Ups and Downs

Last week, it was 80 degrees, we were setting record highs!  I even broke out the flip flops one day and painted my nails.

This week started off with SNOW on Monday...around 40 degrees for the high...
Tuesday we had a little sun - maybe made it to 50...
Yesterday was RAIN, RAIN, RAIN highs in the 40s...
Today, cloudy with rain on the way, in the 40s....

Can we make up our minds please?!?!  We have a chicken coop to finish building!

Chicken-Henge!

More to  come!

Hooray for Spring!

It has been a little while, so I thought I would post an update on what's been going on around here.

Things are starting to pop and bloom - YAY!

Forsythia



Daffodils - they have had buds on them for 2 weeks but none have opened yet.



Don't remember what these are but they have beautiful little blue flowers.



Bleeding heart



In the greenhouse - potatoes, lettuce, onions and garlic!

And last weekend we cut down some trees to use for the posts for our chicken enclosure/pen. 

This weekend we will sink them into the ground so we can start to build the coop. 

Depending on how much we get done, we will start putting the fencing up.  Around these parts, we not only have to make it fox-, dog-, possum- and raccoon-proof, but also hawk-proof.   That means we will have to put wire fencing over the top of the enclosure as well as the sides.

Everyone say "Yay Spring"!!

Family times

Yesterday we had a wonderful day.  My step-daughter (from my previous marriage) came for a visit with her two children.  They live in New York State so this was a rare treat!  The last time we saw them was two years ago when we went to New York for my dad's memorial service.  My how the kids have grown!!  We had a wonderful dinner my husband made - barbecue pork ribs, Creole potato salad (Yummmmmy), homemade corn bread and my daughter's fiance made deviled eggs.  For dessert, we had cheesecake with blueberry topping.  YUM! 

They are staying in NC at my daughter's place until Wednesday - then they will head home.  But she is thinking about moving down here - that would be terrific!  But there are other factors that need to be handled first (aren't there always)...but it would be truly wonderful if they did move here.

We had awful rain yesterday - torrential downpours that led to me going outside in the driving rain to get the hose draining the pool cover before it caved in.  Then after the rains stopped, it went down below freezing last night - I wonder if my daffodils will EVER bloom!  They have had buds on them for over a week now, but it just doesn't quite get warm enough for them to open and say "Happy Spring!"

But, I suppose things could be worse....Mama Pea has been posting about all the snow they are still getting - no thank you!!

March already?!?!

Wow...I cannot believe it is March - wasn't last week Christmas?!  Don't get me wrong - March means Spring is almost here - YAY!  We did a lot of work outside last weekend, while the weather was nice.  When my husband had the heavy equipment here a week ago, he re-graded the front yard, then we seeded and strawed it.  Then guess what happened....the rains came.  Now, a gentle, soaking rain would have been perfect.  But, as many of you homesteaders know, Mother Nature does not give us what we want.  It is what SHE wants.  And she wanted an all-out, gully-washing, inch-of-rain in 15 minutes storm, complete with lightning, thunder, oh - and the TWO tornado warnings in an hour.  Oy vey! 

Ever since we moved out here, we have had to do EVERYTHING at least twice.  Seed the yard, rain washes it away, do it again....put gravel down for the driveway, snows and rains come, gravel sinks into the clay, do it all over again...every year....put up an umbrella outside to keep the sun/rain off you while you enjoy nature, the next storm tears it to shreds, snaps the pole in two, do it again....put up a flagpole, to proudly display our nation's colors (big deal for us as my husband served in the Army), along come 50-60 MPH winds that rip the flagpole, or the string, or the flag in two, do it again.

Such are the trials and tribulations of living out in the country...it's just that now, I have learned - whatever outdoor project we are undertaking, take the dollars and multiply by two - because inevitably, we will have to do it all over again anyway!!

But when your backyard looks like this:

I guess I can't complain too much :-)