Got the easy part done.

Last year, we moved into our rental house in the spring, and I rushed, rushed, rushed to get a garden area set up.  Because of the time crunch, and some corners I had to cut, I had a major weed/grass issue in the garden. 

This year, rather than mess with that, problem, I have decided to start with raised beds, hoping the fresh dirt reduces the weed problem.  Today, I started AND finished building the garden bed frames.

I wish I could take credit for them, but while I did put them together, the fact is, it was a kit I bought from Home Depot...and it was truthfully the easiest home assembly I've ever done.  The only tool required is a drill/screw driver, and that is just to attach the little square caps on each corner piece. 

Now comes the hard part.  Some math shows me that filling all 4 beds will take roughly 1.5 cubic yards of dirt/soil/compost and I will need another 7 or so cubic feet of gravel to make nice walkways in between the beds.  The walkways were added by my wife since the beds went together 'so easily'. 

I should have drug the assembly out a little longer. 

The disappoinment of reality.

One of the neat things about moving into a house over the winter is the excitement of getting to see what type of things are going to show up in your yard the first spring. 

Case in point is this cute little 'Fairy Ring' that showed up in our backyard in February.

 

After two months of anticipation, reality has set in, and that 'Cute Fairy Ring(my wife's terminology), has turned into the World's Saddest Tulips.

 

 

 

 

After however many years of being relatively uncared for, and something eating the holy heck out of them this spring, my wife want out and looked at the 4 blooming flowers and told me I can mow them down whenever I want to.  



Kind of has me hoping that the vine we hope is wisteria on our back porch turns out to be wisteria.   

That's...unanticipated.

Earlier this afternoon, I had some time to kill, so I swung into Ranch and Home to look at chicken supplies.  While I was there, I decided I would take a look at .243 ammo since I bought my daughter Santa brought my daughter that Rossi Trifecta for Christmas, and I don't currently own any .243 ammo. 

I haven't bought ammo for a while.  I'm not saying I had a bottomless supply, but I do have enough .22, 9mm, .38/357, .223, 7.62 X 39 and, yes, even .35 Whelen, that I haven't had to think about buying ammo for close on a year.  I have heard horror stories about $40 a box .22, but I haven't seen it, because I haven't been looking. 

Well...I saw it today, not the $40 a box .22, because they didn't have any of that...BUT, I was stunned to see that they only had 2 boxes of .243...and both of them were in the $38-$40 a box price range.

Good Gosh...last time I was shopping for ammo, I could get some premium 7mm Rem Mag ammo for that price...and still have enough left over for a box of .22. 

Guess my daughter is going to get some more practice with the .22 and 20ga barrels before she gets to try the .243. 

The things some people collect.

At some point in the last few months, we(my wife mostly) decided we were going to start a new collection...lard cans!

Like most things, it started with one...in this case the big 100 pound Vream can my wife got to start storing her yarn in.  I can't really remember which one was 2nd, but after that, I deserve at least part of the blame.  When you know your wife wants to collect something, it makes gift shopping real easy.

Making my life easier is the fact that we are an inclusive family...in the interest of harmony, shortening is the same thing as lard...and as my wife sit here and watch Hoarders: Buried Alive, we have already agreed that the can collection is limited to the top of the hutch.  When it starts spreading, we kill it. 

A moment of weakness.

In our attempt to embrace the urban homestead/increased self-sufficiency lifestyle, I planted to plum trees in the yard, and got several containers of greens going good and early.  Soon we(my back doing the work) will put in a few raised beds for real veggies. 

Now, after two weeks of being constantly beset upon by my wife and kids, we made a purchase today which will lead to more work:

 

 

Yup...our very own 'chicken tractor'.  Next step would be getting the chickens.  I guess that might be kind of backwards, but we found this on craigslist for a very fair price.  So fair that we decided if we were going to do this anytime in the next 6 months, that we should get the coop/tractor now. 

 



However, now that we actually have the place to put the chickens, I'm sure the chicks will be here shortly.

As soon as we figure out what kind we want...

Thank you, drive through.

Sorry...only allowed one distraction a night, and tonights distraction is Turbo-Tax.  When all my stuff came in back at the end of January, I did some quick crunching and found out we owe again this year, so, I decided it could wait until April.

Well, April is hear, and I'm running out of days to stall...especially when I'm only 75% certain where I put everything when we moved. 

Might need to call my buddies ENRON to help me out this year...

Okay, I'm ready for winter.

Today was, by all accounts, a beautiful spring day.  Temperature about 76 degrees, with a nice 5-10 mph breeze all day.  Pretty close to perfect, just like yesterday was.  This amazing spring weather encouraged one of my plum trees to pop into bloom this last weekend, and the other is close behind. 

 

 

As nice as it was today though, I'm already sick of it....because I realize that here in the Tri-Cities, 76 degrees on April 1st means we are only 6-8 weeks away from it being 95 degrees. 

 

Ick, Ick, Ick.  I really need to get my garden going...stat.