off :)

Got it!

Yay! I think I figured out my webcam problems!

Webcam Streaming by Camstreams.com

If it isn't streaming on this page for you, you can see it here.

I still have some refining to do, but I'll worry about that tonight - lots to do today!

They're Here!

The chicks are here! The chicks are here!

I picked them up on Monday and they are sooo cute :)



I am so frustrated/mad/not happy tho', because I wanted to do webcam so that I could share my chicks with friends and anyone who was interested. My camera works, but I can't broadcast. I tried two different webcam sites and and for some reason I couldn't broadcast at either one. I think Time Warner/Roadrunner is to blame, but they say it's not them. I really wanted to be able to do this :( Anyone out there have Roadrunner and broadcast a webcam? Anyone with any ideas? I'd really appreciate it! (and for the record, I've tried broadcasting with my firewall shut off and it didn't make any difference)



Sooo.... I'll just have to share pictures until I figure it out.

When I got my chicks they were combined with orders from a few different people. I was worried as to how I would be able to figure out which chicks were mine. The hatchery made it really easy for us. My chickens were green :)


I'm curious to see how long it will take for the markings to wear off or grow out :)

All the chicks were very noisy when I picked them up from the post office. Once they got some water in them and warmed up under the heat lamp they quieted right down.


So far, all my girls seem to be getting along really great. It's really interesting to see the different personalities of the different breeds. The Cochins remind me of Scooby Doo - kind of goofy and bumbly but really good natured. The New Hampshire Reds are definitely the obsessed ones - especially when it comes to food. They were the first ones to scratch and it is hysterical to watch them try and scratch their food from the little holes in their feeder. They are the messy ones :) The Red Stars make me think of a laid back, lazy summer day. They like to nap a lot.



One of my Red Star's has a problem with pasting up, but she is looking a lot better every day. You can tell when she's not feeling so good. I think the other chicks can too. Miss Poopy Butt will be sitting there by herself with her eyes closed and one of the Cochins will come over and sit with her - it looks like she's trying to comfort her. I know that's probably not the case, but that's what it looks like and it's so cute. I can tell that Miss Poopy Butt is feeling better every day because she is getting more and more active. And I think she already expects her cleanings every time she sees me :)

I'll have to get some more pictures up on Flickr, but until then....

Disturbing

So I was driving on the 290 today and there was an Amherst police car parked on the meridian in the usual spot. Traffic had slowed down to 55 mph accordingly - except for the guy in the tan SUV that blew by me going at least 70 mph. He was practically on the police car before he slowed down.

I was in the middle lane and Tan SUV Guy pulled/merged in front of me.

Looking in my rear view mirror, I see Amherst Police Guy pull out from his spot and turn his blue flashing lights on.

Here's the disturbing part: Amherst Police Guy drives right past Tan SUV Guy and heads down off the Millersport exit (cutting across all three lanes from the left) and pulls over someone driving a white SUV getting off the 290 - not even the same make as Tan SUV Guy.

Obviously I don't know what happened, but it would be so totally sucky if White SUV Guy ended up getting a ticket.

Does stuff like that happen often? How do you argue with a police officer that you weren't speeding?

That whole scene was just so wrong to me.

Cut

I never thought it would ever feel so good to cut my lawn.

I got my mower deck back from the repair shop today. They've had it for a week. (I'm not complaining tho' - I wasn't supposed to get it back for another week!)

My lawn needed cutting before I took it in.

My grass was very tall.

It's all better now :)

...Except for the three-inch blanket of lawn clippings covering the yard now.

Maybe it will be very windy this weekend again and the clippings will all blow away.

