Life can be fun in the country.....

So the day before yesterday I'm sitting at the kitchen table trying to find someway to work from home online.  Yeah, even us hillbilly country girls have the internet and want to work from home. Me especially, I think if I can find a job online I could get that much closer to our dream of owning our own property and closer to fulfilling our dreams of having a small farm and produce what we need ourselves.  

Anyways, I was sitting at the table and a woman knocked on the door. We rarely get anyone knocking on the door so it startled me. Lol. When I opened up the door it was a Census worker at the wrong address.  The great part of it was when she noticed our hens had laid more eggs in the chairs. I laughed when she seemed socked and told her I can't stop them.  They just find another way to get on the porch so I've basically given up hope of keeping them out of my chairs. She laughed at that. She was very friendly and yes folks, wearing her mask like a good girl. I did get a chance to give away some of those eggs collecting that we just can't get ate in time. She took two dozen thankfully. I was thrilled. Plus, it was nice to help out. I think the funniest part was the look on her face when I told her the hens lay in my chair instead of their nesting boxes.  Heck at least I don't have to go out in the rain or cold to collect their eggs, just to feed them. Hope everyone is having a great day. Keep those hens happy folks. They'll make you a fun conversation and maybe a new friend.

Long time no...... yeah, I goofed.....

     Wow, Sorry I absolutely got lost here.  The last post I made was around the time we adopted our beautiful daughter and being a new mom and all that entails I completely forgot that I had started blogging. I owe everyone who was following and apology.  I really am sorry that I got so wrapped up and blanked but honestly, can anyone really blame me?  At the time our daughter was born I had just turned 42.  I'm 45 now with a very active 3 yr old who is the absolute joy of our lives.  We're still no closer to the homestead that I have spent so many years dreaming about and honestly, I'm ashamed to admit I haven't even planted a garden since Gabriella was born.  I do however plan on starting one this next spring.  Where we live currently had some drainage issues that had to be fixed so gardening this season has a no go.  It's all fixed now,  The whole yard flooded every time it rained. It frustrated me but our daughter thought we were making her yard into a huge swimming pool for her. Which honestly is cute and funny.  Since everything is fixed now and we no longer have to swim to the hen house I'm enjoying our place here even more. 

     At the beginning of spring my cousin brought me 11 hens who had been "retired" from a local hen house.  Nice way of saying they thought these ladies were to old to lay enough for the industrial hen house they were kept in.  It took several days for them to come out of the hen house without me having to coax them out.  Now, they run to me when I come outside. I whistle for them when it's time to feed them and they {although I really, really wish they wouldn't} have taken to laying eggs in my wicker chair on the front porch. Nasty, I know. Can't use those chairs to relax anymore.  It seemed funny at first and I got a baby gate to keep then from being able to get onto the porch in the hopes that I could save my chairs. NOPE. No such luck. They get on no matter what I've tried.  I've finally just given up and let them have those two chairs and I'll stand. As hilarious as this sounds or gross, depending on what mood i'm in I am grateful that they lay so many eggs. Although, I can't use that much. I'm getting between 16 to 21 eggs a day and sometimes one or two more than that.  We don't eat that many, these girls have never been allowed to sit and hatch, so I have wound up giving away sooo many eggs that I don't have enough people to take them.  That's the good thing I guess about having hen house hen's.  I grew up with chickens. I've honestly never seen hen's who wouldn't sit on their nests.  I didn't think that was possible.  It's not like those girls just don't have other hen's or roosters around to show then because they do. They just won't nest. I'm really stumped and have just given up on that and I have decided that I'll just use an incubator to hatch them off when I get ready to next spring.  No big deal I guess. Hopefully by then they will have realized their nature is to sit on a nest and make life easier but guess we'll have to wait and see won't we.

    I hope that everyone who does read this has a great day and I'll be posting on a more regular bases from now on.  As long as I can remember to save before Gabby gets close.  Yeah, this is my 3rd time writing this out.  She's 3. I'm tired and sleepy and honestly I should save more often than I do when writing. Lesson learned. 

