The Wednesday Write-Up

-They say gardening burns 272 calories an hour. I'd have to say it feels like a lot more. Over the past four days I've spent about nine hours out there digging, raking and planting the hundreds of seeds I bought back in February. I forgot how much work that was! After laying out the garden with an online garden design tool, I then had to find a way to keep that design in the actual garden. I thought about string or flags but ultimately settled on baling twine. You know, the string that keeps hay bales together with? Well I have about 4 million miles of it and finally I have a good use for it. I flagged out the corners of each bed and strung the twine in between. I figure I'll remove the twine once the plants start growing and I can tell where each bed is by the plant growing in it. At this moment I've got 3/4 of it planted, with the last quarter mostly being tomatoes. I'm enjoying the walkway through the middle of the garden, it's sure nice having somewhere to walk that I know won't squash anything.

-The tomatoes, basil and peppers are being hardened off this week. It's not a good idea to just take your seedlings and plant them directly into the garden without a "hardening off period". It's a time when the little plants can get accustomed to outdoor conditions.....like wind in our case. So all this week they are spending most of the day outside and then brought in at night. I've started in the shade and will eventually be in a sheltered sunny spot. I hope to have them out in the garden next week sometime.

-Another thing that is leaving my house besides the seedlings? The chickens! They are officially in the hen house now. They haven't been integrated yet since they can't eat the laying hen food until they are 16 weeks old (too much calcium too young can cause unexplained deaths when they are older). So for now they are in a small dog kennel in the hen house at night and transported to the big outdoor dog kennel during sunny days. With all this daily handling they are becoming quite the tame chickens.

-Last but not least I shall leave you with a picture I snapped yesterday. I was talking to my mom on the phone and looked outside to check on the kids who were playing in the back yard. I found them both with their pants down attempting the pee on a tree. Actually it looked like Wesley was trying to teach Greta how to pee on a tree. Let's just say it was not successful. She did manage to fill her shoes though. *smile* Child rearing is always a treat.