Spring is Sprung!

30 degrees at 12:22 PM on the FIRST DAY of SPRING. 

What's wrong with that picture? 

We are expecting possible snow tonight, and for sure, tomorrow night into Friday morning. 

11 years ago tomorrow, at the old Calamity Acres, I called in because I could not get out of my 100 foot long upward-sloping driveway.  I literally spent the day shoveling snow... but at mid-day, heard a sound from high above me.  I looked up... and thousands of Canadian geese were flying south over my head.  It was a sight I have never forgotten, and never will.  I stood, leaning on my shovel handle, marveling at them. The sight of geese flying makes my blood sing. 

Here's what we were up to here this morning: 

I turn on the lights over the plants as soon as I get up in the morning. 

Look at those tomatoes!  I had to take the cover off, they were pressing it so hard in some places. 

Every single morning, Our Protector jumps up to get a cuddle and a rub on her furry belly.  She is such a beautiful dog. 

Keith had a cuddle with his little girl just before he left for work.  She adores him. 

Then, it was out to the garden. 

This is one of last year's beds.  The dirt in it was okay, and if you read us then, you know that this was a lasagna bed, with several levels of peat moss, straw, with paper on the bottom.  It was never quite full enough, and in the ensuing summer, we pretty much gave up on the garden.  I was still working, and worried about my flower beds, and the veggies went to rack and ruin.  Not this year! 

With straw (plain straw, not chicken-house straw), and manure. 

With three bags of Miracle Gro dirt on it.  Keith went to get me twelve bags last night, and Home Depot had Miracle Gro on sale for 3.33 a bag.  I'm going to go get some money from savings and get another 20 bags.  

I switched to our bigger yard cart today, because it balances better.  Now that I'm 62, I have to make work-arounds to get things done while Keith is at work.  He unloaded three bags for me last night, and a bag of peat moss... but left the rest on the truck. 

I can't jump up on the truck anymore, I'm just not agile enough.  

Like my work-around?  

I climbed up carefully, threw the bags 3 at a time in the big yard cart carefully, climbed down, and trundled them across the yard to the garden. 

Yes, I had to lift them one by one, but I got them there.  

Two nights ago, he stacked five by the garden bed I was working last week.  I'm going to haul them over to the vegetable beds this afternoon.  

The Range was supervising from a shady spot. 

Here is the hollow trunk of our century old walnut three, half of which was dead last year. 

Big branches and bark are falling from it frequently.  The walnuts leaf out last in the spring. 

Keith received an estimate, recently, of $4000.00 to take the tree down, and we are not sure what to do, we never imagined it to be so expensive.  

I'm putting the smaller branches with the compost, for my tiny try at hugelkultur.  

That's it for today from Calamity Acres! 

More Strange Phenomena

I took this picture yesterday afternoon, while walking through the yard.  You might think it is just a picture of the grass.

Those leaves, my friends, are from this tree:

This large black walnut is slowly dying, and the trunk is very hollow.  Here is what is interesting... both of our big black walnuts are dropping leaves in MAY.  Normally, they are the last to leaf out... end of March, beginning of April, long after the other trees.  This year, they were the last to leaf out in March... and now, instead of July (which is normal start of leaf fall for them) both are dropping leaves by the hundreds, not just one or two.  The Kansas City Star this morning had a two page article about the strange weather phenomena we are experiencing, along with the facts that the winter wheat crop is in almost four weeks early, farmers are now cutting hay several weeks early, and people have already harvested their spring crops and are putting in summer crops in the garden.  The Star opines that we will be canning, etc. fully a month early this year.  I would have to say, based on what I see in our own gardens, that this is true.

I planted this stand of Achillea last summer... it has far surpassed anything I could have imagined.  In fact, there is a daylilly to the left that is almost buried by this stand, and I'll have to move it this weekend.

If you biggify this (by clicking on it) you will see that the buddleia blooming has beautiful blossoms on it. (say that fast!)