I can hope :)

FarmTown

I am not a huge fan of Facebook. I signed up a while ago, but I don't do too much on it. I guess I just don't get all the SuperPokes and iSmiles and the hundreds of other things the people 'do' to each other. Some of the quizzes are fun, but I hate that you have to send them to ten other people to get the results. And I don't get how people have the time to update their homepage every half hour - "Got up and had breakfast", "Out the door to get to work", "Arrived at work", "Had a cup of coffee" etc., etc., etc... Ugh. Is this what the cyberworld has devolved into? Even when I had a diary as a kid, it wasn't that detailed. I also don't find Facebook to be the easiest application to navigate. More than once I've found myself not being able to get There from Here.

There is one highlight to Facebook - Farm Town. Some friends from work introduced this to me. I like Farm Town. Maybe it's because I like gardening in real life that I find this so fascinating... Or maybe because it it's just fun. Farm Town is pretty much the only reason I log onto Facebook. I like watching my farm grow and rearranging things. The animals are fun to watch - the pigs and bunnies are the funniest so far. And it's fun to make money and buy things :) Right now I have my eye on a big red barn and a silo. I still have some levels to go before I can get those, but that will give me time to save...

In real life, I've planted my lettuce and peas. I think even with the frost advisories the seeds will be OK (I can't believe there was frost on the ground this morning!). It will be a little while before they start coming up, so hopefully the frost threats will be done by then. This year I'm trying two different kinds of lettuce - iceburg and romaine. We'll see how that pans out. I bought my tomatoes and peppers today, but I won't be putting them in the ground for a little while yet. If the weather cooperates tomorrow, I'm hoping to get another couple of my beds prepared.

Spring is the most time consuming part of my garden. Once all the beds are weeded and tilled, the rest of the year is a piece of cake. I'm about halfway done before I can sit back and relax!

Digging

After work today I took advantage of the non-rain and got some work done in the garden. Because the ground was still wet from this morning's showers, the worms were really active. I saw the biggest worm I have ever seen in my life. It made me think of those worms that they rode in Dune. I'm not kidding when I say this thing was huge - it had to be as thick as my finger.


It made me happy to see that my strawberries are flowering. I also have a few volunteer sunflowers, which I will transplant when I put Project Sunflower into effect...

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I still am bothered by my emotionality this past weekend. Just for the heck of it, I decided to look up my biorhythm chart for Saturday. I feel better now, knowing that there was a reason for how I was feeling:


All three of my primary cycles were at pretty much rock bottom.

People may not believe in biorhythm charts, but I do. I once did an experiment by keeping a log of how my days went for a couple of months. Afterwards, I did the chart for those days and compared each of the days. While some of the days didn't match, the percentage that did corresponded really surprised me. It was enough to convince me that there is something to life cycles :)

Bird Wars Update

I went to the hospital yesterday to visit my sister and brother-in-law and see my new niece - she is absolutely adorable. I have never seen a baby with so much hair before. It's kind of funny because I think it was six months before her brother started getting any hair :)

Everyone is back home now and settling in nicely.

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On the bird front, I think I've made some progress.

The starlings haven't been back in my hallway since I blocked off any possible nesting places in the rafters. My hallway has been quiet and mess free for the past couple of weeks and it's been nice.

I also think that the starlings have given up trying to nest in my dryer vent. I had taken a piece of hardware cloth and cut it to fit under the vent flap (the starlings used to lift the flap to gain entrance to the inside of the vent) - the screening stopped them from getting any further. It was a pain to keep checking the fitted piece every time I did wash - I was worried about lint building up and starting a fire - so I took it out last week. I haven't seen any birds trying to get in there again.

So yay for me :) All I have to do now is evict the birds that are in the eaves on the front of the house and I will be all set with the bird situation.

It looks like it's supposed to rain the rest of the week, so I'll have to come up with a plan for when the nice weather gets here.

Cuatro de Mayo

If my Grandmother was still alive, she'd be 100 years old today. I miss her - she was one super-fantastic lady.

If my Dad was still alive, he and my Mom would be celebrating their 46th wedding anniversary today. Happy Anniversary anyway :)

Today was also my Grandparent's wedding anniversary.

What could possibly make this day more special?

