Meowy Versus The Mouse

Where: Dan's workshop
When: the other night

Mouse: 1
Meowy: 0

Meowy Versus The Mouse © May 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

What's Growing, What's Not

Daylilies have just begun blooming.

May has been a month of harvesting the last of the winter garden and planting for summer. The fall and winter garden have pretty much wound down.

Garlic has been harvested

Multiplier onions are next

Sugar beets and kale are still growing.

The kale is Lacinato, an heirloom variety and new for me. A keeper!

It's mild, tender, and tasty. Here's some sauteed with carrots and onions.

I don't remember what lettuce this is. but I
want seed from it because it never got bitter.

For the summer garden I've been busy getting growing things in the ground.

I had about three dozen tomato starts.

They've all been planted and most are doing very well. 

I transplanted pepper starts too.

Do you remember the survivor strawberries Dan found last January and I transplanted in the hoop house?

My one little bed has done very well.

We didn't get many, but it was enough for a
couple of batches of strawberry pancakes.

Some of my potted potatoes.

Potatoes plants grown from grocery store organic potatoes.

I planted cowpeas in the potato bed.

My rice is doing well, though I admit I pamper it. I worry that our current hot, dry spell may be unhappy for it.

Loto rice, a short variety.

Cho Seun Zo Saeng grows taller.

Other things that are doing well:

Crabapples

Starks Moonglow Pears. They are sweet and spicy.

Hops. I say it's doing well but I lost 2 out of 3
plants. Here's hoping this one is a female!

One of our hay patches with sorghum-sudangrass. 

Some things haven't done very well.

Only a couple of cucumber plants came up so I replanted.

I had to replant my corn too.

Still to plant:

Sweet potato slips. They'll go in soon. The potted flower
was a mother's day gift from my oldest granddaughter.

This one was from my youngest granddaughter.

I don't know what they are but it's perfect to grace my barn bench.

So there's what's growing (or trying to grow) around our homestead. How about you?

What's Growing, What's Not © May 2019

by Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com

Back to Square One

About three weeks ago or so, I told you about the challenges of weaning bucklings ("Growing Up is Hard to Do.") It took awhile, but finally, things were starting to calm down and the little boys were crying less. Sunday I brought the girls up to the paddock adjacent to the little guys. I fervently hoped it wouldn't start another hollering session, and for awhile all seemed well.

The Boo Hoo Boys wanting to get out.

When Dan and I went out to do chores I went to get the girls but they were gone! Turns out they had broken into the puckling pasture and everybody was one big happy family again. The problem was the gate between the two paddocks. The bolt latch can be worked open if the gate is bumped often enough, which is why we have a chain on it too. Somehow the goats had rubbed and stood on the gate panel enough to loosen the latch, but the chain wasn't tight enough to keep the gate shut. The girls has worked their way through the opening.

Henry, Eddie, and Jesse James

Separating them again was a first class fiasco. All the goats were running around and hollering. Finally I managed to get the girls through the one gate without the bucklings following them.

The girls were glad to go back to the barn because it was feeding time. But the little boys were heart broken, and have been crying ever since. It wouldn't be so bad if it was the typical goat call of "maaa, maaa." Instead they've been screaming! High pitched and shrill like a bunch of little girls who've just just seen a spider. I thought we'd finally gotten over this! I hope they settle down again soon.

Back to Square One © May 2019 by

Leigh at http://www.5acresandadream.com