From This to This in Two Months Flat

It is so funny to me how much difference a couple of months makes in Idaho. The top picture I took today and the bottom picture was taken in May 2008. Huge difference. Thank goodness. I think last year we had 3 more feet of snow than we had this year so I know spring is right around the corner for me too. Which means it is time to kick the planning phase into overdrive and get my "to do" list prioritized and organized. I always have a big list, heck... I wake up with a list everyday. But this year some of my projects are doozies and I want to be prepared. Actually, I want the help (husband) to be prepared. If he knows way in advance all I want to accomplish, then he may humor me as none of it will be a surprise. Pretty sad to make a list to make the list. I am big on note taking (now, not when it mattered), so it helps me to bullet the items I want done with a clear list under each of the tasks and supplies needed. This year I may go for broke and add a time frame to my list. That ought to get his blood pressure up for sure. The "help" hates to have a time frame to live by. On second thought, maybe I will keep the time frame part on a private list and let him think it was all his idea while gently pushing him in my planned direction. See, I am may be learning after all.

Did I Forget Anything?

I decided to post my list of plants to grow in my garden this year so you all could help me remember what I forgot. I am planning as much from seed as possible without the aid of a greenhouse and trying to buy as few actual plants as I can. Seed sowing appeals to me. Maybe after the chicken house project is done, I will begin laying hints for a greenhouse. So here it is.... THE LIST:

• Corn Bodacious, Honey 'Pearl
• Dark Red Kidney Beans
• Pinto Beans
• Kentucky Wonder Wax Pole Beans
• Kentucky Blue Pole Bean
• Top Crop Bush Bean
• Garden Pea Green Arrow, Maestro
• Onion White Bunching Lisbon
• Red, Yellow and White Onions
• Leeks
• Beets Detroit Dark Red
• Broccoli, Hybrid Premium Crop
• Cucumber National Pickling, Miss Pickler "Pioneer", Pearl Hybrid
• Swiss Chard Mixed Colors, Fordhook Giant
• Lettuce Bon Vivant, Buttercrunch, Red Sails, Rouge d'Hiver, Red Salad Bowl, Simpson Elite
• Spinach
• Squash
• Zucchini
• Cantaloupe Hybrid Alaska, Field's Sweet Gem
• Watermelon Crimson Sweet
• A few gourds on the fence for winter crafting
• Carrots (maybe)
• Strawberries
• Bell Peppers (all kinds)
• Tomatoes (all kinds)
• Potatoes
• Hot Peppers Jalapenos, Cayenne, Serrano, Green Chili kind?
• Cauliflower?

So let me know if you think I have omitted anything vital. I have a pretty good sized raised bed garden and will be adding a 100x40 row garden in our north field. Room won't be an issue. I just want to can and preserve as much as possible. My mom wants to help, this way we use my space and free well water, she helps me weed and put up the harvest. I might have got the better end of the deal there.

First Time Canner

This past summer was the first time I have ever canned. Yep, every year we eat as much as we can fresh and give away as much as possible. No one locks their cars around here until summer harvest begins. Then you can't find an open car to "donate" veggies to if you try. Something about un-found veggies in the Idaho heat, I don't know. Anyway, I have a friend who is the master home preserver for our county and she steered me in the right direction as far as up-to-date info goes. She recommended the Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving and the Ball Blue Book of Home Preserving. But because I am simply neurotic about not killing my family, I also purchased Canning and Preserving for Dummies. When you are trying to learn something as important as proper food handling and preserving, you don't want to screw up. I had a disastrous encounter with canning tomatoes many years ago and I must say after much reading, I now know what they really mean by "core" a tomato. I read everything in my local library and all three of the books I already mentioned. By the time it was time to can I felt pretty good about it. One bit of advice I will pass on is that Great, Great Aunt Millies old Fashioned Green Bean recipe may be out of date by today's standards and maybe should be reevaluated for safety. Food is simply different now days and some things aren't as naturally acidic as they once were. Modern recipes are the safer way to go. I am really looking forward to this years harvest. I will expand my canning adventure to encompass pressure canning too. This way I can can more vegetables and salsas and... you get the picture.

The above picture is of some of the things I canned this year. I used a steamer/juicer to juice elderberries, wild plums and blackberries. I then canned the juice so I could make jelly with them later. I made bread-n-butter pickles, dill pickles, applesauce, salsa verde, stewed tomatoes and a few other misc. things. I am really excited to see what I can put up this year. It tends to redirect your garden plans. Why plant 6 tomato plants when you can have 30? See what a problem this may create?

