Off to a slower-than-normal start, today. We went to a hunt last night and didn't get to bed until 2am. However, our beautiful and talented 'Emma Jolene' (Treeing Walker Coon Hound) won all the marbles, so it was worth it! :)
Off to a slower-than-normal start, today. We went to a hunt last night and didn't get to bed until 2am. However, our beautiful and talented 'Emma Jolene' (Treeing Walker Coon Hound) won all the marbles, so it was worth it! :)
First leaves on the San Marzano tomatoes I started last month. They are looking great and nothing is better for tomato sauce.
Diana, had my coffee! I am sure you had yours.
Thank you for all your work on this thread!
Finally Spring in Eastern Kansas! Rained last night. Looks like it will be consistently over 45 degrees from here on so I will be pulling off all the garden coverings off my rows! (Except the Broccoli and Cabbage. (A fabric insect covering is still better than BT spraying!) Will check on previously planted tomatos. (Put a heating cable down next to them under the fabric.
I recieved a thornless Raspberry Shortcake raspberry from Jungs. Its a tiny delicate little thing!
I need to up pot and start to get it used to sunlight and getting bigger! (Trying to concentrate on things that I can move at some point. I would like to move to someplace where I can see the lights of a town but not live in the town!)
This is a fossil found in Mongolia of two dinosaurs fighting to the death. A Velociraptor has sunk its deadly foot claw deep into the neck of the Protoceratops. But Tops fought back. It has thrown the Velociraptor to the ground before it, and its jaws are locked on to the predator's right arm.
Skull of Roman soldier who died in Gaul, 1st century BC
Pulpit Rock, Norway
Snow covered Siberian Tiger
I covered everything for our freeze earlier this week and it looks like everyone made it.
I’ll finish putting in the potatoes hopefully today, but we have a LOT to do outside so maybe Mon or Tues.
Congrats, Emma!
Oddly, we were hunting last night, too: trying to find the killer of a mammoth bone thief, at The Mammoth Site in town! A different team won, though we came close: missed the correct motive. Everyone had a blast, and enjoyed a fine meal, along with lots of wine. Nothing pertaining to gardening in the silent auction, so I ‘won’ a hot air balloon ride for 2, instead. LOL Murder-mystery dinners are fun.
Just a few stray flakes yesterday, as the ground continues to dry out. 3 weeks +/- to ‘last frost’: YAY!
Couple of weeks ago I planted a packet of leek seeds in a coffee can, full of dirt from the garden. I draped a plastic produce bag over the can, and left it on the kitchen table until they germinated.
This week I started placing them in the kitchen window by day; And recover them on the counter for the night.
Now they’re 1.5-2” tall, & I’m starting to give them a bit of outdoors time, to start hardening them off.
In another couple of weeks they’ll be ready to transplant. Hopefully, by using the garden soil they’ll be planted in, there’ll be less transplant shock when I put them in the ground. I used to buy transplants, but Bonnie stopped supplying them to our local dealers; and the local greenhouses don’t offer them, either.
Can’t have cock-a-leekie soup without leeks!
Have any luck growing primroses (cowslips)....supposed to be cold germinators?
My balcony garden is starting to come back to life after winter, and the hostas are pipping or even leafing out. Each day or so, I find another hosta or two has made it through the winter and pipped. Three of my heucheras are growing new baby leaves, but alas, little "Frost" didn't make it through the winter. Anyone know of somewhere I can find another dwarf heuchera "Frost"?
Can we see a picture: “Emma Jolene”
I must vent.
I tried to get the new garden fence up LAST year, it involved having the old one torn out, and trying to find supplies for the new one. (The old fencing had turned hot mess, and the ground hogs had “doors”)
Well, after bugging Mr.L with no results, I hired a collage kid to do the tear out. Best $150. I’ve spent in years! Mr.L did help move the old fencing stuff to the edge of the yard though.
That kid got most of the posts in, and the repurposed chain link panels in place - but we were short 4 posts AND garden fence and chicken wire. Covid last spring meant a run on all such things, so we couldn’t finish.
