The garden may not have produced much over the summer...but our ducks and chickens are earning their keep! We have so many eggs...we share them with as many friends and neighbors as we can! Instead of flowers, we bring eggs. So feel free to invite us over if you need a dozen!
7 eggs in one day!!! It's the most we've gotten, but a common number the past few weeks!
Yes, literally! We are watching our grass grow. Huge sigh of relief. We've had record rainfall SINCE we hydroseeded our lawn...it figures! So we've been nervous about if it would grow or if the seed was washed away.
Looks like it is surviving the rain! Today was incredibly beautiful. It was sunny with just those white fluffy cotton ball clouds floating by all day. Perfect for making the grass grow!
We went to the Post Falls Parade...the girls were in it with their cheer team. It was a perfect day for a parade. The weather was beautiful after the torrential rain we had all week!
Practicing while we waited for it to start...
Q showing her dance moves :-) and she has them! She's got some swagger!
CC wearing the pink! Gee, I remember the day...just a few years ago, when I asked her to pull her clothes out of the closet that didn't fit anymore. I came back later and found a huge pile of clothes...they were all pink! Now she lives in this pink shirt!
Both girls performing
Q wanted to keep this little cutie! She has a way with animals and small children! Maybe she will be a teacher an not a vet. I saw her working with the little ones at the gym. She was teaching them the cheer...man was she good!
CC basing...she would rather fly. And Coach Jennifer has a pyramid in the works...so she is happy to base right now.
We have so many pretty girls we have up here in North Idaho! Now we just have to keep the boys away!
This was only the start of our day. After the parade we went to North Spokane to a birthday party at a roller rink. Then back home to get food for our hungry chickens and ducks, DD put a window in their coop and swimming pool in the orchard while I worked in the vegetable garden. We didn't eat dinner till at least 8:30! Isn't there some saying about making hay when the sun's up...or something like that? Today, I think we made a huge share of hay!
It was an amazingly productive day, that by the end of it we are sunk into the couch exhausted!
I spent time...finally....working in the veggie garden. Our slow, cold spring is slowing things down this year. Lots of cold storms passing through. We get great weather for about 4 days, then a cold front comes through with cold days and freezing nights.
The greenhouse plants are very happily growing!
Our pumpkin hill is planted.
My herb garden. See all those rocks? I didn't have to buy a single one! We live in the Rocky Mountains you know!
Onions and Garlic
The first potato plants are peeking through the soil.
I did get some seeds in the ground for my herb garden. Some more onions and a few cucumber plants and zucchinis...they are pretty tough, so they should do o.k. Boy, I can't wait to get the tomato plants off my kitchen counter! I'm sure they have enjoyed their time in a warm house, but they are probably a bit tired of seeing me slice up tomatoes on a cutting board next to them.
Please send some warm weather north...please! Could we have some of that elusive Global Warming until September? My garden would appreciate it!
Before the green leaves come....
Pussy willows makes me think of little cat toes. Below, I think these are Alders...if I remember right. The catkins make it interesting. Why do all these bushes have names related to cats? Guess it sounds better than puppy willows and dogkins...
I love spring! In North Idaho it lasts awhile...so we have lots of time to enjoy it!
More colors to remind us spring is here.
With every flower that blooms, we are a bloom closer to summer!
Well, the chickens are in their new home. They are happy to have the room to stretch their wings as well as their personalities. It took a few weeks to get it built due to the combination of bad weather and DD's work schedule. The girls helped him a lot after school.
His current schedule on graveyards...pretty much stinks for trying to get projects done. His days off during the week are great, but when it's a two person project, it pretty much does stink! One more month and hist days off will be my days off.
So here are the pictures "As the Coop Rose...."
We never seem to be able to get both girls to wear clothes at the same time. Pajamas are just too comfortable. Apparently it's the weekend uniform!
Notice the feet...yes, they are attached to one of my children. Apparently building projects with dad always require them to be on the roof at some point.
Almost finished...just the roof...ah, but it's time to head back to work.
Next days off...roof and doors were finished.
The girls are very happy! Goldilocks likes the color scheme! She thinks it's all for her!
The rest of the girls are happy too.
"the roost is mine, all mine!" says Goldilocks. "Don't even think about it!" replies Buckbeak.
We started with 6 chicks 6 weeks ago. They were so tiny and cute.
They were just a little handful!
6 little peeps that were so very small in the brooder box.
Now...these little eating and pooping machines grew quickly. DD battled to get a chicken coop built to move them to. Partly because they are too big for the brooder, but also because our ducklings are here! We couldn't bring them home the first day because we lost power during a big windstorm...so 24 hours later, two anxious girls were relieved when we brought home the next set of babies.
These little ducklings are adorable. I just love their little webbed feet.
The yellow one will turn white when she gets her feathers. She's our Aflac duck. Pretty fitting for CC to choose this one. :-)
Lets see how quickly these babies will grow. Hopefully they will get big enough to hold their own up against 6 chickens.
