Time To Garden!!

Hello there.  I have a few random things to talk about today.  Our weather has been just beautiful!  We had a cold weekend, which was nice, but now we are enjoying temperatures in the mid and upper 80's!  You know what that means don't you?  Time to get that garden ready!!  Today I got my garden boxes all weeded and broke up the soil, making it nice and soft. This is my compost bin.  It is the kind that is three removable tiers.  You add your leaves and grass clippings, and garden waste, as well as kitchen compostables, like banana peels, egg shells, coffee grinds, fruit cores, and vegetable scraps.

I took off the top layers off of the compost bin, and dug out bucket after bucket of that rich, black, composted soil to add to my garden boxes. 

When I muck out the chicken coop, all of that hay and chicken manure goes into the compost bin.  I wet it once a week or so, more often in the summer, and turn it weekly with a giant pitchfork.  Above, you can see that I removed the top two tiers and stacked them just in front of the piece left on the ground.  That bottom layer was beautiful, black, rich, crumbly, nitrogen rich, composted soil.  FREE!!  And the best thing you can possibly add to amend your soil before you plant.

While digging the soil up to put into my bucket, I came across dozens of grubs.  The chickens favorite snack of all!!!  They came a running when I called them to see what I had.

See those white things in front of the hens?   These are like candy to chickens!!

The garden boxes still need a bit more soil added before I plant.  Hoping to get some of my things in this weekend.

This year I will probably plant less variety, and more of the things that we love to eat.  That means lots of tomatoes, cilantro, spinach, lettuce, sugar snap peas, melons, cucumbers, peppers, basil, and later in the summer, pumpkins.
With this warm weather we are having, I have been hanging the clothes out on the line again.  I love to do this.  The clothes smell so fresh and clean.
I hung this order I just finished recently.  It is all ready for pick up.  Five ear warmer headbands.

As the sun was going down, the chickens made their way to the safety of their coop to roost for the night.  I brought my camera along to say goodnight. Goodnight Tilly, Ham, Chickas, Sammy.

Goodnight Blue.   She likes to roost all by herself on the opposite side of the coop.

They have full crops after grazing in the grove and then having dessert of plump garden grubs!!!  Just look at those bulging crops!!

Yesterday, I went out to my Mom's.  We had such a nice day.  We drove to a little shopping center with a cute feed shop, and visited their chicks, and baby pigs and ducks.  Then went to Pacific Ranch Market and walked around in there to see all of their beautiful produce and meats.  They are one of the few places that sell Prime Beef.  And they do all of their butchering on site.  We talked to the butchers about lamb, and which is best, New Zealand lamb, or US lamb.  We found a beautiful boutique with terrific prices, and I saw lots of things I loved, and thought of my girls too because they would have loved this place.  Then we drove on a few more miles down the road and had lunch at one of our all time favorite places, Zov's Bistro.  We split salmon and angel hair pasta, and then shared one of their delicious, tart lemon bars for dessert.  After than, we went out to visit Nana.  We did some reorganizing in her place, to allow for more room for her to get around with her walker.  She was having a pretty good day, and I enjoyed seeing her so much.  After visiting with Nana, we were heading back to my Mom's house, and decided to pop into Home Goods.  The one by Mom's is so good!
I have been in the market for a new area rug in our family room.  They have a huge selection, and very good prices.  There were several that I liked, and after narrowing it down to one, my Mom said she wanted to get it for me for my birthday.  We also picked out a couple of new pillows for the sofa.  I was eager to go home and see how it looked.  But after a long day, and then getting stuck in traffic coming home, I decided to just wait to put it out today after cleaning the floors.  I love the new rug!  With the cream colored background, it really lightens up our sort of darkish room.

 

Tomorrow I am going to pull it down a wee bit so the lamp can sit all the way on the carpet.  I am also going to have to take down the quilt over the couch and find something to put on the wall.  The reds in the quilt don't do anything for the rug.  But Greg wants to leave it up.  We shall see.  Here is a close up of the colors in the rug.  I love the bits of red, my favorite color, and the sage green, and bold black.  All on a cream background.  Dusty says hi.

I love this butterfly pillow I got.

I am on the lookout for another shape pillow to add to the couch.  A bolster I think.

I love the way it brightens up the room!  I love it!  Thank you Mom!

And lastly, a little tip I wanted to share.  The other night, I made tostadas for dinner.  I had enough so that the next day, we had leftovers.  But I didn't have enough refried beans.  But I did have a can of Pinto beans in the pantry, which I often do.

Drain the beans, reserving some of the liquid to add to the pan if needed.  Pour beans into pan, and mash them up, adding back some of the liquid from the can to moisten if needed.  Pinto beans are frequently on sale, and cost a dollar or less a can.  Which is less than a can of refried beans.  So, if you keep some of these on hand, you never have to worry about running out of refried beans!  Just mash your own.  Or better yet, buy dry beans, and cook your own all day in the crock pot!  DELICIOUS!!!

That's it for me tonight.  It is going to be lights out, and go lay heady down time!!!   I worked hard today!
Night-Night.
XO  Kris