Brain Dead...

Dinner brain dead that is. Last week's menu was Pizza, Tacos, Spaghetti, Meatloaf. May as well have been Dull, Mundane, Boring, and Not Again!

Truly, I have been so out of ideas. I had been "Ad Shopping", as in, when the weekly ad came out, I made a menu around what was on sale. That got me by for a little while.

So I am a huge Dave Ramsey fan...we used his plan to get out of debt. E-Mealz is advertised on his show and I had thought about signing up. But what spurred me on was talking to a co-worker and hearing she is signed up for a similar menu service and loving it. So I signed up for E-Mealz and we are loving it! For a buck and a quarter a week, the menu is planned and the grocery list made. It is two pages...page 1 is the weekly menu with the recipes right there, and page 2 is the grocery list. All the meals have been good and the amount of prep and time to make pretty easy. Maybe eventually I'll get my dinner mojo back, but for now this has been a life saver!

In other news, the Guineas have started a nest! It is not in the coop...it is between the duck house and creek in a bramble of fallen tree branch. Our plan is to keep an eye on it and when she has a full clutch and starts sitting...move her and the nest to a confined area. Last count she had 13 eggs. And she is not sitting on it yet, so it is not time. Hopefully this will go according to plan and we'll have Guinea Keets someday!

Oh, and we have a pregnant cat. She's not a very friendly cat so all kinds of questions come to mind...like will she be a good mom? Will her babies be friendly? WILL SHE LET ME PLAY WITH HER NEWBORNS?!?!?! I hope so! :) We are getting her spayed after this litter, which is her first litter.

Garden is well under way. Onions are growing, Potatoes should be sprouting any time now, and the first succession of Carrots, Spinach, Chard, and Lettuce seeds are in. My Tomato, Pepper, Ground Cherry, and Broccoli plants are in the process of hardening off. It is a pain in the rear to drag them in at night and out of the house in the morning, but I keep telling myself it won't be long now! We have had an amazingly mild and warm spring. I am getting ready to start Melons, Pumpkins, and Squash seeds. I will start them outdoors in flats - they'll stay outside during the day and come in at night. A lot of people around here are planting warmer season stuff already....I am still leery so I am sticking with my original timing schedule.

That is about it for now! How's it going in your neck of the woods?

Sewing, Sewing, Sewing....

I got the patio swing cushions and canopy DONE! And I am very pleased with how it all turned out. :) You will have to wait for pictures...I will take some when it warms up a bit and I put them back outside on the swing. Right now they are living behind my couch!

Today I was thinking about organizing my plastic Wal-Mart bags and, since we stopped using paper towels, organizing my "rags" who were living in a plastic Wal-Mart bag in the pantry! So I found this site and made three bags...one for the Wal-Mart bags, one for rags that are to be used and kept, and one for rags that can be used and thrown away. I already had the fabric and ribbon, so it was a quick easy project. She has a lot of neat projects on her site...go check it out and get your sew on! :)

http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com/2009/01/grocery-bag-holder.html

My awesome Hubbs is in town right now getting a board and some hooks to hang them on the pantry wall, as well as some other things. Currently there are nails in there to hang things on and things are always falling off the nails or the nails themselves fall out of the wall. It will be nice to have stuff stay put.

I started onion seeds a few weeks back. They are doing ok, but for some reason I don't much care to start them from seed. Go figure because I love starting everything else from seed! I think this year I am going to do an onion experiment...plant some onions from seed, some from local sets, and some from local plants to see what does the best. Maybe I can get out of starting them. I'll have to post again about what is going in the garden this year. I have everything picked out, all seeds in hand, and a schedule made to know when to start them and when to plant them. However, tonight we are supposed to get a couple of inches of SNOW. Bah humbug. Come on Spring...I miss you!

Ok, I am off to cook some supper. :) have you been up to?

Mr. Tough Guy.....

My son is getting ready to turn 12! Officially a pre-teen....where does the time go? But he isn't afraid to sport an Eric Carl 'Hungry Little Caterpillar' tattoo - not as long as he is flexing his muscles anyway. :)

It has been a busy week! With school getting close to letting out for the summer, there is a lot going on. It has also been gorgeous out, with the exception of yesterday when we had a tornado warning. Luckily all is well and the worst of the storm passed to the north of us. Before the storm I did get some potatoes planted, again. I would say about half of what I planted the first go round came up and the rest rotted in the ground. I suspect we may have planted some a bit too deep. We also got the rest of the onion plants in the ground. I was disappointed to find that my white onion plants had all dried out the nothing. Darn it. The red ones were still good, so in they went. My sweet potato slips came yesterday too, so I got them planted. I also learned that I CAN GROW MY OWN SLIPS!!! Did you know you could do that? I had no clue!! Next year I will definitely do that. And my own onion plants. And my own seed potatoes (God willing!)

