Meadowlark, Hummingbird and Deer

Holy cow! It was a hot one today!! Not complaining, but wowie--It's only May!! 90+ is July and August weather...
Because of the heat, I was kinda dragging today. We only planted 25 more trees and we had hoped to get all 75 in the ground, along with some other things in the garden. Alas, we always seem to hope to accomplish more than we can.
Our reward for hot sweaty work were the following sights from our dirt "patio".

A meadowlark on one of the garden fence posts

Lot's of hummingbirds--or the same one returning several times....

And a deer that was completely undeterred by Tippy's and Spotter's barking.

Breeze and Trees

There is a glorious breeze blowing through our house tonight. It smells of freshly mown grass and a smokey hint of last night's bonfire. It's refreshing~a small reward after a hard day's work.

Trees had to go into the ground today. We had purchased several types of trees in bulk. Today we planted 25 Red Maple and 50 of a shrub called Nine Bark. We planted them along the east and west sides of our drive. This picture gives you a scope of the project. There's HE at the bend in the drive.

Oh, there HE is! Note the beehives to the right.

The trees were really nothing more than sticks. But the price was great and if even half of them survive it will add some beauty to our landscape.

Meanwhile the garden was neglected today, though I did pick some black and red stripey bugs off my tiny radish seedlings. Little creeps! If anyone has any idea what this might be, let me know! I can't seem to find it anywhere.

These guys are ready to get into the ground, I think. So much to do, so little time.

Mud

This is what happens when you don't budget for landscaping with a new home building project. Yes, folks, mud. Two years of mud, but who's counting? And if you're like me~ cool, hip and fun, you allow your children to invent new ways of cavorting in the mud and say to yourself :"Ha, it's only mud." And on sunny days, the children use the hose to make the mud. And they make rivers and lakes. And they are well-pleased.

But then the offspring come into the house. And the dogs, who find mud-cavorting just as pleasurable as the offspring. "Ha", you say "it is only mud!"

But, actually I'm not laughing or smiling. I'm mostly frustrated, because I JUST MOPPED THE #@&% FLOOR!!!!!


............We'll be finishing that landscaping this summer. 




In the meantime, I'm still pretty cool...

How many kids have a mud hole in their backyard?

Stuff

Today we planted some more seeds. We added some additional spinach, beets, radishes and lettuce. We also added some Dragon Carrots! Those sounded so cool, I just had to buy them! We planted the beets by writing Erica's name and dropping the seeds in. I think we missed part of the R so we'll see how that turns out. Aidan wanted his name in Dragon Carrots! and golden beets. I told the kids that it will be easiest to see their names while the plants are small, but hopefully it will look really cool. Erica and Aidan each made a design of their own. Aidan planted lettuce and Erica planted radishes. Fun in the garden!  Photos to come....

Aidan took this picture of a marigold we planted downtown in Portage. Our 4-H club helps plant the planters around town along with some of the beds in Commerce Plaza. Such a bright and cheery flower--I may have to go to Links and get some myself.

I started hardening-off my seedlings today in the hopes of transplanting them this weekend or next week. We should be out of "frost" danger now. These little guys are ready to grow up big and strong! And I am ready to have them out of my house!

Next year, I hope to use my garden shed for starting seeds. It's where the wicked witch resides. Well, what's left of her. There's a story there and I know you are dying to hear it.

When we first purchased this land, we moved a mobile home onto the property within which to reside. [And that's a whole nother Oprah--I'll save it for a rainy day] HE then built a small shed to house his tools for the home building project. It was an excellent idea, but after the house was finished and we decided where to put the garden we realized the shed (now the garden shed) wasn't in the most convenient location. So HE and his dad (hmmm--Father-In-Law Extraordinaire... FILA?) moved it with FILA's big tractor. When the dust settled the shed was slanting and looked like a tornado had blown it in so I decided to make it look authentic. Unfortunately, the shed wasn't extremely functional on a slant so we leveled it and now it's not as funny to see witches legs sticking out from underneath. It still makes me smile.

