Amy's Passions

Friday, June 12, 2015

Jamestown Landing and the property

Summer 2015-16 quilting has finally been kicked off! With a day of Hans Zimmer movie soundtracks, Jamestown Landing was quilted.

I can't even remember anymore when I started this or when the top was completed. Sad, sad, sad that I've become "one of those quilters" who has been around the block long enough to have a pile of UFOs percolating (and dying?) off in the corner. LOL.

One at a time though. One at a time.

Jamestown Landing ended up coming to the forefront since it will be a raffle quilt for a friend of the family. The raffle kickoff will happen during a 4th of July celebration; therefore, the binding will be completed today and (hopefully) we'll venture up to deliver the quilt to its destination this weekend.

Life around the yard is in full swing...

The ducklings are over a month old now; only one has been officially named so far. Meet Afro-Jack!!!! LOL

Only one pig of the six has been named this year; Smudge. Candace was out treating them to some Daisy treats; what a beautiful moment!!!

A new, simple-n-portable, coop is being made for our ever-expanding flocks.

After all, if you've got 'em, ya hatch 'em, right??? ;)

Our younger tomato plants couldn't wait much longer; they were itching to be planted!

Although, when this visitor was seen, the planting endeavor was ALMOST halted for the day!

However, hero Paul came to escort this guy (or girl?) to a new location, and we were back to the planting!

In the end, SEVENTY-THREE tomato plants are happily growing in the upper garden. SEVENTY-THREE! LOL. Way to hold back this year, Amy :D

And TRUUUULY, I'm not one to do much 'gardening' unless vegetables are involved. Pretty flower/shrub gardens aren't my thing----but.... THIS has become an eye-sore after spending ZERO time on it last year. Plus... it's in the middle of the front yard! What must the neighbors think?!?!? (LOL!)

A few hours and sunburn later, with the assistance of my helpers Caitlyn and Candace, it is all clean and new again. I had started some perennials (per Paul's request) back in February, so they were moved into this location.

We have Achillea planted in the southern portion...

Some Black-Eyed Susans and HolyHocks towards the west...

A plot of McKana Giants Columbine planted from seed on the northern edge. *shrug* We'll see what they do...

and a section of Lupines towards the east.

Again, I'm not much of a perennial flowery/shrub gardener, so..... *shrug*. At least the weeds have been tamed :D

On the topic of taming.....

Caitlyn has reached the age (crazy enough!) to learn how to mow with the riding law-mower. We were in a win-win situation with her the other day. She had fun learning AND our 'hay-field' was able to be mowed at the slower pace required due to the extra length!

Then sister Cassie took over with the yard-rake. Right about now, having that mini-baler Paul and I talked about last year would be pretty nice. I'm sure we'd be able to bale up quite a bit!!!!! Cass seems to be enjoying her time on the mower, though, singing along with her iPod tunes.

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Free ride

Of all the times we've had baby chicks, I've never once seen them ride on the back of mama.

AND, we've never had GRAY chicks before! We have four or five of these adorable lil' guys in the brooder. I'm very curious to see how they develop from the gray fluffy stage they are at right now.

The garden is almost 100% planted; onions and garlic remain. The weather outlook this week is amazing; lows never dropping below 50. I'm hopeful for this gardening season :)

Candace's 3/4 grade SB team (2nd from right)

The summer schedule is underway; Monday and Wednesday evenings filled with 3/4 grade and 5/6 grade softball; Summer school starting next week; Gardening filling most free time right now.

This morning, however, after dropping Cass off for some weight-training, I'll spend a couple hours or so in my room writing some lessons for the 2015-16 AP-Statistics class.

Then? Finish the garden planting. MAYBE spend some time quilting. Although, I'm keeping my options open today since our Baseball team is playing in the Sectional tournament at 11:00. I'm thinking, if I hear they win, we'll make the hour trip down to the ball field to watch the 3:00 finals :D

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Chicks, tomatoes and yarn

Remind me again why we placed the eggs in the incubator so they were scheduled to hatch during the last week of school??

Mama Rock has been doing a great lil' job of protecting and mothering her six hatchlings from a week ago. When our incubator started hatching out a couple of days early, I got caught in a moment of unpreparedness. Originally, our hatchlings were going to be housed in the brooder box, but when Mama Rock started worrying me about her (lack of) level of protection for her babies due to the concern of owls, fox and other predators, we moved HER into the brooder box.

In the past, we've set up a simple cardboard box with a heat lamp for new chicks until they were big enough to be housed elsewhere.

