That project has to be finished by the middle of this month, so we’ll be working hard the next two Saturdays to get it done before the baby chicks get here. I can’t say I’m much help on that one, but I’ll try. He’s a pretty good one-man team, as long as he has some helpers to run and get tools and things, which the boys are better at than I am.
The other big project is the garden, and all the major work is done on that. We bought a trailer load of compost, Vermiculite, and peat moss to mix our own ‘perfect soil’ for our square-foot gardens, and filled them up.
It took a LOT of shoveling, and the boys and I did a good part of it, but Craig did have to come over and help us finish so we’d be able to get it all done. He tends to get things like that done in half to a quarter of the time it takes the four of us. I had a little difficulty getting to sleep that night, as my shoveling muscles were screaming and burning, as well as a hard time moving at all the next day. I was definitely SORE!
We also used discarded wooden pallets to make a composting area, so we now have our own home-grown compost going that should be rich and fertile. Here I am shoveling the two-year-old goat poop and hay out of the barn so we can use it to start the compost piles.
Jake and I don’t work in the barn, or with anything that creates dust without our dust masks on, since we both have such terrible allergies, and he has asthma. It always makes for an interesting looking labor force at the house. This was, again, the morning, before we had all shucked our winter clothing for the cooler duds. I’m wearing a belt because I had my Leatherman multi-tool on it, which means I was REALLY working, lol.
I haven’t taken pictures of the compost piles, (don’t know WHY photographing our decaying barn trash hadn’t crossed my mind), but I will (lucky you.) Here is the picture of our almost-completed garden, ready for seeds. We managed to get our spinach, mint, and onions planted that night, as well as get our square-foot grids on some of the boxes, so it was a VERY productive day in all. Since then, we’ve also planted radishes, beets, lettuce in many varieties, kale, carrots, cilantro, chamomile, and Swiss chard. Our seedling trays and seed potatoes are currently blocking the back door in our room, but have survived being tripped over a couple times. Hopefully, they’ll make it until it’s time to set them out later this month and in April. It’s a big undertaking, but we’re hoping all our work this year will benefit us for many years to come, and we’ll be able to have plenty of fresh produce from late spring into late fall. That would be wonderful!
Friday is Luke’s birthday, so we’re going to go jumping at the inflatable place with a few friends tomorrow. Levi and Luke will have their second baseball practice of the season tomorrow night, also, and they will hopefully behave better than they did at the one last night. Luke seemed so small and young out on the field with the other boys, and he sure acted it. I told him afterward that he was going to be in trouble for every time he put his baseball mitt on another kid’s head or face, because that was his favorite activity of the night. He’s going to be seven this week, and that is very hard to believe. I have never thought we treated him like the ‘baby’, but he’s sure got his role down! I think we’ll have to begin brainstorming some motivational tactics to move him into ‘big boy’ mode. It’s time for a little push!
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