What a fabulous week!

I got back from my week of field school on Saltspring late Sunday and spent all of last week playing farmer. I'll take some pics once the sun comes out again.

About half of our seedlings didn't make it. The stuff we planted right in the ground has done much better so I guess it isn't too cold after all. Won't bother planting the rest in pots. Still waiting to plant the tomatoes but everything else is either dead or in the ground now.

The beans on the bean teepee are doing well. Strawberries are looking good. I put another variety in too... also planted a Saskatoon berry bush. The raspberries we transplanted from the front yard pretty much all died. They were in pretty bad shape before we moved them so it isn't very surprising. I dug up a bunch more from a cramped shady spot in the back yard and they seem to be doing much better. Don't know if we'll get a lot of berries this year but hopefully next year will be good. The blackberry bush is doing well and should produce another insanely huge crop this year. Carrots are up, lettuce is almost eatable, radishes are growing like crazy, leeks are looking viable, green onions are looking pathetic but they always do and take for bloody every to grow so I'm not too worried about them yet. Herb garden is doing well now that I've chicken-proofed it. I put the chocolate mint leaves in my strawberry smoothie this morning.... SOOOOOOOOOOOO good!!! Added zucchinis and cucumbers to the veggie garden and moved some rogue potatoes out to the potato tire garden. They're doing really well. Garlic is coming along slowly but surely. Need to get the corn going but that garden is a bit of a mess and needs a vigorous tilling before I can plant there.

Finally finished the chicken coop. Looks beautiful with all the paint and trim done. Built a moveable fenced area for them that we can put anywhere in the yard so hopefully chickens, dogs, and the cat can peacefully cooexist.

I had THREE eggs waiting for me this morning. That's the most we've had in a whole day let alone in the space of an hour. I'll probably get one more today too. Very exciting. Seems that the crappy runaway Hamburg overheard what I had in store for her since she hadn't laid an egg in a month and did nothing but make noise and run away because she laid yesterday and today.

The chicks are getting HUGE and are so much fun. I had to move them into a bigger condo last night. Built them a nice big outdoor playpen too so they've been spending the day outside. Cricket (the grey laced one) is SUPER friendly and would spend all day on my shoulder and all evening watching movies in the living room if it were up to her. She broke her toe just over a week ago and it looked like it might have to be amputated but much to my surprise, my lame attempts at veterinary medicine seem to have been successful. I've gotta tell you that splinting a 5 week old chick's toe is absurdly difficult but it looks like the effort was worth it. I made a splint out of a little strip of the aluminum/plastic pill package that my antihistimines come in. It works well because it holds its shape quite well. A little bit of gauze over that, then medical tape then a tiny strip of vetwrap and she was good to go. She's not even limping or favoring it any more. I guess when you're growing as fast as she's growing is a good time to be healing broken bones.

Picked up some stupid heavy landscape ties for free on craigslist yesterday which I think we'll use to make a raised bed in the middle of the stupid useless lawn. It gets sun all day so I think the tomatoes will be happy there.

Tempie (the one year old dog) has figured out that she can jump the fence so the next big project is going to have to be building an addition on to the top of the fence that hopefully won't look too ghetto.

Have so many more little projects on the go but really must knuckle down and get some studying done now.