We have NO boxes big enough to house much more than a couple of chicks. PLUS, the heat lamp is rigged up in the brooder box, and with Paul working, I wasn't about to try to unrig it. Besides, extra time was nonexistent this past week between final school days and athletics.

SO..., Wednesday morning, after waking at 2AM worried about what I was going to do with the couple handfuls of chicks that had hatched Monday evening and Tuesday already... the decision was made! I was going to see if Mama Rock would simply adopt new additions.

Like. A. Boss! (LOL)

Fourteen were given to her Wednesday morning, bringing the total to 20 babies.

Thursday morning, ummm....I THINK we added another 7. (27 total)

Thursday evening, we handed her another 7 that were hatched out in Caitlyn's class incubator from our donated eggs. (34 total)

And then after that.... I lost track.

Sadly, somewhere along the way, a few perished for one reason or another....

But finally, last night (Friday), a final late hatchling was added to the, now stable, posse of two-legged lil' fluff balls.

Cassie and I did a quick count, and we THINK there are 33 chicks fighting for tuck-time under (or around) Mama. I wish I had had some light last night to capture a picture of Mama tucked into the safety of the corner with chicks under and surrounding her. It truly was an 'awwwwwwe' moment.

The 'insurance' tomatoes have grown considerably this past week after being transplanted into 3-4" paper pots last Sunday. Today marks week #3 since having been planted as seeds. They were fed with some fertilizer directly after transplanting, which in addition to being pampered in a warm, humid greenhouse under grow-lights, has helped their growth tremendously! I am thinking one more week of pampering is needed before starting the hardening-off process. I predict in about 10 days, these 52 plants (we lost one) will find themselves in the garden.

School is over for the 2014-15 year. Candace brought home an art project that I truly can't WAIT to try out! It's a yarn bowl! Clearly a third-grader creation, but FUNCTIONAL! I love it! I predict this will be used and used and used for many years in the future.

The anxiety of the school year hasn't quite 'left the building' yet. In fact, I spent about 45 minutes this morning just perusing through all my students' final grades, curious to see how they finished the school year in other classes/subjects. I have plans to spend time in school on Tuesday, doing final organization of the classroom, but to also look ahead to the first couple of weeks of AP-Statistics for the next school year.

However, decompressing WILL commence today as 'all-hands-on-deck' take over in the garden! The last of the seed planting is on the agenda, in addition to getting all-n-everything out and organized into the garden plots. Peppers, cabbage, broccoli (grrr! Yup, we ended up buying plants after Ruby chicken decided to indulge herself on mine grown from seed), peas and pea-fencing, rigging more tomato fencing, hose organization and layout.....

Happy Saturday.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

"Insurance policy" tomatoes; chicks soon!

Well folks, the tomato transplants from last weekend were looking a bit sheepish all week long (SADLY!), although a few were hanging on and showing new growth on the tops. However, it would appear that last night's frost finally did all of them in :(

Forty-five plants, three months of pampering, bags of soil, and hours of transplanting seem to have gone down the drain!

Lesson learned! Next year: April 1st! That's it! April 1st! No earlier!

THANKFULLY, two weeks ago, I finally got around to planting some 'insurance policy' tomatoes in the event that my 'crazy-early-planting' tomatoes ended up dead in their transplanting tracks. We have a little bit of a head start on fifty-three more plants.

In all actuality, we aren't any further behind than what we normally are at this time of the year. It's cold up here! This simply mean that the tomato harvest will, once again, need to happen once we're back at school in September. **Shrug** Truly truly, 'better late than never.'

On the flip-side, a conversation with Paul today may lead to a transportable hoop house or small green house being built this summer. ;)

Hm. Looks like my lil' planting helper wanted to see if the tomato roots would grow into a pony tail???

Today marks day #18 for our incubator eggs, so they were removed from the automatic turner and placed into their final hatching position.

Take a closer look at the egg in he lower left corner...

One lil' guy seems to be in a hurry to be the first born.

In the next couple of days, I expect a couple of dozen lil' chickies :D

Worried about frost; Jamestown Landing nearing completion

After spending hours planting portions of the garden last weekend, we sent up a simple wish for warmer temperatures and mild rain.

The strawberry patch was beautifully and dutifully weeded and mulched yesterday.

All week long, the temperatures have been typically decent, and the order of rain came through, but....... FROST last night. Dag-nabbit! We woke to a light frost this morning; and the strawberry blossoms are now at-risk since we didn't cover or irrigate. Drat. Drat. Drat.

Caitlyn and I covered the cucumber plants we had transplanted last weekend, so they should continue growing nicely.