Daisies, phlomis, and catmint are also blooming.  The larger buddleia to the right is not blooming yet.

I wonder if I will have any flowers left for the rest of the summer?

We will leave soon for the funeral this morning.  There is an 80% chance of rain, but I am glancing out the window now, and the sky appears to be lightening.  After the funeral will be a lunch served by the chuch ladies, and I am taking my camera so that I can take pictures of some of my relatives to use for Ancestry.com pages. 

Second Post Sunday

There's a new little friend sitting with me now sometimes.

Gertie Lou has always been my little buddy.  She's such a good little girl, but I have a nice story about Abby that happened last night.  Keith was gone on an errand late in the afternoon, and it darkened outside.  Abby was laying in the doorway of the room, and jumped up and began to bark.  I kept telling her to calm down, that everything was okay, but she would run down the hall (think Lassie) and then run back and bark at me.  I finally got up to see what was wrong... and the front door had come open by at least three feet!  Abby was letting me know that something was wrong and I needed to see it!  I was so proud of her.  We have noticed since we adopted her almost three years ago now that she is very protective of us, and a very brave girl to boot.

While blog-hopping earlier today (pre-nap) I came across two new "pug" blogs... It's Tiffy Time, and Pug Possessed, with the most wonderful little pugs.  I read a number of pug blogs... I can't help myself, they ARE truly the most wonderful little dogs.

Please ignore the fact that our John Deere has been sitting out in the elements all winter. It has a tire that has been going flat for months, and has to be aired up every time it is moved... on February 27th it goes in for it's annual tuneup and by golly, that tire will be fixed for good!   What I really intended for you to see is the torque in the trunk of the huge old walnut tree.  It began last summer, and sometime in the last two weeks, a great big piece of bark just out of camera view to the left came off in a big sheet.  There is a hole on the left, also, that leads into a den inside the tree, where the trunk is hollow.  It bore very few walnuts last year. We estimate it is probably 100 years old, and one day soon this year I bet we find out (Keith!)

Cost of removal of this huge old tree is prohibitive... yes, people want walnut, but they want logs brought TO them, they no longer come get them.   Is it going down on the shop and Keith's dad's boat?  We hope not!  (Keith!)

Walnut trees are the very last around here to leaf out in the spring, and ours started dropping leaves in July last year.

While we feel better today, Keith was able to sleep in until 1 and I did not go to church, which I rarely miss.  It was not fair to the congregation to sit and listen to me cough my head off and I felt it was better to stay home as I MUST go to work tomorrow.  After all, it's my annual review day. (!) Thank heavens, it's technically the last one, though I will have to do one for this spring.  It will be a transitional one, I'll write it as I plan to turn over things to whomever my successor will be.

We did chores early, and I fixed us a decent small meal of spaghetti red... and we are waiting to see if we have the appetite for a wonderful dessert we saw yesterday morning on The Pioneer Woman Cooks on Food Network.  If I could find the link to it, I would give it to you... but it was a banana dessert (Ree Drummond hates bananas!) that she made for her mother in law and kids, who were camping out.  You took a banana, sliced it about 3/4 of the way down, open it a little, put in caramel pieces, chocolate chips, mini marshmellows, then pulled it together, wrapped it in foil, and warmed it in an oven (or over a campfire) at 350 degrees for as long as it took to melt everything.  YUMMM. 

Keith got the ingredients at the store yesterday but doggonit, we are still not up to eating it.  I think if another day passes, we should be back to feeling a little more normally.

Spring is evidently springing in the henhouse.  Rambo came across the rafters today, jumped down, and ambushed one-eyed Butch. It looks worse than it is, though.  We cleaned him up and put Neosporin all over him.  Our problem, though, is that spring IS springing.  I noticed that the big roosters are riding the tiny hens in with them terribly, and something will have to be done about it.  I am praying that once the new henhouse is finished, I can sort everyone out and get the bantam girls away from the bigger roosters.  And yes, we are facing having to thin the rooster ranks again.  I have protected Butch so far, but I can't put him back in his pasture pen and let him have the run of the pasture because it would mean keeping Rambo and the bigger flock in again.  Once the new henhouse is up and running, most of the hens still laying will be heading that way. Then we'll sort out what to do about the rooster population.  The mild winter also meant that the older roosters, whom I did not think would make it through another bad winter, all lived.  I do have one little old hen not looking well right now, but we'll see how she does over the next few days.