I did find the posts and the fencing after a few months had gone by, BUT it took until TODAY to finally have the last post put in. I don’t get seriously pissed too often, but I was really close over the long delay in Mr.L putting those last posts in. Man!
Now I also have to replace the garden fence on the back end of the garden. Because a few months ago, late on a winters eve, Mr. L saw that a herd of deer were bedded down in the garden (fenced on 3 sides/one end open) and so he crept quietly across the lawn ... then he started hollering like a fiend at the deer. Well he was standing in the unfenced end of the garden - so you know which direction the startled deer ran at! At least I know that my fence took the force of multiple charging deer - but it looks like crap now, and after all this work, I want it to not look like crap. Fortunately for Mr.L he jumped out of the way safely when the deer turned around and came out of the unfenced end.
Oh, and I brought a bitty Honda tiller. I ain’t waiting on help getting the soil turned. Not from Mr. L!
curdogmen said: also live in southern missouri..also raise meat goats ( we have kiko bucks )..we raise them because I'm afraid of working with big animals. all my neighbors think im crazy for breeding goats in cattle county. Never any problem selling buckling’s to eat. Be a bunch pissed off men, if he cuts off their meat supply around these hills and hollars.
I've got a 15/16 Boer, 1/16 Kiko buck and two full blooded Kiko does, one of them has straight New Zealand lines and one is USA so the papers I could get for another $100 would be different registries. I'm not worries about papers though.
Got them all last year as yearlings. The woman I got the 15/16 Boer from is a spoiled little thing. Every kind of farm animal you could think of and all very nice looking, including the dozen or so mini Scottish Highland cattle she had which run around $10-15K each.
I'm with you and her. I've always been afraid of huge animals.
Got the mostly Boer buck because they tend to add weight/thickness to the kids. Each doe only had one kid and the NZ doe is small so that wasn't too surprising. The USA doe is plenty big so I expected twins. We'll see what happens next year.
Little NZ Kiko doe had a buck, New Years baby and that little thing is chunky and pretty and will be bigger than her in a few months. I don't think I can put him in the freezer. Pretty sure he would be grade #1 at the sale barn but you can't just bring one to the sale barn. I think I can get 350-400 from a private sale.
Gotta do something with him before he impregnates momma or the other doe. With his fast growth and chunkiness, I'm half tempted to get rid of the original buck and let him have at momma and the other doe. One kid per doe makes me wonder if the big buck doesn't have slow swimmers or low sperm count. On the other hand, one doe was small and it was the first kidding for both.
The USA Kiko doe had a doe kid 10 days ago. Black, brown and white with markings on the head that make it look like a Spanish meat goat. Odd.
This is the buckling a couple of months ago? My conundrum. Keep him and breed him back to momma and the other doe or sell him.
Here he is with mom and dad.
Dad has the markings of a Boer but in black instead of red. This is a couple of weeks ago.
I'm using a High Tensile electric fence, of New Zealand design, so to keep with the unintended NZ theme, I'm wanting a breeding pair of Kunekune pig. The only true pasture pig breed. Minimal land damage with Kunekune due to their small size and short snouts.
How are you liking the dogwoods this year? Just going gangbusters here. Bright white and long lasting. Love it when they're still white while other things are turning green.
It was a crazy weather week here in Central Missouri. It was cool last weekend, then it turned cold for two nights and we got some snow, then it warmed up and rained Friday and Saturday. Sunny today headed for a high in the mid 80°s.
I have a feeling the two nights of sub-freezing weather wiped out my chance for apples and peaches. Those trees were in full bloom. Now, not so much.
My battle with the Bird Feeder Gang continues. Chicken thief #4 and chicken thief #5 now have a new home in my freezer.
Made a little progress with Mr. Clarence on Saturday, but I’m fighting a Woodruff key that’s stuck in the lift control shaft. I’m not ready to admit defeat quite yet, but it may come down to the smoke wrench to get it apart. The cylinder head is back from the machine shop with a nice shiny set of new valves, seats, and seals.
Been finding some morels, but they have been few and far between. Ran across some beer can sized yellows yesterday down in the river bottom. With the moist soil we’ve got and a few days of warm temps there’s still a chance for a bumper crop.
