March/April Update

May 5, 2012
Spring Has Sprung (early!)

It seems like forever since we have posted to the blog! Must be that spring fever that's been distracting me from sitting at the computer. The weather here has been so fantastic all winter with very little snow and pretty mild temperatures with lows only in the 40's. Tulips, daffodils, crocus, Lilly's, iris have all come up about 1 month early this year. These developments have caused us to get right down to planting the vegetable garden extra early.

A little aside about this wacky weather..........today (May 5) just happens to be Climate Impacts Day. If you'd like to check it out, go to http://www.climatedots.org/ there you will find posted photos from around the world connecting the dots to show what climate change is doing to this planet and human kind. And go here to watch a short movie clip - http://act.350.org/sign/video/?akid=1890.571713.TFujPg&rd=1&t=4
Today is also Cinco de Mayo. This celebration commemorates the Mexican army's 1862 victory over France at the Battle of Puebla during the Franco-Mexican War (1861-1867) http://www.history.com/topics/cinco-de-mayo always interesting to read about who was trying to conquer who throughout history. Too bad that hasn't stopped! :o)

Moving on.....here is what has been up with us, in our little corner of the mid-west, over the last part of March and month of April, ..........

Lulu is still playing in the box our worm farm came in. The simple pleasures of being a cat! And we wonder why we don't have room in the house to actually have furniture!

We have been busy in the yard trying to get our vegetable garden boxes ready for planting. We decided to build a new stone box in the front yard out of some of our extra stone from the house construction.

We also modified one of the old boxes to make the path down the side of the house wider. This is where the chard will go.

Rowan loves to run the tiller, so she took on the task of preparing the back bed for planting.

Here is the new front bed about 2 weeks after planting the lettuces and radish.

Here we have tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, spinach, parsley and rhubarb.

The rain barrels (water butts) are already completely full and ready to water all the veg.

We don't have much else in the yard after all the construction in the last couple of years, but what we do have is FABULOUS. The Iris are exceptional this year and bring much needed splashes of color to the front yard.

And of course there are the poppies. Nothing will keep them from coming back. Poppies and cockroaches will inherit the earth :o) 

Now on to food.........with all of this warm weather, we are moving right on to lighter food choices. Most of what we cook now comes from the grill out on the front porch.

Here is one of our favorite Mediterranean meals- grilled garlic and lime chicken, couscous, tzatziki yogurt sauce, feta cheese, olives, greens/tomatoes, hummus and pita bread. YUM! Now, all we need is the ocean and we are in paradise!

Here is another favorite - roasted beets, butternut squash and sweet potatoes. We do these on the grill to keep the stove off and decrease the heat inside the house. The grill gives them extra flavor.

Steel head and scallops will go with the roasted veg.

Sally and Rowan are obviously very excited about what we are eating.

Everyone wants to celebrate the great weather, so our friends Graeme and Millie had us out to their country home for a feast of black bass. We sat on their fabulous screened porch overlooking the woods and all of the wildlife as we had dinner.

Another animal aside.... Lulu has decided she is taking over the linen closet. If we open a door to anywhere, especially a closet, its like sending up a flare to this cat that it is time to 'move in'. If you turn your back for a second, she slips in. Such a bundle of love! Whenever we can't seem to find her, we just start opening up all of the closets and eventually, there she is!

Back to outside and Spring...........In our preparations to get our yard ready for landscaping AND that impending flock of chickens, we are taking drastic measures to prepare our yard. We have had a gigantic black walnut tree (at least 65 years old) removed from the backyard to make room for our chicken coup. Black walnut trees are so acidic nothing grows under them, so we figure this tree is the most OK to remove from the yard, since nothing can grow under it anyway and the walnuts taste like engine oil! We have had our tree guy, Adrian, take down the over 50ft beauty and cut 20ft of the fabulous trunk into two logs we will eventually have made into boards. We will make a bar top and coffee table out of it for the house. Here you can see what we did.......

Adrian, our monkey boy tree trimmer, is an expert at this kind of thing.  Not too many guys in town who will climb a tree to take it down. You will see how good he is as you go on in this post.....

I think he needs to join the US Olympic team as a gymnast. Could you do this while hanging from a rope??

It is really amazing how this man takes down a tree bit-by-bit while he is hanging by a rope! 

 So, you all don't realize yet that he has taken down this whole tree in a 12ft wide area between the neighbors fence and our garage. Talk about holding ones breath when things start falling.....well not one thing hit our garage or the fence. AMAZING!

Approaching the moment of truth.......

This is where I really held my breath......TIMBER!!!!!

What an awesome moment! Adrian has now cut our two 10ft logs and will move them so we can dry them out and have them made into boards. We will store them in our backyard for about a year so they can dry out and then  have the boards planed so we can use them to make that counter top and coffee table for the house. This tree will continue to give us its beauty even though it no longer stands in our yard.

 We are looking forward to seeing how this timber dries out in the next year. We will need to keep it wet over the summer so it doesn't split. Luckily we have those gully-washer thunderstorms to help us out with that. It will be very exciting to see what we come up with this time next year. Stay tuned :o)

Oh, and of course we saved some firewood from the walnut to add to our already very full wood shed.

 Where once was a walnut tree, will now be a chicken coop. Oh the excitement of it all!

don't worry, there is more coming............. :o)