Cassie had taken charge of planting corn. Clearly, we continue to await for the ground (and air) temperatures to increase and stabilize before hoping for any germination.

The broccoli didn't have to worry about rain OR temperature since SOMEONE couldn't pass up the fresh leaves of the new transplants. Grrrrrr...... EVERY LEAF -- stripped away!

And since my chickens can NOT pass up these delicious snacks, we need to come up with a simple fencing solution for our strawberry patch. Otherwise, we'll lose any berries to our chickens that may end up surviving this frost.

In other news.... Mama Rock has successfully hatched out six babies on Thursday/Friday. We expect to see another seven coming home from Caitlyn's classroom incubator this week (we offered some eggs to the class incubator), and we're hoping Mama will embrace them as her own since they are essentially the same age (3 days apart).

Additionally, OUR incubator is coming due anytime over the next 3-4 days; thirty-three eggs, which we do not plan on handing over to Mama. LOL. Instead, they will be raised as a new 2015 flock to be complete with a new coop too :) (YET to be made). The jury is still out on whether another full set of eggs will be placed in back-to-back incubator hatchings. The vote in leaning towards, 'ya better start setting some eggs aside when you perform your daily collection.' ;)

On the quilting front, a few hours have been spent in front of the machine when the weather has been less than garden-worthy.

Rainbow Scrap Challenge updated a little bit; I'm still shy of a couple of colors, but I'm 'ahead' with the red. ;)

A new deadline project for a customer has been loaded on the frame; Bonnie's Jamestown Landing, one of my favorite designs she's come up with!

One more week of 2014-15 school year. Or as Cassie says..."four and a half days, Mom. Friday is only a half day."

;)

Sunday, May 24, 2015

Cassie's track season completed and gardening underway

Cassie's ended up having lots to be happy for at her Conference track meet was this past Thursday. She's been plagued with a nagging back injury for much of the season, and has unfortunately found herself sitting on the sidelines for many of the meets this year. However, the downtime paid off and she was at her 100% for the Conference meet.

She started the day by taking 1st place in the high jump. All of the competitors scratched out at 4'6", so the officials asked if she wanted to keep jumping. With no pressure on her, coach gave the okay for her to keep jumping. Neither Cass or myself knew the heights the bar was being set at; she just kept jumping. Oh that sneaky coach! In the end, Cassie tied the Junior High high jump record of 4'10" established by, none other than, her track coach 10+ years ago.

While on cloud 9, she moved over to the Discus area and set a new PR of 79', moving into 2nd place on the Leader's board, and then, when she was called for the 400M, she continued her record-breaking evening by running a 1:04.06, breaking the previous record of 1:05.4, and leading by over 4 seconds from the rest of the competition. Yes, folks. She's still on cloud 9, and I'm super super proud of her!!

The 8 ducklings we hatched out a couple of weeks ago have moved into a ground-brooding box.

The plants I began as seeds in February have finally been able to be moved outside to the deck indefinitely.

Cherry tomatoes already being harvested, as well as peppers :) Who said people in Wisconsin can't have two growing seasons?!?! ;)

But now, we need lots of finger-crossing for all of our other tomato plants that have been hibernating in the basement for the past couple of months to see if they survive the transplant into the garden. I've most definitely learned my lesson -- starting plants in February (tomatoes, specifically) is NOT in the best interest of the plants OR myself. But -- forty plants were transplanted into the upper garden yesterday; about 12 more wait patiently for more fence posts to be purchased.
(Mind you, we started 56 new plants last weekend from seed -- just in case ;) I guess we're going to have two growing seasons in Wisconsin this year ???)

The strawberry patch was expanded and tidied a couple of weeks ago...

... and the blossoms are popping up in exponential rates. In another 3-4 weeks, we should expect berries. GOOD! We just opened up our last strawberry jam container!

There's a saying....."there's no rest for the weary." However, when the weather cooperates, taking a snooze in the hammock given to us by my parents was on Paul's mind before needing to start his night shift.

The yard is purposefully being left un-mowed, waiting for the dandelion season to pass. Yes, yes... the bees' food takes precedence over a 'pretty-looking' yard.

The only crafting project I've been giving time to is a new ~~afghan~~ man-ghan for Paul. A couple of months ago, I was sequestered into making a large queen size afghan. Paul fell in love with the weight and size, so.... I took that as a hint ;) At a width of 106", I predict the project taking most of summer to complete.

Today: more gardening and planting. Perhaps my blogging time will become more consistent again; two weeks of school left for us in the northwoods!