Garden Week 9

My broken Kindle :'(

Well, this has been another crazy busy span (as you can tell I missed a week of posting!).  Mike and I have started visiting our local farmer's market.  We've also been spending time with the chickens (although I think they are starting to feel neglected since we aren't out there as much).  They are supervised free ranging for about 30 minutes a day at this point and they seem to love it.  We were going to wait on free ranging until they were a little older, but they started trying to break free just to eat the grass outside of their run.

The cucumbers.

It's been a slightly rough two weeks since we had some pretty heavy rain last week that caused flash flooding.  Overall it wasn't too bad.  We lost a few strawberries from our strawberry plant from it and we did finally have to encounter the bad side of container gardening.  With the exception of the tomatoes (these guys love their water!) we've just spent this week letting the plants dry out!  I think we're mostly past that point now though (which is good because they're calling for more rain over the weekend).  We keep getting closer and closer to that point of 

The bell peppers

having produce.  I'm excited!  Our cucumbers, green beans, bell peppers, 

and peas all have flowers now (some even have little baby fruit growing).  The tomatoes on our tomato plants are getting bigger and bigger and looking better and better!  I can't wait for them to start turning so we can start eating them!  I haven't been spending as much  time outside as I've been wanting too.  A while back, I hurt my back and here lately (I'm guessing I've been doing too much) my backs been bugging me again.  I did get the chance to make some amazing jam!  (maybe I'll share my recipe here in the coming weeks :) ) It was Blueberry Strawberry Jam (I

The eggplants and a few more bell peppers

The green beans in their container

know, it's a shocker isn't it?  I guess they are starting to grow on me ;) )  It actually turned out really fantastic!  On Tuesday, while I was at the Farmer's Market, Growing Hope was out giving out samples of just plan strawberry jam.  Since I loved the stuff I made so much, I tried theirs, and I enjoyed it!  Mike will be thrilled if I develop a liking for strawberries (or maybe not..then he'll have to share them!).  I have all the stuff to make apple jelly, I just need to get some time together when my back isn't too sore.  Easier said than done, my friends, easier said than done!  I'm actually feeling pretty good today, but we're going out to dinner with Mike's family that's visiting from out of state

so I'm hesitant to do too much when it's looking to be a good evening so far.  Well, that got off topic quickly!  Back to garden and backyard fun!  Our neighbors have chickens now too!  They have two Leghorn adult chickens and two baby ISA browns like we do.  The Leghorn chickens seem like goobers to me, but I also only interact with them as far as observing them occasionally while sitting outside.  Our girls (even though there are no pictures this post) are doing well and growing well.  I think they miss getting the attention of us sitting out there for hours on end, but we're just starting to get comfortable that they are mostly safe 

The pool garden!

and that they are healthy.  I know any of that could very easily change, but this is a good development for us.  I think we're also starting to get comfortable with knowing what to expect of them.  It is still amusing to sit outside and watch their antics though.  Ours are going through the "we're going to constantly try to fly everywhere" stage.  I think closer to the end of this month, Mike and I are seriously going to talk about the coop.  We have to decide if we want to build a new one and make it all fancy and winterized or if we want to try to winterize the one we've build already (in that process would be 

The snap peas are growing!

finishing the painting and making it look nice from the outside as well).  We did find a really cool tip on a really cool blog about how to keep our chickens from sleeping in the nesting boxes (that's the only place they sleep anymore!).  We're going to put curtains up in front of the nesting boxes (I guess the privacy of the curtains is better for egg laying and they won't sleep that blocked off?).  I might hold off on these changes until we decide on our coop plans.  The downside to the chickens is that our compost is already filled with poop!  To be fair, we just have that little garbage can compost

The tomato plants.  I took this picture a couple of days ago before they got watered

heap.  It isn't really big, but we started small because we weren't sure we would be successful at it or that we would like it.  It's turned out great, but now we're stuck in a dilemma because of it's size.  We can't really do an in ground compost heap here because of the black walnut poison, but we also don't have the funds to afford one of the big stand alone compost bins.  At this moment, our solution is to look for people to donate chicken poop too!  It sounds 