Good night folks,

Jen

 

Planning ahead

So, I usually spend more than my fair share of time planning out what I want to plant this coming spring in my garden and how much of this or how much of that, yadda yadda yadda kinda thing going on and honestly, I can drive myself crazy with it. LOL like everyone else I guess.  I do tend to over think how much will it take to be able to feed my family fresh fruits and veggies once they start coming in and how much more I should plant to be able to freeze and dehydrate and canning and then yeah before I know it I have decided to plant 30 acres of food crops for a small urban city yard. Which, everyone knows is certainly NOT 30 acres lol.  Ok, so maybe in reality it would only take 1 or 2 acres but I still don't have that yet.  I long for the property.  I drive pass large acres and droll over them.  Always thinking about what it would look like if I owned that place.  We are working towards at least 5 acres though.  Hopefully next year we will be able to put a nice down payment on a 5 acre plot and hunker down.  Until then, I dream.  And, I plan, and plan, and plan..... 

So, I do know that if I'm going to eat fresh and freeze, dehydrate, and even do the canning of all the veggies that it would take to feed my family I would still need the space to grow it.  With limited space brings creative minds and new ways of thinking. A few years back I found the best solution I could and all I can say is  OMG why does everyone not garden like this?  Wanna take a guess at what I'm talking about?  Some of you orobably already know and some might even guess, but for the newbie.... VERTICAL CONTAINER GARDENING!!!!  It's not only a way to grow the amount of crops one might need to feed a family but it's also a beautiful and quit frankly movable if need be, way to garden for those city folks who just want to actually taste the foods they are putting in their mouths.  

Years ago, I started container gardening.  I know you can have more benefits planting in the ground when it comes to certain aspects but with the container gardening you can control almost all aspects of the garden your growing.  There are several ways of doing this and it not only works in small movable containers for the city folks but can also be adopted to work in larger container grow beds for those who own their property but want to be able to do other things with the property besides a large garden taking up the entire space.  

I've grown everything in my container garden beds and controlled not only the soil with proper composting and worm bed growth but also the water in the beds making sure that even in the most dire of a drought, I don't have to really worry about my garden suffering any.  I have some great pics of my own container garden beds as well as some truly GENIUS folks out there and how they have managed to turn a 5 X 5 area into a garden spot growing up to an acre of veggies. 

Wanna see some of mine?  Here lets look :-)

 These are a few examples of mine, not to eye catching I know but the got the job done.  The last picture here, held the same number of plants that a 10 ft. section of a garden would have taken up.  Not only did I only use what 2 ft of space since the pvc pipe is mounted into the top of a 5 gallon bucket, but I had it 6 ft tall and angling the plants roots on each side they had more than enough room to develop and produced more peppers than I could even give away.  Not only did I love that all my garden was in these movable beds but it came in handy when my husband and I moved during the middle of growing season.  Any other way and I would've had to have left them in the ground for someone else to enjoy all my hard work.  There are some beautifully made vertical planters that can save you space and not to mention the time weeding.  How about we look at a few? 

• Meiwo 7 Pocket Hanging Vertical Garden Wall Planter For Yard Garden Home Decoration
• 
  

• A6007 Four Season Vertical Zen Micro Garden Planter Succulent Cactus Small Plants Herbs Planting Cylinder System

• 5 Tier Stackable Strawberry, Herb, Flower, and Vegetable Planter - Vertical Garden Indoor / Outdoor

These are 3 of my favorites and this spring I plan on making my garden not only productive but beautiful as well.  With these type, one can grow more than a single plant in the same space that one would normally grow.  There's not worrying about weeds taking over and let's face it, most people these days are just to lazy to pull weeds.  I should know, I'm one of them even I'll pull the weeds and keep my garden looking and producing better I'd rather not have to worry about those pesky little vermin to begin with.  

So, have you starting planning on how you intend to raise your garden yet?  It's playing out in my head all day lately.  Especially since I can't wait to see my daughter helping mommy put the soil into the containers and poking seeds in for mommy and just having fun getting all dirty before going to the creek to go swimming.  Ahhhh, summer hurry up, it's cold right now and I sure don't like the bite of the frosty breeze and a ton of clothes.  So ready for the shorts and tank tops and of course the flip flops and bare feet......

Hope you all have a great day and begin planning how your garden will look this year.

Christmas wishes and dreaming of spring

Good morning everyone :-)

     It's the day after Christmas and like me we're all tired and full and mostly glad all of the holiday bustle is over.  I love the Christmas season.  I love seeing people being more friendly and acceptable of others.  But, I DO NOT like all the crowds of people in one place.  No thanks, I'll come back another time, lol.  I know most people look forward to what they get as gifts, me? I look forward to seeing family and friends.  My favorite part is the meal.  When everyone is talking and joking and just having fun.  This year is our first year as new parents.  I've never been so happy. Our daughter is 7 mo 2 weeks old this Christmas season and all I could think about was how I can't wait to see her helping plant our spring garden.  All the muddy mess she will make as "helps" mommy plant vegetables and fruits.  By then she'll be walking and talking up a storm and just the thought of it tickles me.

