The Boring Post

Today I passed a two family house on my travels.  You know the ones with the two doors, one per family?   It brought to mind something my son told me the other day.

"Ma?", he said, "You know what would be neat?  If us and Mema and Papa (his grandparents), and Uncle Chris and Sarah and Uncle Greg could all live together in one of those houses with all the doors."

It took me a while to understand what he meant, thinking he meant we should all live in the same house, which would not be a good idea, to understanding that he wanted us to live in a big house that was like little houses all stuck together, ie: a three or four family home.  Of course, his little boy frustration showed, and he got pretty ticked off that I did not understand him, but when I finally did, I said it might be neat, but in a way more to placate him and get him to stop growling at me than anything else.

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However, as I drove past the two family house this morning, I started to think that it really wouldn't be a bad idea to have a whole family living kind of all clumped together.  The children of the family could kind of be raised by everyone, and everyone could look out for one another.

Am I signing up for this anytime soon?  Well, no.  My family isn't a family of farmers, so there wouldn't be a whole lot of pitching in in that respect, but I know I could count on them to help with the kids.  But I see the appeal of having extended family living together in that way, which I never did before.  Possibly I'm just getting mellow as I get older.  Or just more of a hippie. 

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It snowed again yesterday, and schools were closed.  I got nothing done outside, and as there is still lots of snow on the ground today, it might be the same story.  I am supposed to plant spinach tomorrow, but there's no way that's going to happen right now.  I am happy to say, however, that the seeds of many things were planted last week indoors are percolating away in their little trays.  Every day I look for green, and when I find it, it makes me happy.

Planted right now?  Broccoli and tomatoes, eggplant and peppers, perennials and petunias.  They are all housed on this:

Which is a gigundigo shelf thing my mom built and gave to me because she doesn't grow vegetables anymore and doesn't need the space.  It has three shelves and three lights, and is completely fantastic.  It has quickly become one of my prized possessions and I love it because it holds SO many trays at a time.  It was a wonderful gift.

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The little eggs in the incubator seem to be doing well as well, and when candled last Thursday, all proved fertile.  One had died, but it left 11 very viable eggs behind.  Those are incubating away, and will be checked again tomorrow for growth.  Then it'll soon be time to shut off the egg turner and wait for those babies to hatch.  It will be nice to hear peeping once again in the garage barn.

Speaking of, I ordered hybrid birds from the feed store this year, which are due in today.  I love my heritage breeds, but they utterly failed me this winter, producing no eggs at all many days.  Their production is again beginning to skyrocket, but I can't be without eggs during the winter.  So I am turning to the Leghorns and the Australorps to provide me with year-round eggs.  The brooder will be busy again soon.

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I was looking around on the Internet the other day, and I stumbled across these:

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I think they were probably on Pinterest or something, but HELLO!  Where has that been all my life???  Strawberries planted in PVC tubes.  Genius!  They were originally designed to be part of an aquaponics system, as I understand it, but as I have no aquaponics system set up, I will use dirt.  Other people have done the same and seemingly planted other things in there besides strawberries.  I love this idea, and as we were gifted with a crudload of drainage pipe PVC by the previous owners of this house (just hanging up in the garage rafters), I can do it cheaply.  The only issue I can see is that they could not be permanent.  The winters are too cold, and that PVC will not insulate the plants enough.  Therefore, I will have to design them to be able to be taken into the garage in the winter.  Not a big stumbling block that I can see, but it will take a little thought.  But seriously, anything that can grow more crops in a smaller amount of space is great.  I think vertical gardening is the bees' knees.

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On the goat front, Cleo seems no worse for wear after her episode the other day.  She has had no more discharge and is acting just fine.  I need to get a hold of a stethoscope and get on her side and listen and see if I hear anything going on in there.  Either she's miscarried everything she had, or, it's my understanding that she could possibly only miscarry one if she had more than one kid in there.  I'd like to be optimistic about it, I really would.  I would like to have a listen and see if I can hear any heartbeats at all.  Her rear end is still telling me nothing. 

Minerva is getting really big, which is really something.  She looks like she's carrying two big water sacks on either side, and it's getting kind of funny.  Her attitude stinks, and she's cranky as hell.  Completely understandable though, as she's got three months left and she's already grown so much.  Poor bubba.  I have a feeling she's going to be huge.

Lilly goes merrily along.  She's getting slightly bigger, and her attitude has always stunk, so that's no help at all.  Now she's added disobedience to the pot, though, so that's been a change. 

Actually, that could go for all my girls.  They've all decided not to listen to me.  I yell at them, and they look at me like "Yeah?  What're YOU going to do about it???".    They are feisty.  I like that.  Not so much when it's time for them to go into their house at night and they all run away, but I do like a little feisty in my animals.  Shows that they're thinking.

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Dulci has seemingly lost her mucous plug, which should make me believe that she's definitely pregnant, but I'm still having a hard time believing her.  Don't ask me why.  It could be that she's put me on before about other things, and so I always think she's fibbing, or it could be that she's such trouble sometimes.  Either way, she is not getting big, but she's definitely shedding mucous of some sort.  Add to that that she was laying like the dead outside the other day--to the point where I thought she WAS dead--and I'd say that babies are coming in May as expected.  Maybe I have such a problem with it because she was my little bottle baby, and my little bottle baby is having a baby, and I'm having some sort of motherly crisis.  But I  really should just put on my big girl panties and get over it. 

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Ok, so maybe this post wasn't so boring after all.  However, there are some things coming down the pipe really soon that are going to be insanely big.  So stay tuned!  You won't want to miss it!