The really cool Zucchini plant!

crazy, I know, but it is really good fertilizer.  One of Mike's good friend's wife works at the Growing Hope place I mentioned and we know they do their own compost they sell, so we considered offering some to her.  If you are in Michigan and want chicken poop, let us know!  I know that I'm adding no black walnut trees to the list of things I want in the house we're praying for!  I think we'll be working with our awesome neighbors towards getting some more of those trees in between our houses cut down.  They don't exactly add any privacy and they hurt both of our garden light!  The tricky part about it (on our side of things at least) is  that we have all sorts of cable/power lines going through our yard.  It's going to be tricky to get things down without hitting any of those!  We also are at that predicament of not wanting to pay a good deal of money to have something like that done because our landlord could decide right after we'd done so he wanted to sell the house and not renew our lease (not a likely scenario, but something as a renter you do have to consider).  

The green bean flowers

I haven't taken pictures of the sunflowers in quite a while, but they are growing!  (Maybe next week I'll remember to take a picture of them.)  My cats are also well trained to expect fresh catnip when I go out front to check the mail or when anyone comes in the front door at all to be honest.  Luclin (our cat that adventures outside from time to time) doesn't seem too interested in the chickens anymore.  He likes to lay in his daddy's camping chair and watch them, but he doesn't even stalk them anymore.  Harclave (the little dog) has finally calmed down quite a bit in regards to them.  I don't have to put him on his leash and stake each time we're outside now.  He

I recently reorganized our medicine cabinet...doesn't it look nice now?

does still occasionally bark at them, but he doesn't bull rush or charge their run.  It's almost more of a "listen to me I'm old" attitude now and less of the "I'm going to set you freeee" attitude he had before.  Kyokin (our big dog) never really seemed all that bothered or interested in the chickens...and nothing's really changed on that front!  So, what else is going on in our world?  Well, we've been slowly but surely "unjunking" our house.  We have some stuff that we've been meaning to donate (mostly stuff we've outgrown/don't need) but it just keeps getting put in boxes here and there.  We're really working on gathering it all together in an obnoxious spot (so that it's highly noticeable and annoying to us) so that we'll actually take it and let it go to someone who will actually make good use of it!  Some of this is clothes and some of this is things like pots and dishes.  We've also in this process 

Our nicely laid out and organized bathroom!  Don't mind Santa..

been making things look nicer.  So far the bathroom is mostly perfected and I'm working on the kitchen at the moment.  So, before I run out of pictures to put along side my post ;), I'll share what happened to the kindle :(.  To be honest, I'm not entirely sure.  I was sitting out reading with my friend K, and got up, set it down, then came back and sat down, scooted back, bumped it (but just pushed it back in the process of bumping it), and then this was what I saw :(.  K and I both were confused and couldn't figure out what happened!  The worst part about it?  I'm 90% through a really good book I borrowed from the Kindle Library!  My replacement Kindle (thank heaven's for warranties) should be in today!  I think not having my kindle has made dealing with my back pain worse in all honesty!  Or it could be that I get bored without it because I can't use it.  I guess I can't be entirely sure one way or the other!  Well, this has been another long winded rambling post, but it has come to an end!  God bless :)

Garden Week 7: Chickens? Chickens!

Three of our four chickens!

(Fair warning: A picture heavy post!)

It's becoming easier and easier for Mike and I to realize that our dream is to own a farm (or a farm like residence).  We've been talking about it for a couple of years now (wanting a bit of land when we do finally buy a house), but the dream of owning a farm is growing like a deep seeded weed!  We'd been talking about asking our landlord for permission to have backyard chickens for a while now, but we'd been too terrified he'd say no to ask.  Finally, Mike got the guts up (to be fair, once a dream starts growing, it's a terrifying thing to take it outside and show it off.  there's the chance that a good breeze will catch you by surprise and snap it in half!) and by the grace of God, he agreed!  