     To be honest here, Gabriella is teething. She has 2 on the bottom and 4 just came through on the top.  I'm sure all you you pro parents out there know what this time is like.  It's really the only time she gets fussy and it's hard to concentrate on blogging or talking about what I want to accomplish this year so today, this is going to be short and sweet.  Although I have lot's I would really like to say, she comes first.  So for now, I'll calm her down and day dream of the garden and our eventual small farm that I can't wait to get going. 

     I hope you all have a wonderful day and dream big of the gardens your planning on planting this spring.  See you tomorrow. 

Starting over

Good morning world.  I hope everyone is having a great day so far and not to stressed out about the Christmas Season lol. 

I thought I'd introduce myself , again. I tried to start a blog twice now but I kept letting life overwhelm me I guess.  I'm sure we all do this from time to time.  I now feel like my feet are firmly on the ground and I can start posting more often. I'm a garden-holic lol.  I love my plants. Rather they are to produce food or just to brighten up our home, I'm totally addicted.  My husband actually jokes (although I really believe that he is actually serious) that we live in a jungle with all of my plants.  It's winter time right now and we're in a slightly bigger house now so it doesn't feel to me like there's that many plants in the house right now but who knows? 

I do know that I can't wait for sping to arrive where this year I'll have a little helper planting seeds.  Our daughter is 7 mo old right now so it'll be a lot of fun watching her make a mess playing in the soil and water.  I've got my list ready for things to start as soon as the time is right where we can plant our garden. I've always wanted our own small farm and "homestead" although I just thought that a "homestead" was the norm in small town USA. Growing up we always had our garden, chickens, rabbits, quail, a goat once. It was nothing new to see pigs in this yard or cows in that one.  It was the norm.  Now it seems the world has changed too much and as I grew older that was no longer the norm I had been used to seeing.  It's really heart breaking.  

Needless to say when the times began to change again and more people began starting small back yard farms and gardens and making them the "IN" thing to do with the small homesteading movement it tickled me more than you could imagine. It seemed like people realized finally that the ability to grow and produce your own foods is the best way to go.  I've been addicted to watching the videos on YouTube of all the younger families starting and succeeding with their homesteading and it just thrills me with delight to get a notice of yet another new video of a new family sharing theirs with the world.  Yes, I know, it does'nt take much to excite me lol. 

The whole homesteading movement has been wonderful to see catch on and people all over this great country popping up showing theirs off and giving me that guilty pleasure of vegging out to video after video as I day dream of having more of a real small farm life again, the way we had when I was a kid.  My husband and I don't currently own our own home, so, with renting I've been more of a container gardener than anything, but a girl can still dream can't she?  Of course I can.  I've learned a lot about container gardening and gardening in general and I've become obsessed  with learning how to set up, run, and maintain an aquaponics  garden.  I really wanna try that!!

So, I've decided  to start blogging about my gardening passion but I don't want to be limited to just my love of gardening on my blog.  There's so much more to me than just that.  I love knowing that knowledge is power and if I learn how to make this or fix that then I'll be able to accomplish way more and have to pay out way less if I can do it myself verses paying someone else to do for me.  

Growing up, I learned that if something needs done then do it yourself.  My dad was an excellent carpenter. He could build anything and did a lot of it with reclaimed or found materials.  My momma, was the Best upholster out there. Together, they were perfect for teaching us kids how to fix what needed fixing and how to see that the ugly, crapping things found can be turned into this beautiful piece with a little time and patience.  I'm grateful that I learned these things from them.  I'm not half as good at those things as they are but I know with the right mindset and attitude I can learn and do whatever I set my mind to do.  

With that being said and a huge thanks to them for raising us this way, I can eventually have my small "homestead" and not be intimidated by milking the goats or processing the chickens and rabbits because, well it's like riding a bike once you learn to do it, you always know how.  

I hope everyone reading this can get excited with me as the garden season approaches and we eventually get our own land to "homestead" on.  It's still funny kinda to me that it's called homesteading and not living.  I am from the south after all and pretty normal here lol.  So, I hope you enjoy my posts and grow with me as we grow and expand.  

Have a blessed day everyone and see you soon.

P.S. Don't forget to check out one of my other sites to see what gardening or wood working supplies we have in store.  You just may find something that excites you as well.  Thank you, Jenn

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