Bits and Pieces

Wow- I don't think it broke 85 degrees all day today. Brrrr. (For you Northerners, I'm only slightly kidding). Fall is in the air and I'm glad. We have a lot going on right now:

1)Our pasture fence is still incomplete. We've decided to do the whole thing in barbed wire instead of trying to electrify parts. We're going to grow thorny vines along the fence as well to reinforce it- and of course, that vine has to feed us as well. Thanks to the Central Florida Gardener, we found a great match for our needs- the mysore black raspberry. Now to find a source. Any suggestions?

2) In the process of looking for the mysore black raspberries, I found another site that made my mouth water- www.tradewindsfruit.com. They have TONS of fruit and nut trees for all types of climates though mostly southern. We ordered some guava, passion fruit, dragon fruit, prickly pear, macadamia nut, and kiwi. I had planted some passion fruit and kiwi seeds previously, but gave them up for lost after a month. I have since learned that it can take up to 4 months for such seeds to germinate. So we try again. At least seeds are cheep!

3) We have temporarily acquired another goat. A "boy" goat. And a little boy he is, but he's supposedly up to the challenge of siring many other goats, even with our rather matriarchal Annabelle. He's only 12 weeks old but had already been mounting his sisters- and his daddy was completing the job at his age too. We've kinda named him Sugar Daddy. Right now he's not getting much action. He joined our herd Friday evening. So our evening entertainment was sitting in front of Gloria's window hoping to watch something exciting. Maybe we should get the turkeys to set the mood. At any rate, right now he's just trying to make a place for himself. Our sweetie, Noel, seemed to welcome him to the herd... until Mama Fudge caught wind of it and gave him a rough butt. No one else has been nice to him at all. Only today has he been able to get a few nibbles from the hay basket before someone chases him off though I don't think it will be too much longer before he's accepted.

4) In speaking of being accepted, the new chickens are all properly sorted into their pecking order. All is well and we've even gotten a few pullet eggs from them already.

5) After 2 and a half weeks, the fire finally stopped smoking. Any ideas what to do with the rest of the piles?

6) We are still fighting grass in the garden. The second garden is a double layer of plastic and that is working well so far. All I have in the ground are long beans and tomatoes. The beans have been covered in aphids. Neem oil has worked the best though not miraculously. We have little frogs everywhere- why aren't they eating them? I'm going to try companion planting some mint with them as beans don't do well with anything from the onion family. Sunflowers, cucumbers, and brocolli are up. I'm having a really hard time getting my pole beans to sprout though. I'll wait another week or two before putting everything in the ground.

7) We built a potato bin, again out of wood pallets. We sprouted some yukon golds from the store, filled the bin a few inches deep with compost and burried the sprouts. As they grow, we'll add more compost. By the time comes to harvest, we should have a barrel full of potatoes- or so the articles say. We laid a double layer of plastic and weed cloth under the compost to prevent nematodes.

8) We also planted some ginger that we sprouted from the store. And the bulb ends of some green onions (once again, thanks, central florida gardener). To think I was throwing them away all this time!

9) 20 barred plymoth rocks and 10 cornish rocks were hatched and shipped today. We expect to receive them Friday morning. Hopefully they will be a stronger batch than the last ones (you may remember we lost 50% of the cornish rocks).

10) And the best news of all- Gloria, at 2.25 years old is officially potty-trained! On a whim I left her in her big girl panties one night figuring she'd either handle it or I'd do a load of laundry. She did great! And she's done great every night since... as long as I don't give her a gallon to drink when she's too exhausted to even know she has to go. I'm really proud of her. She's my big, big girl. Just makes me wonder how long she's been capable of this... Hmmmm, I wonder what Aaron can do???

11) And speaking of Aaron, he's on the move. He can scoot to any room of the house- fast! He loves his walker and can manipulate it to get anywhere as well. I bought shelf anchors this week as we now have 2 large book shelves and he will be pulling himself up very soon!

And a note for Randy who's away on business: I miss you already. The Palace isn't the same without its King.