How does your garden grow?

Bloggers, readers, fried okra eaters, how does your garden grow? With starters bought, or seeds you start, spread out or all in a row? In February my sweet Mr perfect roto tilled the entire back yard for me. Each year before this I have had to use a claw. Tearing, ripping, twisting...and that was my hands, just to break up the soil. We went to a nursery this yesr to buy tomatoes and pepper starters. Last year the weather was so strange we didn't have much yeld at all. The rest of the garden was seeded when I put the starters in. As each sweet tiny seedling came up, yhe pair of doves that moved into our tree, swooped down and endulged themselves. My garden was consumed by two pretty little birds in a matter of three days! Back to the store...tons more seeds and BIRD NETTING! Being back at work, I only have mondays for the garden. Its strange to leave everyone. I miss the kids, I miss the hens, I miss my dogs, and I miss the dirt under my nails! I got to take the bird netting off this week and weed around the plants. Such a joy to watch each plant take shape, and watch the leaves change into specific types. Each Spring morning, especially after a good watering, there's so much growth! Noticible changes greet me and my coffee in the warm morning sun.

I Love spring lettuce mixes. Throw romaine and spinach into the row, and whip up some dressing, lunch or side salad in two minutes flat!

This old shed has proven invaluable for us. Pool, lawn, and garden supplies are out of sight. They barely fit, so its a tight squeeze! The shadows you see at the bottom right of the picture is the four rows of corn, and a small row of garlic. The corn is so small it will not photograph well unless I lay down, and I'm all ready for work!!

I love to stand and look across the yard. Our backyard is large. On a pie shaped lot, it wraps around the house. On one side is the dog run. The half of the center is pool and decks. The other half of the center is the patio and out door kitchen. The last section was lawn when we bought the house. We have a big ol plot of useless lawn out front! Who needs TWO lawns? What good is a lawn anyway?!? Well, where a lawn once lay, a sweet little garden now grows!

LET THERE BE TOMATOES!!!!! We love tomatoes. Because of work this year, I skipped beefsteak. Watering beefsteak is so timing specific so they don't split and get that ugly scar on top. This year there are Brandywine, cherry, and Shady Ladies. I'm noticing a few volunteers coming up where the heirlooms were last year, so I'll watch those. I am so excited about the tomatoes this year. They are, all 42 plants, fairing fantastic and growing, blooming, and vibrantly healthy! I'm planning to take a week off when production is over abundant, to put the bulk up. We will be making and canning tomato sauce, paste, stewed, and marinara. I would love to sun dry a few dozen julieanne tomatoes, and put them up with olive oil and garlic. We will have to see what time allows.

The radish, sugar snap peas, bells, hot peppers, & herbs are thriving. The watermelon is slow growing so far. Mr Perfect wanted to see how big a pumpkin he could grow, so he has pumkin sporadic through the yard. Its cute. I think next year I'll do cucumbers, zucchini, and summer squash again, and reduce the tomatoes by a row. Two years in a row, gophers got under the squash, so I thought maybe I could avoid them without their plant of preference. I really missvthe squash though, and so do my chickens. That was their favorite treat.

Do you garden? I know a few friends not in California that are still getting snow!! Poor cold weather states!! Can't plant in a frozen ground!! How desperately sad I'd be!! Can't wait to harvest the first production this year. Bologna and tomato sandwhiches, fried green tomatoes, BLT's.... yay! There's nothing more flavorful than a veggie right off the plant. Its so wonderful knowing its organic, and no pesticides are used here! Garden food for though...If you could grow any plant you wanted, what would it be?