Blotanical... another winter addiction

A few posts back I admitted my new found computer networking addiction. I would have lost my marbles this winter had it not been for the "research" I am able to do with the help of DSL and all that is holy. I read a ton about chickens, backyard orchards, garden rooms, canning, bread making and now....Blotanical. I may be hopeless until I can go outside again. I started my blog because I love to read them but couldn't find much with styles similar to my own. So I started blogging and stumbled upon this site and haven't looked back. I check it like I checked my Facebook when I first started. I have found so many bloggers with so much fantastic information that I couldn't possible see them all. Not enough hours in the day. It is like one stop shopping, except no shopping involved. People from all over the world have created links to their blogs on this site and the sky is truly the limit when it comes to finding things that interest you. I have really been interested in community gardening for some time now and there is a lot about that there too. Not like I have time to community garden when I home garden but the idea still fascinates me.
So if boredom reigns this winter (those of you that still have winter), head on over to Blotanical and check it out. You won't be disappointed.

Backyard Chickens Here We Come!

Spring is bound to be on it's way to Idaho too. The mud is proof of this and I can't wait! I spent a large portion of time reading about raising chickens. It has taken me nearly 2 years to convince my husband that it would be great to have laying hens on our place. Unfortunately he took the chicken house down a few years ago (it ruined his view he said). So in keeping with my plan to have chickens, I drew him a new plan, bigger and better than what we had before. I read him excerpts from http://backyardchickens.com/ and took him on "tours" of some of the very nice chicken coops I know of around here. He was finally sold after standing in the coop of the egg lady's house for 45 minutes and not smelling an odor or being attacked by rogue hens. I read every book at our local library and most posts on the site I mentioned above. If anyone is interested in raising backyard chickens, that site has an absolute wealth of information available. It can be highly addictive and easy to spend countless hours reading (I call this research) what others have done that worked or didn't. My OCD personality needs a very neat and orderly chicken house so I am very glad to be building a new one rather than renovating an old one. My plans are drawn up, my chick order planned and now the weather needs to cooperate and I will be on my way!

Rescue Goats

I know I have talked about how we came to be pygmy goat parents but this is about the conditions from which they came. Doyle did some calling around and checking Craigslist for a while before he agreed to go pick them up from a place about an hour away. The original plan was to get two babies, similar in age. When he got to the little goat farm there were 85+ goats on 5 acres or less without a blade of grass in sight. These animals were living on a dirt knob without shelter and without the ability to forage for their own food. Few had been socialized with humans, as is the case with Mama Goat (Clarabelle). As a result, Doyle decided removing a mother from the breeding population was a prudent idea. So the mother goat, above, and her 4 week old baby, Clementine, came to live with us. When we got them home, they were both infested with all three kinds of goat lice, had worms and the mother had very little hair on her whole body. Her head was nearly bald and her coat in general was falling out in large clumps. Off to the vet we went. We deloused, dewormed and brushed the heck out of these two. The mother goat hated to be brushed because we had to catch her first. The baby, on the other hand, loved it. In the picture above my daughter is offering grain treats to Clarabelle, it took her weeks to even get this close. For the entire summer we kept them in a dog run close to the house. This run is big and has good shelter. We wanted them to get used to the other animals and us being around all the time.

If the baby, Clem, were to climb on your back now it would not be comfortable. She came to us at 8 lbs and now tops the scale at about 45 lbs. We laughed when we saw this picture because she looks so skinny in this picture. She is nearly as wide as she is tall now. Definately a hoot and a half! We added Ollie to the bunch a few months ago so Clem would have a playmate. All three goats have beautiful coats, have hair covering their whole bodies and are likely overfed, which is the case with all of our animals. If you have thought about these little guys for pets I highly recommend it. Just make sure you have a good, safe place to keep them and time to play with them. There is always someplace to rescue them from!

Snow, Snow, Go Away...

I have mentioned in earlier posts that I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of spring. Most generally I enjoy the heck out of winter but two long cold winters, back to back, are starting to wear me down. I have been blog-surfing a lot (which may be the understatement of the year), and looking at everyones green makes me feel like spring will eventually get to Idaho too. It's coming, jut not fast enough. If it's going to be this cold it may as well snow, then water would be a bonus this summer. These are two angle of the same raised bed garden, in two very different seasons. You can't even tell what is under all that snow. I can't wait to add more to my flower beds this coming year.

See how my scattered mind is working these days? I was talking about raised beds but my mind jumps to the flower bed in the picture. I am all over the place with my garden thoughts. Planning has always been half the fun for me, so I am still working on the garden room plan and will post progress on my draft later. Thank you to all of the folks who have sent their thoughts on the idea. I will definately be adding a curved stone path, a garden bench on a matching stone area nestled in the corner. I am getting excited.