BEGINNING SPRING CLEANING

Ok the first thing that had to go was the BED because I am out of room!

I know as I have always known I am a pack rat. I must have more room. Since I have a good sized house, then the clutter must be the issue.

I love to have room in my room and I just could not do it with that bed...you know....the one that I bought without measuring my room? Here is the new bed...yes I love having my bed on the floor.



So this is my new bed. I traded my son and daughter in law. We had similar memory foam beds just different sizes and they liked my huge Texas style bed.

Now they will have room for them and kids during thunderstorms.

Look at this room!

GOODBYES AND HELLOS

Today I had to say good bye to two of my grand babies. They and their momma are moving back to Ft. Bragg in preparation for Daddy's return from Afghanistan. Can you believe it has been almost a year!!!??? Yes I felt every moment of every day but nothing like he did.

I will miss them but I am so excited for them to have him back.

Moments after I waved my good byes, I headed out to pick up my 3 new additions to the farm....ok to the living room.





These are tiny little lion head rabbits and will be the pets of my two grand boys and their mom. Inside because I don't trust the coyotes and haven't trained Bull yet.

My goal with these pets is to give J and D rabbits who won't be eaten in preparation of my getting meat rabbits.

SICK DAY

This is the worst year for illness. I have had 3 bad colds so far. I am babying myself today. I want this gone. But it was 50 degrees outside and I could not stay in all day. I took a half hour and went out and planted 3 Arkansas Black apple trees and 1 Walnut tree and mulched them with rabbit poo.

I am very excited. I am being given 3 pedigree Lion Head rabbits for my grandkids. I will keep these in the house but will use the manure in my new kitchen garden.

On that...I haven't told you my plans for my back yard. The back porch is small and there is room on each side that I plan on turning into a kitchen garden. Rather than put in a garden in the far back where I have it now, if it is right by the back door it will be easier to maintain. More on that at a later date.

Also, I have a dump truck of gravel being delivered on Sat. I can't afford to have it spread and will have to do it myself. That will take time but will be good exercise don't you think? Thank goodness for Advil.

VACATION PREPS

Family reunion is in Kentucky this year. I can't wait because I missed last year because I wanted to stay with my sister and her son.

This year I get to take my two oldest grand children! I am hoping that my son and his wife and kids will be able to meet us there also.

I want to take this chance to teach my grand sons a good lesson about money. I want them to know the pride of saving money for vacation. We have lost this most of the time as we use credit cards so much.

So we began a vacation fund. My oldest, J, had been given $5 allowance that day. He stuffed it proudly into the jar. He went on a treasure hunt. He found every coin in every drawer in the house.






On the front we are tracking the money on a sheet of paper that is rubber banded to the jar.

I can't wait to see how this helps them understand money.

RAINY SUNDAY

I am going to list several things that I simply want to keep track of that may not be interesting to you.

1. As you can see from the prior post I am teaching my grand son how to tan a deer hide. After that conversation in the truck we were discussing (feeling my car seats) that hopefully the deer hide will be like that...leather. I told him that this was cow skin but it would be similar. That graduated to talking about the slaughter of cows and how each body part is used. All the way to the intestines (yucky face from grand son). I told him how they are washed out very well and then used to make sausage and hot dogs; Grandson "I have been eating intestines!!! I will never eat a hot dog again as long as I live.....except for dinner."

2. Last nights dream: I was a doctor in a weird sprawling hospital. There was something weird going on because it started off with me in a room holding a mans intestines (see a link?). Then we were walking down large concrete steps from the building and walked across the complex and it was dusk and we were going to a park area where there were lots of people like a party. I was confronted by several mean looking men 1 at a time asking me to fabricate the cause of death of the man whose intestines I had been holding (in my mind I had no clue what he had died of). I kept mingling through the crowd watching people laugh and drink when I got to the end of the group by a large chain link fence. One of the men was there with several friends. One had a heavy chain in his hand and at the end of the chain was a huge pit bull. He told me again that I needed to forget what had caused the death of that man. They shoved me against the fence and I fell onto my hands and knees. The pit ran to me and shoved his face against my cheek and was breathing hot breath on me and snarling and growling right in my ear. All I could think of to do was to remain quiet and still. It went on for ever and the dog finally pulled away but I could still hear the growling...I slowly turned and saw a little puppy that looked like Bull play growling and behind him were about 20 puppies and the sun was shining and several women were sitting around in frilly dresses sipping lemonade. The motioned to come and join the party. I did and just before I woke up one of the old women in a white frilly dress whispered, "You need to forget what killed him."

I am drinking coffee trying to get my mind ready for work. I have my grandson still and will be taking him to work with me. I can hear the rain dripping outside and don't look forward to getting out in the mud

SATURDAY BLOG 2

For the past two days when I open the worm box all of the worms are at the top and seem sluggish and are trying to escape.

This is a sure sign that your worms are not happy.

I decided to try several experiments. I took plastic bottles and added dirt and different types of food to them with a few worms to see if I could tell what food they love the most. In the box that had nothing but dirt in it...the worms disappeared into the dirt.