Our planned coop location!

There are a couple of reasons we've been wanting chickens.  One is because their poop is great for our compost (and we are loving our compost!).  Another is for the fresh eggs (eggs like this are so much better than the eggs in the store.  both in taste and in goodness for you!).  And one of the biggest reasons is that it takes us closer to having that farm.  Our dream of owning a farm seems so big when we look at it right now.  The state of Michigan has some really awesome laws to help with those of us who dream of farming though!  (Sometime check out the Right to Farm Act and the Cottage Product Act).

Building the base for the coop.

With dreams that big, we've found it's easy to get completely discouraged.  Sometimes, little steps are the best paths to those big steps.  So, our first step (and the one that started us dreaming of having a little bit of land that lead to where we are now) was planting our first garden and it's been slowly growing.  So now, we have four ISA Brown Hens.  They aren't old enough to lay eggs yet (give it a couple of months), but when they do start, we're going to sell some, turn others into pasta (then sell that pasta), and eat even others!  

Mike attaching our coop door and me painting the inside.

So, as I said, we'd been dreaming of having a little backyard chicken coop for a while, but had been leery of learning too many details lest it become more of a burden of desire than a dream of what ifs.  When we got the permission, we were ready to act!  It wasn't the best time we came to find out, but it wasn't impossible!  (The chick selling season has already ended here in Michigan and finding chickens is a bit harder of a task.)  

Our coop (we plan on finishing painting it soon).

I really want to take a second here and give credit where it is due.  Starting this was terrifying for us (not just because it involves a dream close to our hearts, but because we don't want to kills creatures with our lack of understanding or knowledge).  There is a good deal of conflicting articles/blogs/forums online about chicken care.  We are so thankful that God led us to Destiny Farms!  The folks there are those nice people you wish you had known your entire life!  One thing Mike and I were worried about was the temperament of the chickens (we are patiently waiting for the Lord to give us children).  It all started with Mike finding them listed as a chicken seller, calling them to see if they had any, and them advising us to just come on out and visit to see if we like the chickens.  What a blessing it was!  These folks took us under their wings (no pun intended), took the time to show us around their farm, and walked us through the basics of our chicken care.  They even were kind enough to make sure to let us know if we have any questions that they'll gladly answer them.  These are seriously the nicest people I have met in such a long time!  Thanks to their help and learning their story, our dream that seemed so high that if we mimicked Icarus, we'd also meet his fate, slowly started changing into something that we can actually do wither perseverance.  It took that "If I ever win the Lottery" dream and turned it into "If I take it step by step".  If you live in Michigan, definitely make it a point to visit their farm and support them.  They love what they do and do an amazing job because of it!  Even if you're not planning on starting your own backyard coop (if you are, then seriously consider getting your chickens from them!  They are amazing little birds!), visit them to buy some of their produce!  They have been such a blessing to us!  I'll stop going on about their epic level of awesome and get back to the story!  :)

Chilly chickie

So, to shorten the story a bit, we ended up with four hens (we originally had planned on starting with two, but were told the benefits of having all four) and they are the sweetest, most laid back little birds one could hope for!  They all have names (because I like naming things..and it also makes it easier for us to communicate about them.  For example:  I can now tell Mike that Ponyo has been acting weird and he'll know exactly which bird to keep an eye on with me.) and they're pretty affectionate.  I believe we brought them home on Thursday night (I stayed up all night because I knew we needed to do some adapting to our coop to make it safe and was determined to keep predators away from them) and I'm updating this on Sunday (I normally try to update weekly on Thursdays or Fridays, but adjusting to having chickens and learning about the chickens has been a time consuming process!)

The tomatoes.  I'm going to have to separate them more
so they have more growing room it seems!

