Garden & Chicks Update, Potato Progress, Cell Phone Deal/Insurance, Farm Fresh Decor

Garden & Chicks Update-
We have had more of the same wacky weather, temps swinging like a pendulum here! In the 80s's all week, then wind hit bringing a cold front, temp dropped 20 degrees this weekend. 45 this morning, brrr. We've been trying trying to figure out when to plant some things, and that can be a little bit challenging. I had planned on putting the chicks out this weekend for a while, but the weather was just too cold.  transferred them from the laundry basket that we had them in for one week to a larger box last weekend. It works out really well since they have plenty of room, with nice pine shavings. Today I took them out, then I took the box outside and pitched it all into the compost pile. Hopefully next weekend the weather is supposed to warm up, we can move them out into a temporary coop for a while and see how they do. I plan on putting them out this week for few hours in the warm evenings. We have an outdoor playpen that we got at a thrift store years ago. It's really fun to see chicks go outside for the first time and explore! Here's the 2 boxes I put together for their temporary digs, and added chicken wire on top-

busy exploring!

It's amazing how fast they grow in 2 weeks! Feathers coming in, getting taller-

Our hens were in trouble last week. Due to a too-low gap in fencing, they got in and completely ravaged our lemon cukes. Dave was in a huff and went shopping and came back with a few. He also bought taller chicken wire. Next night he stopped somewhere else on the way home. He bought some on sale tomatoes, more lemon cukes and some peppers. I think we're set for now! Lots of berries on the vine, and first blossoms on squash/slicing cukes. Now we just need some warm, stable weather!

waeting out the rain, again

My flower seeds are coming up,flowers blooming, and the rain has really helped with that! Warm and wet, perfect for plant growth.

Potato Progress-
Our free potatoes seeds planted in the trash cans are doing really well! After having some torrential downpours I thought maybe they would rot in the totes, but they had pretty good drainage. We planted them in a light, fluffy organic potting soil and Dave had drilled lots of holes, so that helped. We've been adding soil once or twice a week as the green start to come up. I'll be really curious to see when we can dig the first potatoes.

Cell Phone Deal/Insurance-
I had an interesting experience last week. My old Galaxy 6 phone wouldn't hold a charge over several days so I could tell it was on its way out. I had insurance on the phone for several years and knew there would be a copay to replace it. I called my service provider ATT (work discount) and asked about the co-pay.  To make a long story short I paid $112 copay for an $800 new Galaxy 8 Active phone. Yes, retail about $800.00, geez! The guy in the store was really shocked that I got such a good deal. He was really helpful transferring all the data from the one phone to the other. It's a heavier phone with really long battery life and tons of storage. I thought it was kind of funny that being a homesteader of sorts I wound up with a military grade phone! It has little rubber bumpers on each corner and actual screws on the frame on the outside. I did order a couple of inexpensive covers as the back is a little bit slippery. It's great to know that it is waterproof, dust proof, sand proof, etc. It'll be nice for blogging since I can now take photos on my phone and upload them to my photo editor on my computer. I used to be able to do that but the plug-in port died a year or so ago. I was able to wirelessly charge the phone but I couldn't transfer any photos directly to my computer. I could upload them to Facebook and transfer them from there, but that was kind of a pain. So insurance may be a good idea for some people and with AT&T the co-pay goes down over time, it's not fixed. Even with the premium for the insurance of about $10 per month for the last 2 years, and the copay, I still wound up with a heck of a deal. I could have potentially bought a phone off of eBay, Amazon or some other website but I was wary of doing that. So,just a thought- if you're thinking about getting a new phone, slap a little insurance on it!

Farm Fresh Decor-
I finally hung up my Farm Fresh wall art, and I love it! Up close it looks like an original piece of art. I love the colors and size, perfect over my little side table. It's made of wood, 13.5" long x 24" tall x 0.62" thick, less than $20.00! More info here-