Garden, berries, and sunshine

We got so much done last weekend, I wish I had another long weekend. Especially this one, as I woke to a pale blue sky stretching from horizon to horizon.  Beautiful.

Garden- Tomatoes, basil, and cukes are in the ground, finally. I have more basil to plant, but it's nice to have so much out of the way. LJ also got some corn planted, and it may just have a chance. I can't remember the name of the variety, but it has a lower germination temp than most, and a much shorter length of time til harvest. Maybe this weekend we'll be able to get the peppers in the ground, with expected high temps tomorrow to give them a little boost. I'm also planning on getting my beans planted, at least this first round. They've been sprouting between damp paper towels in the cupboard for about a week, and are ready for some soil before their roots start latching onto the paper.

Onion sets are well on their way!

Berries- Awhile back, I wrote about a vendor of mine that had been pushed out of his job by a company he'd worked at for over 20 years. Well, he got snatched up by a competitor, and is now my vendor again! On Monday, LJ and I went over to his house, invited to help thin out his raspberry and strawberry patches. Woohoo! We came home with around 10 raspberries, and many more strawberries. He and his wife have been doing a lot of landscaping lately, and he also sent me home with a handful of big black plastic nursery pots. Score! Now I can repot the itty bitty baby apple trees I bought at the garden fair in May. We planted the raspberries in the rain when we got home. They were droopy for a couple days, but soon perked up. For the strawberries, we needed to pull a stump that was on top of a little rise in the driveway. LJ dug most of the dirt out from around the stump, and yanked it out with the tractor. After smoothing out the top, we planted the 4 currants (2 black, 1 red, 1 white) and a ton of strawberries around them. It was really the only area we had to put the strawberries, as the only other place is around the house, which is a serious slug zone. I hope they do alright. If not, I suppose we'll try again somewhere else.

Not pretty, but at least they're in the ground.

The meat chicks are growing rapidly, and they really do creep me out a bit. Unfortunately, I don't have any pics yet. The turkeys are doing well, but are nuts, and cleaning out their brooder is always a challenge. They are very good at escaping, and can fly a bit already. The Royal Palm is especially tricksy. Hope to get pics up of them soon.

Piggles and bits... The pigs are getting huge. We got a weigh tape to try and estimate their weights. If we did it correctly, they're about 140 lbs. Nuts! They sure are fun to have around the farm. Very photogenic, too!

Rest of the weekend... We split and stacked around 1/3 cord of alder. A buddy of mine at work snagged me some really nice pallets, so we were able to get the wood stacked off the ground. Now, I just need to pull out all the wood that's seasoned for this winter, level the ground on the other side of the shed, and restack it all. Ugh. Very good exercise, at least. And, we'll have nice dry wood this winter. Excellent.

And that's about all for now. Hope everyone has a lovely weekend!