So, I know this post is going to be picture heavy (but the garden post normally are) and I know I've talked alot about our chickens.  The garden seems to be doing well this week.  The folks at Destiny Farms helped us out with a strawberry plant, a sage plant, and a Zucchini plant that you cage!  (I don't have pictures of this as it came home after I took pictures!)  We'll start with the tomatoes!  They are getting tall!  Maybe next week I'll get Mike to help me take pictures and I'll stand next to them so you can see!  Each of the plants has several little green "baby" tomatoes growing!  In some ways, the garden seems at a stand still.  This could be exaggerated by the momentum that the chickens have (since we are learning so much so quickly), but I do remember from our first garden (since last year's garden didn't do well due to the Black Walnut Trees) that these lulls feel like they happen right before the plants practically double in size.  I think it's also like a pot of water won't boil if you watch it (it will, but it feels like it takes longer due to the focus and attention you're giving it).

An example of the baby tomatoes.

Plants won't grow if you're watching them!  I know the tomato plants are growing though.  I keep having to separate them to keep them from being too close so the leaves can dry out!  My mother-in-law visited during the week and was amazed at our garden's progress.  She kept trying to tell folks she knew about it just to have them deny and accuse her of talking about our plants end of the season last year.  She called me and had me send some pictures over for her.

From right to left: Bell Peppers, Green Beans

I haven't heard what happened after I sent the pictures yet.  Now, in the pictures of the container gardens, you'll notice they are all sitting really close together.  This is because they were.  When our yard was mowed, the plants got moved and we hadn't taken the time to move them until yesterday (which was once again after the pictures for this post were taken).  We also cut down a bit more of one of the trees that over hang our yard.  Not the black walnut like we'd like, but it should give us a bit more sun none the less.

From right to left: cucumbers, eggplants/bell peppers

So, that means that next week there'll be an update to our garden layout!  The cucumbers have (since the pictures were taken) started to grow taller and show signs of being ready to trellis!  I can't wait to make pickles and sandwiches with our cucumbers!  It seems that planting the flowers in the beds has worked as well (or maybe just the planting flowers in general) because I've seen a vast improvement in the amount of bees and pollinating bugs flying around!  I do need to take the time and decide what I want to do with feeding the

The pea plants just working on growing on up.  Oh...and Luclin is smelling
them.

birds and squirrels.  Technically, feeding them can attract things like raccoon (which are bad for the chickens) to the yard, but it can just as easily lure them away from the chickens to an easier food source.  I suppose the hummingbird feeder is safe either way, I'm just still undecided on how I want to manage feeding the other critters.  Last year, we had a few of the pea plants, but thanks to the tree, our harvest wasn't really enough to do anything with.  We don't eat a good  deal of snap peas on a normal basis, but I don't

A strawberry plant!

see much of a problem with adding them in.  We love a good stir fry and I'm sure we can just toss those in!  I'm so excited to start harvesting things!  Mike and I have talked about keeping a log and weighing all the produce we get so that at the end of the season we can recount exactly what our garden produced!  It seems like it will be fun and a good way to gauge our garden year from year.  I actually am slightly surprised that it looks like we'll have tomatoes before we have peas.  For some reason, peas have always struck me as an

early crop.  The pool seems to be doing well (even if it is a bit sparse).  I went through and now that the plants were getting big enough, weeded the weeds I recognized.  Our turnip greens and radishes (as well as the random vine that came back) seem to be extremely happy.  We weren't entirely sure that those carrots were carrots so we did the "what's it going to hurt" pull test...only what we thought was one ended up being five.  I think in the process we lost one, but it seems like the others are starting to recover!  I'm eager to see what that vine ends up being.  I don't think it's cucumbers

Hiding behind the perch.  Warning:  cedar it turns out is bad for chickens.
A perch is fine, but I guess it can make them sick.  We are trading out
the cedar perch for a 2x4 one.

since the leaves are so much paler in color than our cucumbers.  My best guess is that it's some of the honeydew I planted last year.  If that's the case, let the honeydew start coming!  After I weeded, I planted more herb seeds to see if I couldn't get more to grow!  