It seems like forever! It's only been 4 months since we moved out of our house. I can't say it was 4 months since it sold because there were all sorts of hangups with the buyers' lender. FHA = government and we know how well the wheels of government turns. We went three weeks past closing of escrow!
So the garage in Washington was emptied and we moved on to Idaho...
We found our piece of heaven...6 acres worth....
So we found the land, got the construction loan...and...well....waited! Waited for Kootenai County to issue the building permit. It took four loooooong weeks to get the magic piece of paper so....
the boys could bring their big toys out to play!
Here's the corner of our future home.
Clearing the land for the house and the shop.
Our hole is there!
First of the cement is poured...Finally something to show off to friends!
Lots more cement for our garage and shop floors. Sorry CC, it's too hard to leave your mark!
The floor....got to start somewhere.
The walls take shape finally!
The girls are hanging out in their new bedrooms!
The roof is raised!
Trusses going every which way!
Now it's starting to look like our home.
The house is wrapped...kind of like a present. Can't wait to unwrap it!
Windows are in and the felt is on the roof.
Here comes the roof...along with the weather. See the gray clouds in the sky? We've had a bit of rain this fall. Fortunately no snow yet.
The trim along the roof is painted..."Vogue Green". We are so hip!
Now comes the inside work...insulation....lots in our bedroom with our day sleeper.
Electricity. I'm such a girl...aren't they pretty colors?
plumbing
wood for the wood stove that will eventually be in the living room.
Showers...I think this picture might be upside down. It's hard to tell.
Our future tub....I can't wait to use this after a long day working in the yard!
Sheet rock is up and drying. Now it really looks like a house.
The garage door is up and the rock on the front of the house. We move all the way from Humboldt County to North Idaho and guess where the rock is from? Grants Pass, Oregon!
Doors are being painted and installed soon.
Texture is applied to the walls.
The north wall is an accent color. It's called...yeah, don't laugh....Humble Gold.
The rest of the house is the same eggshell color.
Lighting goes in on Monday. We have lovely frosted 'boob' lights. I suppose if they can call the door in the garage a "man" door, then I can call these "boob" lights!
Picking out lights is tough. I think I was handicapped by a terrifying light shopping incident as a child. My parents wanted one lamp...I think it took a week and we went to every store that carried lamps in the entire Bay Area. And then the lamp was butt ugly!
So selecting lights by myself...well, Q was with me, but I was by myself pretty much trying to send pictures to DD on my phone so he could help me choose while he was at work. Now that was hard too...I had to find just the right place and hold the phone in the air to get it to pick up enough of a signal. Not an easy thing with the metal roof in Lowe's.
Also have the front and back deck now too.
Cleaning up the site today. The girls weren't too into it...until we got the fire going :-) Such little pyros! Wonder where they get it from daddy?
This week the siding is supposed to start. Electrician comes Monday to install lights, cabinets come Tuesday and are installed Wednesday with the wood laminate and vinyl going down Thursday and Friday. I'm not sure what else will happen...but we are keeping our toes and fingers crossed that we can be in before the end of November!
The house is getting closer to reality every day! Here are pictures from today.
They textured the walls today:
And the rocks are on the front of the house while the decks are almost complete!
Yeah, we need a little work on the landscaping...don't ya think?
So yesterday we rototilled the garden and redid the fencing around the garden. The deer have been battling our fencing the last couple of years. Hopefully we will win this round.
Nice cleaned up garden beds. All turned and tidy with manure from the neighbor's horse! Thanks Raven for your donation!
Lots of yummy veggies for eating in a month or so....as long as we win the war with the deer!
And the strawberry beds are tidied up and starting to grow.
Earlier this week we finished getting the vegetables into the ground. The last things we put in were the bush beans and snap peas (those rarely make it into the house! Usually we eat them right there in the garden or on the way into the house. LOL!)
Here's the first vegetable to come out of the garden:
Fall was so long ago this year that I have no memory of planting any onions. I don't know if these are supposed to be green onions or very crowded onions that volunteered...but I have a bunch of them. I also have some garlic that must be volunteer as well. It's a nice surprise however they got there.
This is what the garden looked like a month ago. Lettuce, carrots, and jalapenos in the greenhouse bed.
wimpy broccoli. It just doesn't grow as well as in Eureka. I think it prefers to thrive in the coastal temperate region much more than here.
This is the potato bed. It looks totally different now. They are growing so fast you can just about see the leaves grow. We think we might get two crops out of this bed this summer.
The strawberry bed has taken over their part of the garden. We have strawberries already! well they are green right now...but they are getting big! Hopefully we can stay ahead of the critters and get to eat them.
CC and Q wanted to have their own corner of the garden. CC is growing a variety of things. Q lost interest when she had to pull weeds. So now it's my zucchini bed!
oops! this isn't from the veggie garden. This is from one of my flower beds. Rather than try to delete it and lose my whole post (as I've done previously) I'll leave it.
If it's not raining tomorrow, I will take pictures of the garden after a month. It is totally different now!
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