That made me think that I didn't have enough dirt in it. So I got dirt and covered the top. Then I pushed down the "escapees" and suddenly everyone was happy. I am not sure if it is because they were not getting enough O2 or if it was the dirt. But I left the lid off and none have come to the top. Raising worms is a lot more difficult than it sounds.

TANNING A DEER HIDE

On of my hobbies is to tan deer hides. I am going to teach my grand kids this skill. They can be as good as they choose to be.

SEVERAL FARM AND NOT FARM THINGS

The trees arrived today. 1 Walnut and 3 Arkansas Black Apples. They are small and it will be many years before they produce. They will be hand fed rabbit poo compost and worm castings and when the geese and ducks arrive water from their pools.



So maybe it won't take long.

Also I have my oldest again tonight and probably tomorrow also. Tonight it was time to cook dinner and he asked me if he could cook us his "famous" potatos and chicken. I asked if he needed help and he said no and that we were not allowed in the kitchen. At all!

He cooked 3 potatos in the microwave after washing them. He put butter and canned chicken on them. Then made his mom and chicken and mayo sandwich with milk and ice cream for dessert! He is only 8 years old!!!

This was very cool.

Before that he filled a pot with potting soil and planted it with 5 kinds of lettuce.

Then he helped me drag the old boxes and trash to the burn barrel and watched with me to make sure that it was safe. Each time fire fell to the ground, he would get dirt and throw it on the fire until it was out.

We listed to the bull frogs that woke up today because we have had several days of warm weather.

We picked up all of the things in the front yard that Bull had torn up.

All of this after he had sat and done an hour of homework drinking Nanna's wonderful hot cocoa.




Now he is snuggled up with his favorite person in the world. His momma.

WORM RESCUE MISSION

This morning when I went out to check on the worms, the temp outiside was 27 degrees F. This is no big deal for worms. But when I lifted the lid of the hot tub, the steam rolled out!

Ok I am a pro at compost...or so I thought. I know it heats up. Well heat up it did and this is not good for the worms.

But I had to wait all day til I got done with worm and cubscouts.

J came to spend the night with me and he helped me fix up an alternative "worm condo".

Blue rubber maid box with old shipping paper, chicken food, wet news print etc.




I don't know how many I lost if any but I feel that I saved most of them. For now until the compost cools a little, they will live the life of elite worms indoors.

THROBBING BRAIN

Yes my 2 pounds of worms actually looked like a throbbing rolling brain the size of a human brain.

Ok this might be more than you wanted to know but it makes me smile.

:)

HOMEMADE ORANGE OIL AND WORM FOOD

Because it is not good to put citrus peels into your vermicomposter, I found a better way to use them.

An organic fire ant control is made from worm castings tea, mixed with molassas and orange oil. I will be experimenting with this.

The idea is that the orange oil disolves the exoskeleton of the fire ant, the compost tea provides the microorganisms which will invade the bodies of the ant and the molassas feeds the microorganisms.



I will be staking out 100 sf sections of my field to expriment with this and will document the results.

I have been saving all of my bills for the past two years with the plans of finding a different method of doing away with them than sending my private information to the land fill.



I tried burning them but the wind carries the burning pieces of paper away and are a fire hazard. So I spent an hour today hand shredding about half of it into worm food. This will be an ongoing way to utilize junk mail and sensitive paperwork.

***UPDATE*** John and I stopped at a bait shop and purchased a dozen fishing worms for $4. The first box was all dead and rotten. The second had 1 dead worm but the rest were alive. this species is rather thick and short. Not a night crawler but somewhere between a red wiggler and a night crawler. I added them to the worm farm to see if they would survive. The label said they were from Canada! Why would people from TX ship worms from Canada!

SNOWS MELTING: WORMWORK BEGINS

My helper is very strong. He is also very excited about the worm farm and when he and I put our heads together we come up with some great ideas.

After we work, we always eat at my favorite place in Royse City called the Hot Rod Cafe. At dinner tonight we were drawing out ideas for the logo! When our server came to the table, I got an idea. I asked her if they got their pickles in food grade 5 gallon buckets with lids. She said they did. I asked if I could have them and she said sure that they just got thrown away. wooohoooo biodigesters away!




A lot of the back breaking labor falls on him though.




This is a lot of rabbit poo, kitchen scraps, paper, etc.

24 HOURS WITHOUT POWER--12 INCHES OF SNOW IN DFW!!!

24 hours without power and it was 30 degrees outside and in; I mounted quilts on the two entrances to the living room and built a fire in the wood burning stove. I slept in the living room.

The power company finally called me about 2:30 am last night to tell me that they were in my area.

What a pain in the neck; I cooked in a dutch oven on the front porch, I built a snow man, and I did a few chores outside. But for the most part I stayed inside bored to tears.

I did my budget, I read seed catalogs, etc. I need to work on many things this year to prep for this when it happens again.

MORE SNOW PICS

BEAUTIFUL MUD MAKER