So I guess now is a good time for a early week update!  We just had our first heavy rain storm since putting our coop up.  Of course since we actually have flash flooding around our house (if there's still standing water tomorrow when it's light out, I'll update this with a picture) we went to check on the chickens.  They seemed happy to see us and as far as we could tell, their coop was dry.  Just to ensure it stays dry we added a tarp over the roof and used it to make a little "porch" overhang.  I guess that will be one of the next improvements to the coop we make!  We also checked our neighbor's chickens the best we could (we used our flashlight to look over the fence and see if we saw anything amiss...that makes the second time tonight!  When Mike came home he scared a skunk and it ran to their yard, so we made sure it wasn't making a break for their chicks.).  Well, I think this has been a pretty thorough garden update and hopefully this next week's update will be back to it's normal time!  Sometime this week or next I'll be doing another BzzAgent review (only this time for their new yogurt Popsicle).

BzzAgent Review: Summer Grilling with Kroger!

Well, it's BzzAgent time again!  (It feels like it's been quite a while, doesn't it?!)  This time, I was fortunate enough to get to try some of the new grilling line at Kroger!  This has been right up our alley!  (As soon as he isn't going to get frostbite from standing in front of the grill, Mike likes to turn that grill on and start cooking a fair share of the meals!)  When the vouchers came in (I was given a coupon for free patties, free buns, free pop, and free chips to try and share my opinion on!), we couldn't wait.  As soon as we found out about the campaign, we started stalking the products in our local Kroger figuring out just what it was we were going to try!

The rain started falling after we invited friends over and turned on the grill, but we grilled through it anyways!

What did we end up with?  Well, we decided on the new turkey burger patties, some wheat buns, plain wavy chips, and some Dr. K.  On our way to our local Kroger, we called two of our friends (for the sake of the innocents I'll refer to them as K and M) and asked them if they wanted to join us in our test.  They met us at our house when we got back from the store!  Mike got his grill started, the burgers were tossed on, we we all sat around with pop and chips excitedly...and then the rain started!  At least we only got a few sprinkles of rain (I guess there was technically a tornado warning for our county during all this with sirens going off less than 30 minutes away, but we had no idea!)  Those burgers smelled too good to just abandon for a little rain.  Huddling under trees and trying to bury the chips under plastic bags we toughed it out!

Mike prepping the grill.

We had some great times sitting in the rain smelling our turkey burgers cooking.  When the burgers were done, we all lined up and started constructing our "creations".  Now, in all our excitement, we forgot to pick up extras.  What we all ended up eating was a mix of turkey burger, bun, mustard, ketchup, and chips for those who wanted chips on the burger.  We ended up having to cook the whole bag because everyone loved them (and with about 12 patties in a bag and there being four of us, we each ate about 3 burgers!)  Overall, everyone loved them (my personal reviews of the products are coming in a bit!).  Mike and M both felt like the preseason-ed patties could use a bit more seasoning, but K and I both were happy with the taste.  As the sun set and the mosquitoes started to come out, M and K left to return home and Mike and I rested and talked about the great meal.

M with his turkey burger face :)

So, I think I'll start my personal reviews in reverse order from how I listed them (because I feel like being slightly odd today :) ).  When I drink pop, it's primarily dark pop.  I've never been much of a light pop person.  It's been quite a while since I've really had off brand dark pop.  There for a while, my stomach was extremely sensitive to off brand pop (I still have no idea why) but brand name ones wouldn't make me sick, so I just stopped drinking non brand name pop.  My favorite pop (of course) is Dr. Pepper, so Mike made sure we got the Dr. K to test!  I found Dr. K to be slightly sweeter than Dr. Pepper (my guess as to what pop it is mimicking), but I enjoyed the difference of it rather than finding it lacking because of that.  Dr. K not upsetting my stomach also went leaps and bounds as far as endearing it to me!  (we've bought a few two leaders since we got the twelve pack and I'm still liking it!)

K giving her approval for the turkey burgers!

