Never Ending To Do's

Outside preparations. On going it seems. Or never ending is a better way to put it. It seems that I have been trying to wrap things up outside since September. Every time I think I am close to the end - the end seems to move farther away. I have been trying my hardest to get things complete before the bad weather sets in. I did manage to get some of these things done in some really beautiful weather. One of those things was the cleaning out and resealing of the gutters and their joints. No pictures of this, cause well, gutters are not that interesting and who wants to see dirty gutters. I know I didn't.

Stain. It could be a spot of something mysterious from who knows where on your favorite shirt of pair of jeans but in this instance it's wood stain. You can see in this picture how dry the wood is for the fence of the coop. The front and one top plank on the side of the fence have been stained. The bottom two planks along the side have not yet had the stain applied. The difference was amazing. 

Once again stain. We treat the coop with stain about this time every year. Whether it needs it or not. Clearly, as you can see by the picture it is in desperate need of a good staining. The right side around the window has newly applied stain. The rest hasn't yet been done. 

What a difference stain can make. The coop has a new coat of stain all the way around. Protected against the elements for another year. The clucks may not notice or care but I do. Now when I look out my kitchen window I smile at what a beautiful coop the Lady Clucks have. 

I moved all of the plants in from the patio to the mud room. They are quite happy there and have gifted me with some new blooms. 

Last week was a busy week for us here. All of that busyness tumbled right over into the weekend. 

Additions Update

From left-3 day old EE chick and 3 day old Blue Cochin.

Welsummers just over 2 weeks old.

My goodness. I can not believe how fast these past few weeks have gone by. Since then we have completed the coop addition and added 32 square feet to the clucks run and revamped the roosting bars in the coop. We changed out the feeder for one of the galvanized bucket styles and made a list of more things that need to be done on the coop and run. We have planted roses that our sweet lab decided were sticks that he needed to play with in the yard. I put the roses back in the ground and they have yet to produce any signs of growing into beautiful rose bushes. The two climbing roses were left alone and are looking very promising. I am giving the poor bushes just a bit longer to see if they show any signs of life. We have added a few more heart beats to our little homestead. We brought home 3 Welsummer peeps about 2 weeks ago and this past Friday we brought home my sons choice of peeps. His long awaited Blue Cochin. 3 of them. He also fell in love with 2 little bearded Easter Eggers that he couldn't walk away from. Which brings our total number of peeps to 8.  Eventually they will be integrated with our current flock of ladies which make our clucks number 16. Hoping 16 is as sweet as they say and all goes well. I know we will be rich in eggs. Hope everyone can get along. 

Roses

Don Juan Climbing Rose

     After almost 13 years we have roses again!! Both my Husband and I are very pleased to have these beauties back in our lives. Ours are just brand new plants. This is the first time that I have ever planted roses. All of our homes have always had them growing. This time we got to choose our roses. There are so many and I love them all. These pictures -which were not taken by me- these are from the Gardens board on 3Beeze Pinterest page, are all of the roses we planted today.

Iceburg Climbing Rose

Love the climbing roses and how they envelope what ever they are growing on. I would love some more of these and may have to get one more of each color.

Mister Lincoln Rose

This one is my heart throb. I am such a sucker for any red rose but this one and it's deep red color make me want to wrap myself up in it's soft pedals. I can not wait to see this one grow up.

Paradise Rose

This one we chose because of it's variation in color. I am eager to lay eyes on this one in person. It is stunning in the picture but I bet even more so with my own eyes. 

Tiffany Rose

This is also another favorite. The delicate pink with the palest hint of yellow inside. I love these soft delicate pale colors. Can not wait to have a giant vase full of these sitting on the kitchen table. There are others that I would like to have in our garden as well and will keep my eyes open for any one of them that might catch my eye. I love roses-even the pruning of them and getting poked by the thorns. (Well maybe not "love" the getting poked part but my love and appreciation of the roses overrides the bothersome pokes.)

Spring Forward!

     Spring forward! This is what I have been waiting for since we fell back in November. The longer days with sunshine until well into the evening. I relish these days. I do not care too much for the short, dark days of winter. Or winter at all really. Spring is on her way and soon Summer will be here. These are the days I like best. But with Spring comes the excitement of adding new clucks to the flock, planting flowers and landscaping. Vegetable gardens begin to happen now too. We are choosing not to plant a vegetable garden this year and focusing our efforts on landscape and home improvement. I will not be able to handle keeping myself from planting something edible. Thinking container garden of sweet peppers and some hot peppers and an herb garden. Picked up roses today! I haven't had roses in a long time. I am so excited to have them again. We will work on getting them in the ground tomorrow. A first for us. We have  never planted roses before. Our past homes have always had exsisting roses. I am eager to get planting lots of flowers and some trees and do landscaping. The Husband and I have been throwing lots of ideas out for what we would like to see happen. Always fun to have ideas and watch them evolve from one thing to another. Can't wait to get started.