Have a good start to your week, everyone!

A Fast Post Tonight

Made up of bits and pieces, this will be fast.  I am tuckered out... three weeks of dragging has taken it's toll.  I'm pooped out tonight... and so is Keith, hay fever has worked a number on him. 

When we moved here, there were several large walnut trees in the yard.  One is a century tree, we think well over a hundred years old.  This year, it looks like this:

Yes, our grand old tree is dying. 

In contrast, there is another 50 feet from it, right next to the big henhouse:

If you click on this, you will see that there are hundreds if not thousands of walnuts that I'll soon be paying Nathan to pick up for me.  It's still in good health.

These are black walnuts, and gone are the days when the lumber companies would come to your yard and buy the trees.  Now you have to fell them and haul the to the mill to sell.

Now, for friend Jill, HERE is the rat I have been telling you about, eating along with the chickens tonight.  I say it's a muskrat, it does not have pointy ears like ratus ratus. 

As you can see, it's very calm with me in the henhouse.

Here is another picture of it's short tail:

I don't blame the hens for not wanting to lay in that box you see.

Before you all start shaking your heads, yes, we have a bad feeding regimen.  I feed in one regular chicken feeder, and the others are open bowls or fortexes for the chicks.  We also feed outside.  When we move to the new henhouse, all of this is STOPPING and the chickens will be working harder for their food so there is not as much waste.  They will have a feeder hanging from the rafters, and will have to work at getting their food.  Since Butch and his girls will be moving, the big henhouse flock will be out on pasture regularly again, and finding a lot of their own feed.  I am about to declare war on the mice and rats, though, and One Bite is going to be heavily laid where the chickens can't get to it, including down the larger ratholes in the pen.

We're also going to just the heated waterers for winter, so we only have two to fill at any given time, since our plan is to close off the little henhouse for the winter.  If we leave it open, the hens will begin laying in it (from the big henhouse) and I'll be crawling in and out of there all winter.

Then again, it's better than losing the eggs in the pasture.

Here is my little doll, tonight, sitting on the porch for a few minutes with me:

And lastly, the Teeny Babies... outside for the very first time today!

Stickin' with mama, but mighty happy about it, too!

That's a bantam cochin, so you can see how small they are! All three pullets, too... yipppeeee. 

Strange Phenomenon

I don't know what this means, but if any of you do, please tell us all.

Hereabouts, in Kansas, the black walnut trees are the last to leaf out in spring.  All the other trees have leaves blowing in the wind by the time the walnut's are growing and grown. 

I grew up with them in the yard of my parent's house. 

Here we have several black walnut trees.  One has stopped producing, the Century Tree:

As you can see, it's dying.  The trunk has even started shifting. We upgraded our insurance on the outbuildings, just in case.

This one shelters and shades the big henhouse:

But I noticed in the last few days that these trees... the last to leaf out in April of all the trees... .

are dropping their leaves already!

This is a random example.  As I cut grass tonight (doing 90%  of the mowing since it's supposed to get stifling hot this weekend)... I noticed along the north fence line that many of the trees there have been dropping leaves.  It's only July 8th for pete's sake! We have had a normal rain year, and only a few days of very bad heat, though we have about four coming up here starting tomorrow.  I do not remember leaves dropping this early, ever... at least ever that I paid attention to!
I noticed that there are many leaves down from the dying tree, as well.  Many years ago, wood companies would come in and take down walnut trees for free, but it will cost us about $1000.00 to take this one safely down, and send the wood away to be used somewhere. 
I wonder if the leaves falling so early is a prediction of weather to come?