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 :)