Full Swing Spring! New Job

 

Full Swing Spring!

We had some cool weather, but it's been definitely spring in the daytime! We had some 60s/ 70s, then back to the 50's with heavy rain, 30's at night. Almost time to take off the comforter and put on the quilts and blankets. It's a ritual every Spring. We have such a heavy thick winter comforter that we start cooking when the weather is milder. Everything is really coming up in green and it's just gorgeous! Our curved garden we added last year came through the winter really well with a minor loss of plants. Dave touched up the bar dust a little bit and it looks great! 

space for a replacement shrub

Interesting garden visitor, a Tippler Pigeon

I did some research and found out our feathered visitor is a racing pigeon, more here Pigeonpedia.com  I will see if I can get it used to me to see if I can find the owner by the band #.  The chickens for laying 2-4 eggs a day and are in full swing. Ironically with egg prices skyrocketing I actually don't know how much they cost in the stores? I know our feed has gone way way up and I'm hearing information from the NW and the South feed prices may double soon, if they haven't already. That will not bode well for farmers. Not enough corn for Ethanol either according to hubby's co-worker. We have a little extra feed stockpiled and I do have some ideas if things get really bad as far as how to feed the hens over the winter, etc. Anybody else seeing skyrocketing feed prices or other animal supplies? Cat food seems to be staying pretty level it's up a little bit but not too much.

New Job-

It took me awhile to get there, but I decided to quit my job last month. The job I started with was customer service, but since the first of the year it morphed into a high-volume call center environment. It  was not my background, and adding of more and more stats was confusing. I reached a point where it's just really wasn't worth the stress, especially given the current job market. Since I have a great skill set I applied for a job with a large private practice and got hired! Happy dance. I'll still be working in the medical auth biz but it has been more of a quiet work environment. Listening to phones ringing off the hook all day is not my thing. I may be doing more of a hybrid kind of job, working from home two weeks/office two weeks.  It's flexible. My previous employers tried to talk me into staying by offering me more money, but when I mentioned moving into a different position they had no response. That confirmed my decision. When you're already short-staffed the last thing you want to do is squeeze your existing staff harder and harder. It was time to go. I LOVE my new job and staff so far. Really great group. Biggest work space so far, time to decorate! 

From 75 To Snow! Limit 4 Per Customer/Meat Restrictions

From 75 To Snow!

April has been a wild ride! It's 75 degrees last week and woke up to snow Sunday morning. Next it poured rain, then three more rounds of snow.  We got much-needed snow up in the mountains as it has been dry the last couple months. A local ski resort will re-open this Saturday, with 18" of fresh snow on Bogus Basin ski area. Being in high desert we really rely on the snow up in the mountains for water. We are into a mega-drought, a fact of life with water issues.  Our bulbs have come up. My kale and collard greens I wintered over have almost doubled in size with the warmer weather (before the snow). The chickens are doing well in their coop and we extended their run so we can plant more intensively in the veggie garden. Our construction on our street is coming along slowly but steadily. Once that's done we will be replanting part of the front yard. All our fruit trees have blossoms, will be plating seeds inside soon. Summer is around the corner!

Ducks friends are back daily!

Limit 4 Per Customer/Meat Restrictions-

This week was the first time I had seen a sign limiting meat purchases. I had heard about this from other people in different parts of the country. First time I saw this was Sunday at the WinCo grocery store. There was a big sign for all their packages of chicken that said limit four per customer. I've heard about the culling of huge amounts of chickens due to the avian flu. If you want chicken and eggs I would definitely advise to buy some now while they're still relatively available. If you can, better yet, start your own chicken coop! We love our fresh eggs and while we choose not to harvest our hens there are some people that do that. Anything you can do to be more resilient right now it's a good thing! You can buy more beans and other protein sources. We have French Baked eggs for dinner sometimes. Cheaper than meat and has all the amino acids. Bon Appetit!  

Preparedeness 16.0/ Grocery Recon, Autumn Colors and 27 Degrees!