How about my sister having her baby girl today?

This is definitely a happy day!

Wreck

It's been a bizarre weekend. A lot got done and a lot didn't.

Saturday morning went great. I was feeling pretty good about friends, relationships - I was feeling pretty good about life in general.

Later on while working on the quilt, I was watching some stupid teen flick on TV.

When my Dad died, someone told me that even after time has passed, things would just come up that would make me really emotional. She wasn't kidding. As a rule, I'm not a super-emotional person. I can cry easily when I get super frustrated, but for the most part I can pretty much hold it together in life situations.

Going back to the movie, the girl's brother died and then there was the usual boy-girl he-likes-me-she-doesn't-like-me-oh-yes-they-do-like-each-other-but-something-is-in-the-way-of-true-love drama going on. I ended up thinking about my Dad and friends and relationships and things that I lost and things that I might lose... I was an emotional wreck for the rest of the day and couldn't stop myself. I've never had that happen before. It was pretty awful.

Today I had the unique experience of untangling a garden hose from the blades of my lawnmower.

TV

Chuck
I thought the season finale was fantastic. I wasn't a huge fan of the show when it first came out, but it's really grown on me. Bringing in Scott Bakula as Chuck's dad was brilliant. I've especially enjoyed the past few shows a lot.

Survivor
I am so glad Tyson is gone. I wish Coach would go away now. I'm not particularly fond of Debbie either. I wonder what was really going on at camp with Sierra. From what they showed us, she was the one telling the truth and making the most sense. Will everyone watch the show afterwards and say "Wow - she was right!" or was there more going on behind the scenes that the editors weren't showing us?

Heroes
They are losing me here. At the beginning there was goal: Save the cheerleader, save the world. The show had a lot of comic book reference type stuff in it. There's no main goal for the heroes now except to keep from getting captured or killed by the government. Except for the beginning and the end of each show, we aren't seeing any comic book imagery anymore. Sylar is a really good bad guy - I love to hate him and I love all the twists going on with him. I'll never get tired of Hiro and Ando. Everyone else is becoming less and less interesting.

The Deadliest Catch
I wonder if Phil will be coming back - he was one of my favorites. It was a sad start to the season, hopefully the rest of the season will be more upbeat.

The Amazing Race
This show is never boring. I'm rooting for either Margie and Luke or Tammy and Victor. I can't believe all the penalties Mark and Michael got before they were eliminated. This is the first season I can remember a team getting more than one penalty... how many did these guys get? Three? Yikes.

Harper's Island
What happened to it this week? I hate when networks bring in a new show for a few weeks - just enough for a person to get into to it, and then they take it off the air. I hope they don't plan on doing that here.

Busy

It's been a busy week - I can't believe it's Friday already...

With the weather finally breaking, my list of Things to Do has quadrupled. Not that I'm complaining. Most of the things on my list are things that I like/want to do. I just need more time to do them :)

I started getting my garden ready for planting. Hopefully I'll get my lettuce and peas in next week. I'm also thinking that the raspberries I pulled out are going to haunt me for a long time to come. They came out relatively easy (prickers notwithstanding), but now I'm seeing little baby plants popping up in undesirable places. I think I'll be pulling them for the rest of the summer. I figure I'll wait another couple of weeks before getting the rest of the garden planted. The weather has been so iffy lately, I don't want to take any chances of a freak frost coming. I hate the idea of losing everything and having to replant - ugh.

I did some other weeding and got some spraying done. I have some exciting plans for sunflowers this year. I hope it's going to look in real life as good as it does in my head.

I got my grass cut for the first time this year and rolled the lawn.

My sister's baby is due very soon and I've been working hard on finishing up the baby quilt for the little princess before she arrives. I am such a procrastinator - I've known the due date for almost nine months and I still wait until the last minute to get this done. Why do I do that???

I have a busy/exciting weekend ahead - or at least it will be if everything goes according to plan. I feel like it's over already - Argh!!!