Trying to get a jump on spring

And trust me that is a tough thing to do around here right now. Seems as tho winter is wanting to linger longer than we would like, but we don't control the weather. Rodger got my greenhouse set back up a couple weeks ago and I still have not been able to get my cabbage seeds started. Its not like I need a ton of things in the cabbage family but I need what I need. I was hoping our really cold weather would ease up a lil bit before I got the seeds started an they sprout. The cabbage family can do fine in cold weather the biggest problem is damping off in the greenhouse. And that is something you really have to stay on top of or chance losing all your seedlings. I have in the past just used a peroxide water spray to control the disease. I hope to get those seeds in this weekend. But with no more than I will be starting, maybe 3 flats, less than 100 plants of all things cabbage, I am thinkin I will just use my counter in the summer kitchen for those till the super cold weather spell is past. Then hopefully it will be safe to put them in the greenhouse for the remainder of the growing period. Fingers crossed. We are forecast to get snow, ice, rain, sleet and shit and stuff and things this weekend. We will see.

Well we did decide to go ahead and build a smaller addition onto the big chicken house up here on the hill to raise the meat birds. It should be big enough to accommodate the 25 birds I am starting the season with. Rodger and Jason got that task done last weekend. They went from this:

The floor on Saturday morning was the start, and time wise, 3 days later this is what we have:

This is a 6ft addition onto the west end of the hen house. It would be so nice if chickens were not such creatures of habit and the hens would just move in the new residence. But I am sure if I tried that it would mean going out at dark and carrying each bird to the new house. They would sit down at the door of their old house. So I will leave them be and put the new babies in the new building. Then once they are butchered off and the building is empty I can put new young pullets in this section. Hopefully as I hatch chicks this spring and save out the lil pullets I intend to raise them in this new section so it will be home to them. After the young bird get close to laying age we will be butchering off our old flock and that will leave the bigger building empty to raise the fall round of Cornish for our winter meat supply. I will let ya know how my plan works out. OK stop laughing, its not done yet. I got my heat lights, bedding, feed at the ready, vitamins and all set to get my babies first of the week. They will only live here about 6 , no more than 7 weeks till they are in the freezer. When we have several days of warm dry weather forecast I will paint the outside of this building to help protect it even tho it is built with exterior grade plywood. Yep, another paint project.

Speaking of painting, I am still not done on the inside of the house as of right now. I did finally get the closet section painted in the bedroom/walk-in closet off my bedroom. I has nice heavy shelves in there to hold all kinds of stuff that was sitting all over my closet/craft room. Much neater and at least I can safely walk in there and come out with all 10 toes intact. I have had to take it easy the past few days as I have had another round of mild bronchitis I guess. Have not felt good for a few days. I did feel some better today and managed to get another coat of paint on the walls in the master bath. The paint was not old enough to really need to be totally painted but needed touch up where the paint for some reason looked thin. So another project off my list. I actually think there is enough paint left in that can if it remains good to totally repaint the whole bathroom in a few years when it needs it again. I still need to buy the paint to paint the inside of the pantry in the kitchen. Sounds like a good lil project for a crappy weather weekend we are supposed to have this weekend. IF and thas a big IF I feel better. Have to wait till tomorrow to see how that goes. That will leave the living room and master bedroom to paint and I might be done. At least till I get another harebrained idea.

I have at last got my garden seeds out and all sorted to see what all we have and want to plant. Not sure how I did it, but I have managed to let us run out of cucumber seed. Panic time!! Well not really. I did find that Lowe's sells organic and heirloom seeds. So I guess my next trip out of town will include a trip to Lowe's to pick up some cucumber seeds so we have them on hand at planting time. It is still really wet in the garden right now but Rodger thinks he might be able to get in there tomorrow and at least plant our peas. No we did not get them planted on Valentines day like we wanted to. But I think it is still early enough that they will do fine before really hot weather hits. Peas do not do well in heat. The earlier you can plant them the better they will produce and the pods of the Sugar Snap peas will be super tender and crisp. It has been to wet and cold here for us to get in the orchard an prune the fruit trees. That needs to be done really soon before they start to bud. But you do what you can and the rest has to wait.

Not much else happening here on the farm, so till next time, blessings from the McGuire homestead.

Stella