Preparedeness 16.0/ Grocery Recon-

I went grocery shopping a few days ago at a store I haven't been in for quite a while. Started going to Winco in the spring with food prices going up, and they have a great bulk section! I was at my dentist's the other day right next to an Albertson's so decided to go in there for a few odd items. One of the things I'd read about was a potential pasta shortage coming up, due to grain prices. I was really shocked at the Barilla brand pasta that I have bought for years has almost doubled in price, and the box has shrunk about 35% at least. SHRINKFLATION. Luckily Albertson's had their store brand pasta and I was able to buy six boxes of pasta for $0.99 each. I love pasta in the winter! I did get a few of my other regular items at a slightly higher price. They did seem to be pretty well stocked. I must say our WinCo prices are definitely cheaper. I also stopped at a Ross discount store with clothing, etc. Their shoe section was 50% empty which was really a shock to see. They're bedding section which used to be several rows was now 1/3 of a row and mostly empty. I guess it makes sense that a lot of the discounted clothing from stores is not getting shipped around much. Not a shock, but the shortages are settling in. We have everything for Thanksgiving so I'm good to go! I'll be hosting our partial family, so we're ready!  

Oakleaf Hydrangea, love the bronze tones! 

Autumn Colors and 27 Degrees! 

We had a real cold front come in last week and woke up to 27 degrees in the morning! Our autumn colors are really pretty right now, but will come to an end soon so I decided to take some photos. The day after this it was pouring rain. So here's some of our autumn colors at the little Homestead!

Our little rainbow Zinnias I started from seed 

Delphiniums

Rainbow Echinacea

Roses

We went to Hyatt Hidden Lakes Reserve early Sunday afternoon for a walk. It's a reserve that's not too far from our house. There were tons and tons of wildlife there, wish I would have taken my zoom lens! Lots of Canadian geese and various water fowl. Really nice oasis in the middle of town. We drove up to Bogus Basin after that, almost up to the mountaintop, but it was a solid sheet of ice, so we had to turn back. At least we got to see some mountain trees and snow! Here's some shots from the reserve- 

Garden Rehab Phase 3, High Lumber Prices = Coop Rehab, Pond Fun!

 

Garden Rehab Phase 3-

As part of our garden rehab we went shopping last weekend at Edwards Nursery, which has an amazing assortment of plants. While we do buy some plants at big box stores I really like to go to smaller nurseries that have more variety. I like to mix and match! We went through their perennial section of shade loving plants that can also take some sun. The part of the garden were rehabbing is under our maple tree but does get some filtered light. We decided to go with some different colored flowering and non-flowering plants- "Lemon Frost" Nettle, a "Orchid Frost" Lamium, Pulmonaria "Trevi Fountain", "Bowles Garden" Gold Sedge, a Masterwort "Star of Beauty" a fern Dryopteris filix-mas "Parsley", a "Stained Glass" Hosta. We also found a beautiful small "Ruslyn Pink" Japanese maple tree. Dave planted the dwarf Alberta spruce first. I posted about the 3 large Arbovitae we got from Costco, those went first!  We already had some Feather Grasses, 2 Boxwoods and the large Bamboo, we Dave moved. Luckily I worked 4 hours of overtime last weekend and brought in a little extra pay for this, which I don't mind. Will help offset some of the costs of what we've been buying. Leftover hardscaping is going to one of our girls this weekend. Dave will move the boxwood near the coop to the right corner after it's gone.  We'll add some bulbs in the fall, I put out some markers, circles cut from a mild jug and stakes-

I may choose some Irises and we'll bark dust soon. For a reminder, here's the "before" photos-

We moved the listing solar lights

Dave will fit the flagstone soon

Thrilled the bamboo survived the move! Dave also moved boxwood to the right 

That's it so far and we love it! I will be building a small fairy house since they requested one! I got idea here one morning channel surfing-

High Lumber Prices = Coop Rehab-

We thought about rebuilding our Coop and moving it to a different location in our backyard. The coop is over 10 years old and needed some help. Original post here Coop Re-Do 2013 Dave started pricing lumber and talk about sticker shock! I have been hearing on the news that lumber is up about 35%, which is huge! Previously Dave worked in some jobs where he was able to get free lumber but not so much now. We decided to look at what the coop really needed to be repaired. One thing was the floor,  an elevated section when you first walk in. The wood was sagging and it was obvious it was time to replace it. I was talking to Dave and thought instead of buying a sheet of plywood what if he could get some kind of scrap wood in short pieces and use it for the floor. Wouldn't you know it! He found free (at work) 2 pallets that are made for shipping very, very, very heavy electric motors. These are not your typical pallets, more like 2" x6"s! He was able to get two free from work! He basically disassembled them using a Sawzall to cut the nails-

Dave cutting nails

Recently I INSISTED he buy some new sawhorses, much safer, they fold up nicely

Nice wood pile

Big crack in floor

New elevated floor goes in 

All done!

