A Mess Of A Yard

We not only bought a fixer upper house, we bought a fixer upper yard as well.  I ask myself OFTEN is this worth it?  At times my answer is no, other times I am thankful because working together as a family has many positive benefits.  Besides, idle hands are NOT a good thing.

Its been right about two years now since my parents visited and helped us start clearing the overgrown brush.  Our yard at one time had some lovely landscaping, but it was let go...... I mean off the leash let go.  Stuff was running wild y'all.
This is all weeds-

This past weekend we continued cleaning up around the pool fence in an attempt to make the yard easier to maintain.  Such has been a 3 year effort now.... and we keep failing.... but have high hopes to finally get things in order this year.
The cleared area around the fence still had heavy duty landscaping fabric poking out here and there (and weed seeds and roots imbedded throughout).  Ripping this stuff up was difficult even with the front end loader.

Front end loader was helpful in moving all the dead brush too.

We also pulled up some small trees and moved shrubs to open things up, so the mower can get through more places and less weed eating is needed.

We are not completely sure what to do around this fence area.  Initial idea is to plant grass up to about a foot around the fence and fill the remaining area with white smooth rock.  Then we can mow right up to the edge and can spray the rocky area to kill the weeds.  But rocks might not work since there is a slope?  Mulch is ok but prefer not to have to buy and spread the stuff yearly.  Any suggestions?

Kid involvement as always..... collecting ants..... or taking soil particle samples?

Please share landscaping ideas?  Yet another area I am clueless, *deep breath....

If You Give Parents A Picnic

Inspired by Laura Numeroff's If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (along with her other similar books).

If you give parents a picnic, they might want to make it an epic picnic and drive to the coast.

Being on the coast might give the parents a boost of energy and make them wilder than they already are.

When the parents get wild, it might turbo charge the kids.

Wild parents with turbo charged kids might allow irresponsible things.... like jumping on cliff rocks.

And taking crazy pictures.

Allowing kids to do irresponsible things might eventually appease them and make them cooperate.

It might make them even cooperate for pictures.

It might make them even cooperate to sit and eat their picnic lunch.

And if parents get their picnic, it might make them happy.  Which will truly make the picnic (and the day) epic.

The End.

New Hens and First Big Planting

Say hello to the newest additions of our farm family....  Red 1, 2 and 3-

Post of what happened to our previous hens HERE.

Three young Rhode Island Reds given to us by a friend.  No names yet because they look so similar.

Somewhat sociable, as much as our last hens I guess.

I did love our heirloom hens that laid colored eggs, but they were not the best layers.  These ladies are very hardy and should lay everyday throughout most of the year.  Not as glamourous but very efficient.
Happy to have fresh eggs in the frig again.

You know what soft eggs and/or over easy eggs go well with.....  Asparagus!
We add some cream sauce too (sometimes with a bit of dijon mustard).  Plenty recipes on the web and I encourage you to give it a try if you have not.

Photo courtesy of Poorgirleatswell.com

Please share your favorite asparagus recipes.  This is another new vegetable for me to use regularly.  I made chicken, asparagus and bell pepper stir fry just tonight.  Kids ate it up.

We are getting lots of strong shoots.  I have made about 3 side dishes worth.

Along with our asparagus shooting up daily (though we are reframing from picking too many since they are young plants building strength) we worked up a section of our garden this past weekend.  We had the garden covered with a clear plastic sheet/tarp (from Lowes) for about a month to help heat the soil and keep it dry.  It worked.  Soil under the plastic was ready to work unlike the soil that was not covered.  Also, our cover crop of winter rye was thicker and taller on the side that was covered, because the soil was warmer (yes, it grew just fine under the plastic laying directly on top of it).  Why a cover crop post HERE.

As you probably know, DO NOT TURN OVER WET SOIL.  Reason why HERE.
Ideally you should turn it over, let it set about a week to allow weeds to rot, add organic matter/fertilizer, then turn it over again before you plant.  We planted immediately after turning it over which will result in us having to pull more weeds in the near future.

The strong man behind the tiller said the soil was much looser and easier to turn over than previous years.

This is what we got planted (still just cool weather plants):

• More leaf lettuce
• Radishes (not a fan but giving home grown ones a chance)
• Carrots

• Red potatoes
• Sugar snap peas
• Beets
• Garlic (yeah, behind again this year by missing out on planting them in the fall.  hopefully it will still work)

Planting sugar snap peas.  He planted an entire 20' row himself with the help of a 'spacing stick'.

Hope to see some plants popping up anytime now.