Sunday, February 27, 2011

Saturday, February 26, 2011

While the cat's away

Hubby & the girls had an outing to our favorite local garden store (while I was at work) to get more garden seed.

We've been talking about the importance of flowers to entice pollinators to our vegetables.

I am sure this is the first of many more outings 'cause, can we really have too much seed?






















Oh yeah and Hubby also picked up this monster . .

#3 in our spring flock will be . . .

Polish Crested are ornamental chickens that have been known as a pure breed since the 16th Century. They are prized for their "hairdos"- they have mops of feathers on top their heads. They have a small v- comb and large nostrils typical of crested breeds. Polish commonly lay 2 small cream coloured eggs a week and are non-sitters. They are known to be docile and may be bullied by the other hens.

The family was pretty vocal on getting another "chicken with an afro" (as our old neighbors in Minneapolis called her) We chose the "Buff" colouring this time.

44 days and counting. . .

Garden porn

Today I finally did about 1/2 our seed order. Admittedly it is a little late, greens can be planted already (and have been with last year's seed) indoors (yea! south facing windows!) Not only that but a few of our personal selections were sold out for the season. That will teach me to procrastinate (or not)

Seed shopping online was great! I had my list and had websites open from 5 seed companies whose catalogs we have been perusing for the last 4 months. I went through our list, occasionally asking Hubby's opinion, adding items to each cart. I have always preferred the printed page to other options (no Kindle for me) However this was the best of both worlds. A winter of leafing through the beautiful photographs with a pad of graph paper and a pencil, then comparing the difference between items grown by different companies (i.e. triamble squash & triamble squash)

Today I ordered from these 2 companies. We definitely lean towards open pollinated &/or heirloom. Although mostly on principle since we have not yet tried to save seed from year to year.


Thursday, February 24, 2011

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Thanks to the family in Pasedina

I got sucked into blog surfing last night - looking for as much commentary for the urban homestead kerfuffle as possible. Thanks to Crunchy Chicken I found many other blogs of people like me to sift through. This may end up a time waster, or it may give me new ideas. On those nights after work and the kids and hubby are sleeping it is at least a better time waster than TV surfing.

On the home front I have been weeding - in February. Where did this month go anyway? We got our first seed order from Gurney's and 10 (3-yr) crowns of purple passion asparagus will be sent later on, but nothing else is yet ordered. The hen house is yet unbuilt. Time to get in gear - spring is acommin'

Many thanx to Alex and miss nan who helped us put the Urban in Urban Chicks Farm this last week. Hubby turned 40 and we had a swanky cocktail party.

Monday, February 21, 2011

Urban Homestead trademarked

There are many people talking about this - people way more eloquent than I.

Here is the link to my favorite blog post about it so far from undermoderated

Does this post title mean I will get a letter too???

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Winter's here


After reading another blog out the NE about small animals freezing we brought Cadbury in for the night. We set him up with a straw filled cat carrier with food and water, but he is perfectly content under the couch. The poor cats are being terrorized - he charges them.

I am told this is record lows for our area. Schools were canceled and the roads were empty. Lows are predicted between -16 and -26 tonight. Compared, however, to most of the country it is downright balmy and clear with only an inch or so of snow on the ground and very little wind.

None the less, I will use the dryer for our laundry.