The beautiful pink azaleas I planted last year are officially dead. My parents came over earlier this week for a school program and mom brought me some of her extra daylillies, so I will replace them with those. My older two kids were both in the school program playing their instruments and my oldest daughter was in a small production of Grease and did awesome! They did two Grease songs and choreographed dance moves. She had a bit of a solo for the end of Summer Nights and she sang beautifully! She said she wasn't even nervous like she used to be before preforming...good for her!! :)

Youngest D was home from school today after climbing in bed with us at 1:30 in the morning with a slight fever. I couldn't get her to take any fever medicine, so I sponged her with a wash cloth. That drove her out of our bed and back into hers, she did not like being sponged! LOL :) She is doing better today. I hate to see her not feeling well, but it is about the only time she slows down enough to be a complete snuggle bunny.

I planted Zinnia, marigold, and mammoth sun flower seeds yesterday too. My tomato plants have blooms! And are still not in the ground. I was hoping to get them in yesterday but by the time hubby got home from work and disced, the storm came and we were off to the basement. We had 3o minutes notice before the storm hit, so we were able to baton down the hatches. I do look forward to having the raised beds next year - one of the big advantages is that they will be smaller and more manageable that the garden plot. Plus I will be able to cover for moisture control to get early spring stuff in when it needs to be. And less weeding. The list of positives goes on and on.

The Dirty Divas are still doing awesome!

And my camera is throwing a fit and only letting me have 7 pictures on it at a time. I am not sure what the problem is with the memory card. So I haven't been taking many pictures. I wish I was because this is the BEST time of year if you ask me! So much going on and everything is beautiful!

Wishing you a wonderful weekend!

Signs From Above....

Well, first the Weeping Willow got plowed over by the bull. And really, I had been thinking of moving it or something anyway because of our eventual plan to build raised beds in that area of the yard. Then yesterday evening hubby was mowing and FIL had just got done with his mowing and came and helped hubby finish up so he could take the kids fishing sooner. However, FIL did not realize that the foot tall twig sticking up in the yard was a Lilac bush to be that my mom gave me last year from her Lilacs. So he mowed it over. Darn it.

But no, I shall not let it get me down! I will just take it as a sign that we are destined to build raised beds for the vegetables. It would have had to have been moved too.

In other news, it is finally not been raining! Things are drying out and hopefully I will get some stuff planted. I did plant flower seeds in pots yesterday evening. I made a vow that I would not spend any money on flowers, so that means I used seed saved from last year. Zinnias and Marigolds to be specific. Today I plan to seed the rest of my flower beds. I also hope to get my seedlings planted over the next few days if the rain stays away. We have a slight chance each day after today.

The ducks are getting huge and they are definitely in an ugly duckling stage! They are getting feathers all over and are pretty awkward looking, but soon they will be beautiful. Their voices are also changing! No real quacks yet, but I am sure that will happen soon. They remind me of pre-teens. They are so fun to watch. I don't know what it is about them, but they are so relaxing and entertaining.

We hit a few garage sales Saturday morning. Since we are pinching pennies and squeezing George til he screams (I just really love saying that!) I am going to try get as much of the kid's school clothes for this fall as possible from garage sales/consignment shops. So far I have found a few really nice things. I also found some canning jars for cheap.

Oh, and the potatoes have sprouted!!!!!! Since this is my first time planting them, I was completely thrilled! And one of my tomato seedlings, a Sweet Million cherry tomato, is starting to get blooms. They'll be so happy to get in the ground.

The kids did catch a few fish yesterday evening so we had a yummy fish snack. They were so proud of themselves. I am very proud of them too. :)

I'm sure there is more to ramble about, but it is Monday morning and my brain hasn't fully clicked on yet. I'll get pictures of ducks and stuff up soon. I hope you had a wonderful weekend and have a Happy Monday!

The Duck House is Done and The Dirty Diva's Have Moved In! (lots of pics)

This is the duck house and the junk out front on the left is the stuff I cleaned out of the two rooms we are using for now.





















This is my little helper dragging the hoe for me so that I could dig a little trench by the water pump to put rocks in to hopefully minimize a huge water mess.

This is the water pump. Thank goodness it is there! It would be a major pain to water the ducks if it wasn't! I didn't take a picture of the finished room, but I dug the hole, put the rock in, and laid straw over the rest of the floor. It looks great!

Uhhh...where did my helper go? Oh! There she is!



Can you see her now?




How about now?

We all love that creek.


Ok, so while she played, I worked. This is the cement pad in the area where the duck yard will be. I was thrilled it was there, it is a great place to put the swimming water to help keep down the mess they will make.





And the finished product. This is the yard area from a distance. BEFORE....

And AFTER....

Didn't my totally awesome and talented husband do a fantastic job? Thank you honey!! I love you!

We decided to fence and then electric fence around the fence. Can't be too safe with dogs, cats and coyotes around. The fencing and electric fence were all things that were already around so we didn't have to spend any money. Hooray for that because we have none to spend! :) LOL

The Dirty Diva's enjoying their new yard....

If you look very very close you will see that they are getting their tail feathers!!
And their new ramp to go in and out....