Necessary Kitchen Attire

Howdy all! Has it been a good week for you so far? Here, at the Fried Okie's homestead it has been productive, but not a good week per-say. Oh well, I just keep telling myself when the going gets tough, the tough get going. Cliche as it is, it has helped. September has always been a really rough month for our family, every single year, for the last 9 years. We do not know why, exactly, but its a struggle to keep optimistic. We just face it, breathe deep, give it to God, and put one foot in front of the other. Here's how this week has gone for us. Friday, go to the bank, make deposit, and after a few un-expected bills, gasp at the balance in the account. Oh boy is it gonna be a tough week!! Saturday, find out that my hubby has to work, so I'm on my own for the weekend. Sunday morning, we discovered the spray paint my oldest had borrowed, got into the hands of our 3 year old. He tagged the side of our home in the backyard all the way down the length of our house. Then we discovered he had brought it out front, and I guess our 8 year old, and the two 6 year old neighbor girls, couldn't resist the temptation to become illegal artists. Two doors down there is a bank repo, and the kids decided it needed a deep rusty red zig-zag pattern on the pale blue vinyl siding. Monday, (repaint side of house, and the front deck) my neighbor came over pounding on the door asking if I knew about it. Yes I did but we wee going to clean it, talk to the kids ourselves, and get the whole story before we told anyone. Well, I guess we were too late! Tuesday, an unknown person drives up and take pictures of the tagging on the house....UH-OH!! Wednesday morning I promised to clean up the African Daisies in her back yard. I wanted to propagate some, and her's were growing over the boarder and almost into her pool. I started about 8;00am, and finished at 11:30. For an hour I took trimmings, and dipped them in hormones, and put them out to take root. At 12:30 I got ready to go buy a few supplies for cleaning the paint off of the empty house, and my car has a dead battery. Hop in hubby's truck, again, dead battery. Oh well I guess I game some Goo Gone, and SOS Pads...off to clean the wall. I started that at about 12:30, the kids got home at 2:00, and started "helping", we finished at about 5:00. As i walked home, my youngest had discovered the propagating daisies, and thought he'd help by "pulling the weeds" he said!! We are really getting a lot of teaching opportunities this week. I refuse to be deflated. I just want to do a few fun things this month. Here it is Thursday, and I am caught up on the house work, only one load of laundry to do, I am possibly getting the opportunity to go to a few cake decorating classes with a girlfriend, and I found this fantastic fabric I had and completely forgot my NanE' gave me, I really want to make a skirt with. I have some great ideas to finish decorating the office, cuz I'm tired of the office the way it is now. So I will be sewing. I love to sew. My sweet, perfect for me hubby, built me a sewing room out of the walk in closet in the office. Many a curtain, set of PJ's, pretty blouses, and costumes have come out of this, my favorite second floor room of the house!! Another item that tends to fly out of the sewing room, aprons. I love aprons. I am truly of a mind that one can never have too many aprons. That would be like saying I have too many shoes, or hubby has too many tools or too much money in the bank!!! That is treading too close to blasphemy for my taste!! As I am not the only one who works in the kitchen, I am not the only one who needs an apron. So today, we sew.

Jenna and Kaylee and their personalized aprons.

I sometimes get impatient, and my all of my sewing machines needed cleaning after I made these, so I couldn't embroider with it, so I did it by hand. This is the "J" for my Jenna's apron.

A pretty "K" for my pretty Kaylee

When my hubby gets home from church on Sunday, he likes to grill when he can, but has a tendency to forget to change out of his dress clothes. Well I can fix that, new apron! We fight playfully about who loves who more, so I started letting him win "I love you more", and I started saying "I love you best!" So this apron says "I'm Loved Best!!"

Gotta wear the aprons while making daddy cookies...

I have a blue apron just like the girls matching personalized aprons, but haven't embroidered the "MOMMY"S" on it yet. But here is my newest dress apron. this one is my favorite. I love the floral pattern ruffles on the bottom.

Here is the apron I wear the most. It is sort of my everyday apron. I had a heavy cord garden apron last year, I made and lived in last year, but it was stored under the sink in the outdoor kitchen, and there was a leak we didn't know about, and it had to be thrown away. There would have been no way to get that mold out of it! I was very sad. I loved the big loose pockets, perfect for getting the veggies picked, or gathering eggs,and keeping my hands free. I definitely need to make another one. I am off to stay caught up and maybe squeeze in a fun project. Many blessings to my friends. Remember, no matter how good or rough your day/week/month is, tomorrow is a new day! There's always a blessing to grab on to and lighten your heart. All of you, my sweet friends, are just such a blessing. Warmest wishes from this Fried Okie's Suburban Kitchen; and sewing room; to yours.

A visit to the Chicken Spa

Good Friday morning to you all!!! This may sound funny, but I love Friday for a different reason than most. It's garbage day!! I feel like we get a clean slate. No more trash!! Lol. I'm sitting here writing this post listening to the clunk, squeak of the sanitation truck in front of my driveway! Yay!! Okay, I'm doing things a bit different today. My hubby leaves for work at the ungodly hour of 4:30am. He loves his Bacon and egg breakfast sandwiches, so it's up at 4:00 for me. When he leaves, with sandwich in hand and warm coffee in his belly; I have almost three hours of *me time*. During this time, I usually get ready for the day, shower, dress, make my bed, clean my hubbys mess in the office, and then sit down and try to watch a few of my favorite TV shows I've DVRed. It's never dawned on me, for some reason, to work on the blogs during this quiet time. So today I guess I've done had myself an idea!! Lol. Second difference, this isn't a recipe. we will not be looking at pretty, fresh ingredients. We will not go step by step into a Yummy dish. Instead, we will be delving into the world of insects and waste. Yup, we're talkin creepy crawlies and poop!! Ready? Hold your nose, and get ready for a case of the itchies!!

It's a morning like any other. A few of my girls are early risers, and layers. I'm gathering the few early eggs, and getting ready to clean the coop and give the girls a treat(yes, they are incredibly spoiled, so much so if I don't clean and treat daily, they will not lay at all!)

Today, its pear and zucchini leftovers, and a bit of berry kefir.

As I went to pet sweet little J-baby, I saw a chicken lover's nightmare. Chicken Mites!!!! Oh no, tiny, biting, blood sucking monsters! Ugh. Well, we try as hard as we can to stay organic, without pushing it to a level that hurts us or our animals. We do not use herbacides, we pull weeds. As a general rule we don't use pesticides. So plan of action, wood ash, baths, and diligence in cleaning...