The next thing I'll review is the chips!  Mike and I don't normally keep snack foods stocked in our house.  It's not that we don't like them per say, it's just that we normally forget to buy them.  It's been a LONG time since I've eaten chips (even when we do things like subway, they either end up in my purse smashed to smithereens and then given to Mike or given to Mike right away).  I know, I know, it seems like I just don't like chips.  That's not it, I promise!  I don't like the slimy residue that they often leave on your fingers.  If I'm eating junk food, there's a good chance that I'm at my computer or reading my kindle.  Nasty greasy fingers never adds up to a good equation.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Wavy plain potato chips were not only super tasty, but that they didn't really leave much of the greasy chip mess.  Now, like I said, it's been a long time since I've eaten chips, so maybe the world of chip making has just come that far and I didn't know it, but I really enjoyed these chips.  (I also might feel differently about the flavored ones since the flavor coatings tend to bother me as well for the same reason).  Mike and I have actually bought a couple of bags to have around the house since the testing (and Mike immediately said "I've missed you junk food!").  These get a big thumbs up from us here at Adventures in True Love!

K and M eating chips and drinking pop before the rain started!

Next up, the buns!  I'll start by saying, I love bread.  Really really love bread.  That means that I hate nasty tacky (you know that feeling you get when while chewing your bread you suddenly feel like a cow?), tasteless, cheap bread.  I make a fair amount of bread from scratch (actually I learned to bake so I could feed my good bread addiction!) just so that we don't encounter this!  This is probably why we always forget to buy buns for grilling.  We never seem to have hamburger or hot dog buns.  (I'm guessing there's some repressed memories of terrible buns ;) )  Heck, nine times out of ten, I'd rather just skip the bun or use bread instead when I'm at someone else's cookout!  That being said, the wheat buns were impressive.  You know when you go to that nice burger restaurant and you order the gourmet burger that comes on the honey wheat bun and you feel like your burger is healthier just because you had the nicer bun?  It was that good!  It was good enough that if I can ever break my habit of forgetting to buy buns, I'd like to buy them again!  If you haven't tried them, do so!  (and if you try the adorable tiny little slider buns, let me know how they are!  Anything small is cute!)

Frozen turkey burgers on the grill!

That leaves us with the actual turkey burgers.  These were tricky at first because we had a hard time locating them (for some reason our Kroger didn't have them in the frozen isle as advertised).  I instantly flashed back to trying the unreal candy and struggling to find them.  That aside, I don't know that I can say enough good things about these.  As I mentioned before, I found the seasoning to be spot on with them (M and Mike both felt like it needed more salt and pepper).  I love (yes it's a present tense since I have been buying them and currently have some in my freezer as I type!) that they have paper in between the patties and all I have to do is pull out how ever many I need for the meal and then I can cook them just as they are.  These have become a  go to for me when I forget to thaw meat out for dinner!  They aren't a greasy burger and if you've never had a turkey burger, they do taste different than beef, but they are addictive.  I've even cooked them for myself (I'm not a huge fan of cooking meals/food for one so these are really perfect for me) and as the patty thawed in it's cooking process broken it up and added veggies to it.  These patties have become my new lunch time best friends!  They are easy to store, cook, and especially easy to eat!  I'm going to stop there because I could just keep gushing about how much I love these guys and I'm sure it would get annoying long before I felt I had said they are awesome enough times!

The total before my coupons were applied.  A cook out for four people for 15 bucks?  Not a bad price if you ask me!

Now that you have my personal reviews, let's talk about the price of it all.  As I said, I got my products for free to test and share my feelings on, but I did wait to apply the coupons until after I saw what they would have costed us without our coupons.  15 bucks to feed four people (who each ate three  burgers, twoish pops, and chips).  That is less than Mike and I can go out to dinner at the cheap family place down the street for!  Let's be honest, money is tight for just about all of us these days and it doesn't seem like there's going to be any relief right away.  Being able to enjoy friends and family without having to spend an arm and a leg (thus giving you the room to do it more often) is an amazing feat in it's own right!  To sum it all up, I have to say I'm exceedingly geeked about Kroger's grilling products and I'm starting to see many Kroger visits and spontaneous grilling get backyard bashes in my summer's future!