Wait a second...something is just not quite right about this duck....

(That there is farm fasion at its finest! :) LOL)

And here they are enjoying their swimming water. We'll probably give them an old kiddie pool that we have stashed when they get bigger. For now they are happy with these.

A view in their kitchen/living room/bedroom inside the house....

In other news, we have been having severe thunderstorms. Right now we are in a tornado watch. Since it was time for the seedlings to be out of the greenhouse, we moved them to boxes and put them on the deck so we could keep them outside until we plant, but that would also make it easy for us to bring them in when it storms. We put the greenhouse under the carport to keep it from getting torn up. It'll get stored until we need it again. Here are the seedlings earlier this evening.....

And as I was typing this the wind kicked up something fierce so they are in for the night. They'll be pleanty of time for them to get pounded by storms once they arein the garden. ;)

Ok, I have got to get some sleep! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

The Greenhouse....

I have been hardening off the seedlings from the house to the greenhouse. The Captain added some shelves - he is da bomb you know. ;) The only thing better than this greenhouse would be a BIGGER one! :) LOL Oh dear, we have actually talked about turning the old hog barn into a greenhouse...it would be HUGE!!!! Anyway, I plan to leave them in there until it is time to harden them to outdoors. I keep the door propped open to vent. So far it is working out really well. I would like to eventually add some type of a small light to leave on at night to provide some warmth...it has been cold enough at night that I was afraid to risk it. But it is supposed to be in the 40's for the overnight lows, so I think they'll be just fine now. I also plan to go ahead and start a few more things in the greenhouse. I hope it all works! The trial and error part is exciting to an extent....I really don't want to kill my plants! :) Oh, also, when they are in the house I have been putting a fan on them on oscillate in hopes that it is toughening them up.

And a funny... Hubby had forgot to close the wood stove door all the way (it was vented to get the fire going) and it got really hot in that room. The Moon Flower got hot and started wilting! I moved it to another room and watered it well. I came to check on it and it was all perked up again so I was talking to the plant. I commented to hubby that plants like it when you talk to them. He tells me it is because they like the carbon dioxide in my breath. Why does he have to be so darn technical all the time and burst my love bubble? I thought they liked the sweet nothings and encouragement I whispered into their little leaf ears. Humph. (Honey, since I know you read this, I wouldn't change your technical thinking one bit. I have learned a lot from you! Ok, so maybe they like the carbon dioxide too, but I am convinced that they also like the sound of my voice and the sweet nothings and encouraging words the most! LOL :)

What do you have started and how is it doing? Any greenhouse wisdom to share?

Extra! Extra! Read All About It! STEVIA SPROUTED!!!

Oh my gosh, I am so excited! This morning hubby and I were talking and he asked me how long it takes the Stevia to sprout. I told him I was not really sure and then I went to check on it. THERE ARE TEENY TINY SPROUTS!!! Too small for my crappy camera to capture, but man, are they cuties! That means so far my Stevia set up is a success! Hooray!!! And today is Monday...I just planted them Saturday afternoon....that was fast!

How I did it so far, if you are wanting to try it....

Soaked the seed starting mix really good with water. Laid seeds on top, did not cover them with mix at all. Did not water from top at all after seeds were laid, only from bottom. Sat container on heat pad. Covered container with plastic (actually press n seal because I was out of saran wrap). Used a small lamp with a CFL bulb to provide light non-stop, 24 hours a day.

That is it so far. I am just thrilled it worked! My packet was only 10 seeds and I sprinkled them all in this one container. I will wait and see how many sprout and when they are bigger move to other containers. I think I will also pick up another packet to start. Stevia can be grown as a house plant, so I want some to keep indoors too. For now I plan on leaving the cover and heat on for a couple more days, but I will monitor them and play it by ear. I'll post pictures when they get a little bigger.

Happy Monday! :)

Seedling Update and Stevia Starting....

Seedlingville....has spread to several rooms now because I am running out of window space. We were going to get the greenhouse put where we want it and move things in today, but we are in for a hard freeze over the next few days, so they will be living inside a while longer. And let me ask you this, because hardening off really scares me! I am thinking that they will need to be hardened to even get use to the greenhouse. What do you think? A few hours a day in the greenhouse and build up to fulltime until planting? Or would they be ok to just leave in there fulltime straight from the house and then hardened off from the greenhouse? Do they even have to be hardened from the greenhouse? Help! I have no clue!

Tomatoes and onions...


More Tomatoes and Peppers...

Another of Tomatoes and Peppers....Plus the tall things with sticks are Moon Flowers - they are vining up the sticks already!

The cut off milk jugs each have 4 plants in them.

I started the Stevia seeds today. And this is my set up...

They seem to be a pain to start - packet said keep them warm, moist and watered from the bottom, covered, and under light for 24 hours a day until they sprout! Once they sprout the cover can come off, the heat pad can go bye-bye, and the light can be reduced to 14 hours per day.

What do you think? Will it work? Stay tuned......