Monday, February 22, 2016

Making a Homestead Part 8: Ready for Spring!



            Hey folks! I don't know how, but spring is just around the corner and I am SO ready! We've had a pretty mild winter again here in Indiana, but it's still kind of hard to get anything lawn, garden, and “homesteading” related done. Plus, being super pregnant and having a new baby doesn't help things. ;) But, since we have so many outdoor projects we would like to do and it's the end of February, we feel like it's never too early to start planning!
             We've been talking about and planning what fruits and veggies we would like to grow since before we even bought this house, so it's exciting that the time is drawing near that we'll be able to make our garden dreams come to FRUITion. (Sorry. Couldn't resist. ;) ) Sure, we planted some fall veggies...but only about half of them did ok. I'm a bit of a spaghetti squash snob and will only eat locally or homegrown (it tastes SO much better, seriously) and love zucchini, so I'm most excited about being able to plant those now.
             We still have an exorbitant amount of veggie seeds, but John went ahead and ordered some more from SeedsNOW.com. They'll get used eventually, right? Plus, we needed some more herb ones after our failed indoor sunroom growing experiment this fall. (Well, it probably would have been ok if we hadn't gotten lazy, replanted some sooner, and used better dirt.)
             John also got on some website (no clue what one) and saved a bunch of fruit trees we would like to order. The only thing is, while their website actually has pretty good prices, fruit trees are kind of pricey, so I'm hoping we'll even have the money to buy some this year. (Especially with pesky unexpected doctor bills.) I'm very excited about the prospect of fresh apples and pears!
             We took a trip to Rural King the other day for the heck of it...and naturally couldn't leave without buying a few things. Ha ha They had a display of berry bushes as soon as we walked in (Literally. They were between the two automatic doors.), so we couldn't pass up on those! Especially since they were only $5.98 each! We got a couple different types of blueberries and raspberries, including the fall gold raspberries, which are said to be even tastier than regular ones! Can you tell I'm really excited about berries too by all of the exclamation marks in this paragraph? Ha ha


             Homegrown fruits and veggies are cool and all, but I'm looking forward to getting chickens again even more. I think we only have one thing left to fix on the chicken coop, which is putting some chicken wire around the bottom of the outside to keep critters out. It's supposed to be warm this weekend, so hopefully I can talk John into getting that done. ;) Chicks will be arriving at the farm supply stores before we know it! In fact, they already had their chick area set up at Rural King and even had some Leghorns in already.
             Speaking of which, they had a poster up too at the beginning of the “chicken aisle” of different breeds of chickens from a supplier, so one would assume those are the types they will be getting in. We sure hope so because they pretty much had every kind we were thinking about getting: Barred rocks, Buff Orpingtons, a variety of Bantams, Americuanas, Silver-laced Wyandottes, and even Brahmas. (John really wants a Brahma, though I am not sold on them because they are HUGE. We're talking Chickenzilla, but I guess they're really docile.) We were originally going to “limit” ourselves to two or three different breeds this first year, but it's easy to go overboard once you get into chickens. :)

             So, what spring lawn/garden/homesteading projects are you most looking forward to?

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