Or Not To Garden

     Another day with sunshine and blue sky. Love these extra bonus days. My husband and I were talking about the garden yesterday and some landscape ideas. We have been tossing around first, moving our garden location but also possibly not doing a garden this year. Yes I know you exclaim WHAT?  No garden!!!?? But yes it has crossed our minds more then once. First reason is that last year where we planted the garden, which has always been its spot since we moved here 9 years ago, the crops in that space just didn't do well. We were skeptical when we planted last summer if the crops would do well because counting back - last summer in that space was year number 7. The year that the earth needs to rest to replenish and heal from being used. With that in mind and how badly our garden did brought to mind that we should change its location this year leaving only the berries in that location and making a badly needed parking pad. We would move the location of the vegetables to the back yard next to the clucks coop and near a rain gutter spout that we could use to make rain barrels with and use that water to water the garden. We think it is a good idea. So maybe just a small herb garden. Not sure yet. Not having a garden to tend and take care of would allow us to focus on other things around here that need tending. Some home improvements that desperately need attention and the yard and landscape that need to have attention, as well as the flower gardens and adding more clucks for more eggs. So I wont miss out on playing in the dirt, I will still have that and we are very fortunate to have two farmers markets that we can visit, as well as a market that houses plenty of local fruits and veggies at a very good price. Some of it less then what it would cost for us to grow here. I am fine with that and eager and excited to take care of things that need tending and increase our clucks and eggs.                                                                                                        

Let's Get Going

     I am so ready to get going. My mind is full of ideas and things that I am eager to get started on this year. Some are left-overs from last year that we were unable to accomplish due to life happening but I have a whole bunch more of ideas bouncing around in my head that are eager to make their way out and become more then just an idea. From visions of new flowers in the flower garden, coop improvements, adding chickens to the flock, to the Hubs and I throwing out ideas for all of the things we would each like to plant in the vegetable garden along with home maintenance, stripping paint from the kitchen cabinets, fixing up the dog house, planting trees and bushes, a new gas tank for our little VW Beetle (so she can be driven-what a gas saver she is), to new tires for our other vehicle and maintenance on the lawn tractor......I have so many things running  around in my head that want to get out. I am sure I will come up with more - oh, like what kind of roses I want to plant in the yard and doing an arbor for some climbing roses or maybe grapes, and a pathway from the patio to the coop....ok, ok, I'll stop but I think I have painted a pretty good picture here. Ready to get it in gear over here and get things going!

Guests, Flowers and Some Down Time

     After a very long and busy week spent in work and catching up with some things left undone here at 3Beeze after our very long and busy week last week I managed to complete most of what I had set out to do in preparation for our guests which arrived yesterday afternoon. We had a relaxing evening sitting at the fire pit enjoying the company and friendly conversation. Too soon we all were yawning and ready for bed. We enjoyed coffee this morning with our birds and the warmth from the coals left in the fire pit from last evening. Our guests commented that it was the best nights sleep that they had had in a very long time. That they slept through the night and could have kept sleeping through the morning. I am very pleased to have been able to offer the atmosphere of such comfort that our guests came away from our homestead feeling rested and relaxed. I can not take all of the credit for this though. The country has a way of slowing you down and offering the clean fresh air and quiet slow pace that lowers the blood pressure. A part of our daily lives that I am so very thankful for.

Add caption

After our guests left today I was able to plant the flowers that have been waiting patiently for me to put them in their containers on our back patio. Something I have been looking forward to since the beginning of the week. The rest of our day has been spent recouping from the last two weeks of being very, very busy and having some quality family time.    

 

New Life

While we have been focusing on the coop and run other things around here have been being neglected. I have had on my mind the things that need tending. Flower beds weeded and made ready for more flowers, the vegetable garden soil to be tilled and made ready for planting, cleaning up the front and back yards from winter season and the list goes on. Today I made it to the front flower beds and their weeding. Got most of it finished and came across some new life under all of the old leaves and weeds. The flowers have been trying to bloom and the trees have been trying to get their leaves open with a small amount of success up until this weekend. Over the weekend we had unseasonably warm temperatures in the 80's. That's summer time temps for us. So while we were being hot going from low 70 degree temps to mid 80's overnight our trees and flowers were growing and loving the warm temps and sunshine. There has been an explosion of new life around our homestead! Bugs included.                                                                                                  

Search for Spring

Today I was not going to let the rain take over my day. I was searching for Spring today and I was going to find it! I did. In a small amount but I did find it! 

Hens and chicks are always in the flower bed but right now they are such a pretty color.

   

Found these sweet little faces peeking out from under a log. My husband and son call them Monkey Faces.

                                          .

 Last and certainly not least are these miniature daffodil buds. They will open soon.                                                  



I was successful in my search for spring today. I was happy to find these all in our yard. As I was searching I did happen to notice how badly in need the flower-beds are for a good clean up.

.

Ready to Dig

     I am itching to get my fingers in the dirt. Ready to smell the spicy, earthy smell that dirt has when you dig in it. Ready to get some sort of beautiful flowers started growing. I have visions of flower beds brimming with vivid color and my nose being tickled with the sweet scent from the flowers. I have long dreamed of having lush, flower filled gardens to walk in and enjoy. This is the year to start!
     There are so many different kinds of plants and ideas running through my head for what I see for this garden. I know that I will not be able to get to all of the plants and ideas this year-there are so many, but I will be able to get started and that alone makes me smile. Why have I waited so long? I don't really have an answer except that maybe I needed to mull things over.

     I have no plan for what to put where or anything specific that has to happen. I like to let things take on a life of their own. To let things create themselves into how they will end up. There are some things that are meant to be exact but mostly I find that if you let things, they will create themselves with a little help and gentle guidance.

    Patience is very much a part of all of this. One virtue I desperately lack in. I don't really have much of a choice other than to have patience. This I can muddle through as long as I have blooms.