This is such a neat photo. There's the shed before it was sided and moved. The mobile home is to the left (okay, you probably could figure that out...). Jim is helping Aidan plant a tree he had gotten at a 4-H event. It died. We put his placenta in there first (yup--we'd kept it all this time). I don't think it was the placenta that killed it....

AWWWW--Tippy is sooooooo cute. She's only 8 weeks old in this picture. Actually this was the same day we adopted her!

Cuz there wasn't enough insanity in our lives.

Yeah.

Bee Babies

We spent time looking at the photos that HE and Erica had taken on their last foray into beeland and noticed that you can actually see the bee larvae in one stage or another. The eggs, larvae and pupa are referred to as brood. It was an exciting discovery.

This is one of the things you look for in a newly installed hive~brood pattern means the queen is healthy and laying. If not, the hive is in danger. Without a queen it cannot survive.

Field Trips

Field Trip #1:

We had a busy week this past week, among other things, making final preparations for the two workshops we led at the Wisconsin Parent's Association Homeschooling Conference in Oshkosh. We left Friday afternoon and spent 24 hours in conference-mode with the kids. The conference is very family-friendly and many of the workshops had kid-appeal and hand's-on activities. We thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and felt that for our first time leading workshops, we did ok. We're thinking of doing it again next year.

The dogs spent the night at a local kennel and seemed to manage alright there. Jim's dad came over to check on the chicks both Friday night and Saturday morning. All was well on the "Hill".

Field Trip #2:

Our babies had an exciting week--they moved into their new digs AND they had a "field trip" outside! Erica and Aidan helped me  transfer the chicks to the coop. Jim finished the chicken run a day or so later and a day or two after that the kids and I covered the chicken run with netting. Some predatory birds were circling away overhead as we were finishing the "roof". I shook my fist at them and said "Ha, Ha, you aren't getting my babies!!" The chicks were delighted to be outside. We dug up some worms for them and they thought that was a gourmet treat! Erica and Aidan spent hours at a time outside playing with them. Aidan said, several times, "we can NOT butcher any of these chicks, mom." Aah, Chicken Love.

Field Trip #3:

Jim's dad came over to our field with his tractor and plow and spent a good hour digging up another section of land--just in case we were thinking that one huge garden wasn't enough!! Truth be told, it's not. Not when you want corn and pumpkins and gourds and melons, which have a tendency to need a lot of space. Sooooo, now we should be set for garden space. Hopefully. I think.

It had been 40 years since he was last on a tractor plowing up some sod.

What a guy!

Friends

We are blessed to have some extraordinary people in our lives and humbled to call them friends. They are fun, caring, honest, open, generous, sincere. Over the years, they have helped us in so may ways--ways that you can see and ways that you can't.

This past weekend, some of our friends came over to help us finish prepping the garden for planting. They leveled out the garden beds, raking in compost, erected the fence , pulled weed and mulched the paths and beds. Jim assisted them and I was able to get out there for an hour or so as well. It would have taken Jim and I at least an entire day to finish this, but because of their help, those tasks are completed and we can move on to the other time-critical jobs that our waiting on our list.  Yes, their help is something you can see, but it affected us in ways that you can't.

Many thanks to Krista, Julia and Krista for your cheerful help! And thanks to Melissa for feeding us last week-I'm not sure what we would have eaten (PB and J, perhaps?) if you hadn't supplied us with all that yummy food!

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In other news, the bees look okay. HE checked on them with our young Apiarist, Erica. The queens had been released in both hives, but they have not started laying yet, so in a few days we will check it out again and make sure all is well in bee land.

Later I asked Erica if she was at all freaked-out about holding the bee frame. She said the only thing she was worried about was accidentally squashing one of the bees..... My little animal-lover. Okay, I have been told that "I'm not little, mom", so I will say young animal-lover. She amazes me.