We are in for a long day, and truthfully, most other chores are going to get behind, but here we go. Logan gathers the eggs, as I grab a few veggies for tonight's supper.

I sent Logan in to go change into scrubby clothes while I weeded the garden a bit, and when he returned there was one more egg.

Out of my five girls (no roosters allowed in Good Ol Rio Vista:( Only two have mites bad, but it is just a matter of time if we don't get on it now, before all are ill and loosing feathers.Here is J-baby's back. If you look closely, you can see tiny white specks. Those are the young mites.

Here, even though hard to see, Goldy Locks has them even crawling on her wings. Poor baby!!

The top of J-baby's head, next to her ear where I saw the first mite.

My laziest hen, Goldy Locks, is always laying down. She rises to eat and drink. I don't see her rear end often. So as I inspected all of the girls, I was shocked to see how many feathers she has lost just under her vent.

If I had been a better chicken mommy, I'd have done this as I brought new girls home from the breeder, but only two weeks before I had purchased three hens from the same breeder and they were fine. Well I am doing it now. As I spread Goldy Lock's tushy feathers, I gasped. At the base of every remaining feather was a bundle of mite eggs. Oh my goodness, there were so many!!! *sniff sniff* Well, if you aren't feeling itchy yet, just wait. Ha Ha!!

Remember its around 8am, no make-up, work clothes, and glasses....the chickens got all the primping today!! So I started with the girls who had little to no mites. I was trying to get them done quickly, so I could focus more on the hens who needed TLC. This is Jade, Logie's chicken. She is a huge Rhode Island Red, about 8 months old. She liked her bath, but strongly objected to holding still as I used the blow dryer to dry her off. On the ladies who had no mites, I simply used Dawn dishwashing liquid.

This delicate little one is Victorious. The breeder I got her from also breeds Goldendoodles. Somehow little Victorious, or Tory wandered into a dog pin, and had to be rescued from the mouth of a rambunctious pup. As a result, she has a few perilous injuries. The most sever being a compound fracture of the left hip/thigh. Had anyone there known how extensive the injuries, I am sure they would have put her down. The wound has healed completely, but horrifically. She gets around with ease. Her eyes are bright. She is thriving, but the bone has healed outside of her skin!!

As this little girl was set into the water, she just melted. She floated and floated. I felt mean taking her out. I just still had so much to do. I think the warm water helped her feel better, and the floating took weight off her hip.

Jade is preening up a storm. It is as if she knows how pretty she looks clean, and is going to pick up where I left off, Apparently I do not do it as well as she!

So as Victorious floats, The two washed and dried birds, D.B. Pecker (Dayton's hen) and Jade are running around the warm restroom pooping everywhere!! Oh the mess they made!!

When you are blow drying a chicken it can be completely different each bird's turn. This is Jade shaking her head "no!" at me.

Jade also turned around, aimed her tail at the mirror, and let 'er rip in protest! This was the filthiest bathroom in the history of all my bathrooms!

To add insult to injury, Jade then ran across the counter, knocked the girls cup over, and tried to tuck herself in the sink!

D.B. Pecker, on the other hand didn't seem to mind or love the blow dry. She just stood there and looked at me like I had grown 6 heads!!

D.B. Pecker is the head hen in this small community of fowl. She is ornery, and a complete bully to the other girls, but a treasure to hold, pet, and play with. She is our best layer, and very cocky.

She knows how good she looks here. Boy if you could have seen her strut her stuff!!!

Here is Goldy Locks. She is a lemon Orpington. She is the only hen we have that isn't a Rhode Island Red, and occasionally she is ostracized. i am looking for another orpington to keep her company. Any ways, she is my chicken. My baby. Worst layer in the hen house, impatient, and loud, not to mention lazy. But today she was the Queen of Sheba. She, and Jenna's girlie J-baby, had the mite infestations. So for them, instead of just counting on the wood ash dust baths they take in the coop, I used flea and tick dog shampoo, to try to jump start the annihilation of the minute vampire buggers.

Now, you wanna talk about different experiences with blowing the girls dry?!? Goldy Locks LOVED it!! Never before have I seen a chicken roll forward, to rest on her breast and stretch her legs out behind her, but Goldy Locks just fell into this strange position and fell into a sort of hypnotic state. She seriously would have laid there all day, with her bum in the air, letting me warm and fluff her pretty golden feathers. I couldn't get her to move. I couldn't get to her breast feathers, so I had to lift her. I had to manipulate her wings manually. When I finished, I had to pick her up, and rest her on the ground.

I started this project early. At 4;00 pm my son was on his was out the door to go to football practice, and I was just finished scrubbing the coop, changing the bedding, feeding and watering the girls, and putting them back into the coop. What a day this was, but again, like most days, I was amazed by the completely different attitudes and personalities each of these birds have. They are each one different as night and day. Well, This fried Okie is pooped, pooped on, and itchy all over. I'm gonna hit the shower, and say to y'all...I hope your kitchen is warm, your bathroom is clean, and your chickens bug free! Heartfelt hugs to all of you, and hurry back for great eats at this Fried Okie's Suburban Kitchen!!