The second part of the rehab of the coop was doing the rest of the floor. We had just had a dirt floor in the coop with the chickens digging in it constantly. One of the problems is they have dug under the edge of the walls, which is weakening the whole structure. Since we had so much hardscaping left form various projects I mentioned to Dave maybe we could just use some of that for the for the coop? The pine shavings would go on top of that. Since the chickens have access to the Garden run year-round there's plenty of dirt for them to dig in there and take dust baths. So Dave started digging out the coop floor including the pine shavings. It was time to clean the coop and add fresh pine shavings anyway so he did it all the same time-

Uneven is ok, will be under a thick layer of pine shavings!

Chickens had to help dig! 

I should clarify that Dave is not being coerced into doing projects. Dave loves projects! It was Saturday 8:30 am in the morning and Dave was out digging in the coop! The bricks were  free, they came from the edging of our front yard, that came with the house. We replaced with river stone that we got free. I'm just not a fan of brick garden edging. Over the years we've been able to get free river stone from various sources (legally) so we've been replacing the edging around both yards with those. I love the look, very natural.

The last thing for the coop was the wood door. When we built the coop I found the old wood door for $10, but now it was really, really warped. I asked Dave what he thought about buying a used storm door that we could use instead. Something aluminum/lightweight that could either be opened or closed depending on the weather. Dave found the door for $15.00 at the Habitat store. The glass panel comes out for the summer, back in the winter. I'll replace the screen soon. We may have to tinker with the glass panel locks and I may paint it later-

So the coop re-do TOTAL was $15.00 and a box of nails, pretty good!  A lot less that $500.00+ for a new coop!  

Pond Fun! 

The ducks have been coming and going, mostly later in the day. I put out some extra wild bird food. They love the small pond! They flew in fast and low over my head 2 days ago before landing in the yard. About gave me a heart attack! So cute though, love them.

Nap time

Garden Re-Hab Phase Two, New Feathered Friends! Old Cedar Planter Rescue, Bye Bye Technology

 

Garden Re-Hab Phase Two-

Dave removed the old cold frame last week to prep our new garden area, inspiration below, modified to fit our space-

Old cold frame, top course already removed

I helped him come up with the perimeter marked with bricks, then he raked out the soil. He added a few wheel barrels full of soil from our veggie garden-

He put the plants from the cold frame in pots, will re-plant some and some going to his work for another project!

Rough draft of the garden border-

See the ducks?

Yesterday we bought a Japanese Maple and some shade loving perennials to plant in the area. We may add a really small pond to the area, not sure yet.

We hope to have it all planted and bark dusted in the next week or so. Looking better all ready with the green along the fence! Next he removed the big Bamboo and moved it to under the maple tree to fill in the space. Luckily it had a shallow root system! 

Bamboo gone, more sun to plant more veggies, just need to weed! 

New home!

New Feathered Friends!

Last week a pair of wild Mallard ducks showed up in our backyard. I put out some extra wild bird food for them and gave them their space. They've been in the backyard all day today, except for a short period of time. They forage, swim in the pond, drink and sleep. I'm wondering if they'll build a nest? I read if they hang around they may already have a nest. Time will tell. They're quiet and pretty tame. Dave mowed and he said they stayed within about 5 feet. Nice shots, makes me smile when I look out and see them. A good reminder why we have an organic backyard, no worries for them! 

Mr. Handsome! 

Dinner time

Heading to the pond

And the pond repair tape worked!!! 

Lots of info here on wild Mallard ducks Audubon.org

Old Cedar Planter Rescue-

Dave built me a nice cedar planter years ago. The wood was split and rotting, time for a re-do! We took out the plants that wintered over. Dave bought some new cedar and he re-used the galvanized metal-

Last he added the metal sheets and the old soil-

I re-planted the old herbs and added some new ones! We should be good for a few more years.

Bye-Bye Technology –

We bought a laptop last year since we were still working off of Windows 8 and it wasn't really being supported much anymore. We reached the point where we couldn't do TurboTax or banking securely.  The computers we had were also really, really sloooooooowwwww. So we decided to buy a laptop, with an adapter, so that we can also use a regular PC monitor with a wireless keyboard and mouse. I backed everything up to the nth degree and it works great! We decided to keep the two old hard drives just in case we forgot something. We decided we reach the point of being happy with where we are at. I pulled out the two hard drives and removed the memory chips from both of them. We retired them both to a local PC recycler, who work with lots of government agencies, schools, etc. I removed the chips since I knew how to. I had actually added some for additional memory. They did lots of good years of service but it was time for them to be retired, haha. Freed up some extra room in my craft closet and under my kitchen desk/counter. I was able to sweep and mop under it and looks nice and open! Bye bye!  

Before shots, black hard drive and printer gone