Four Weeks

Miranda and Taylor have been spending some time outside.

Night time has still been a bit chilly out,

but they should be able to make the big move 

to the outside chicken yard very soon.

I was cleaning out their indoor brooder this afternoon

and peeked outside to check on them.

And sure enough,

Miss Daisy was standing guard. :-)

Just like she did with my first little chicks.

I also have one more little chick to raise this spring.

Meet Jenna Rae #2.

My poor Jenna Rae #1, my best laying Rhode Island Red, 

recently met an unfortunate end 

in a tangle with Bubba. :-(

Linking up with Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #106

Spring Gardens

Mr. H. and I finally got going on our gardening for the year!

In the last month we've had work, travel, 

out of town soccer games 

(my daughter's high school team went four rounds in the playoffs!!) 

sickness (me) and a sprained ankle (him).

Needless to say, extra time has been hard to come by. ;-)

Mr. H. got me a truck load of gardening soil

and built several raised beds.

He lined each one with weed barrier.

While he was doing that,

I was busy weeding out the horribly over grown cutting garden.

I planted sunflowers, zinnias, and daisies. :-)

This year in the vegetable garden we planted -

tomatoes, peppers, squash, okra, cucumbers, beans, and carrots.

Linking up with Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop #106

How does my garden grow?

Well, it's a little behind schedule this year.

But, that's ok. :-)

We're reconfiguring where we're planting things.

Four new raised beds were built for me last weekend

by Mr. H. and son and hopefully this weekend we'll get things finished up.

Potatoes and onions are doing nicely though. 

Deer Spotting

A half mile or so down our road,

we have a neighbor that has black buck antelope 

and axis deer on his property.

He also has at least one sika deer

that has been jumping some fences.

We've noticed him several times across the road from our house

visiting with the neighbors.

My husband left the house this afternoon,

and as he drove out of the drive he noticed 

that the sika deer was in the pasture.

I walked across the road to get a picture.

He came closer.

And posed for me. :-)

And then took off!

While I was outside this afternoon

I also spotted another deer

in our yard -

 "Bucky the Backyard Buck" 

Poor fellow,

I think he's seen better days. ;-)

Adding to the Flock

This spring I've added two new chicks to the flock.

Here they are at one day old,

10 days old,

and three weeks old.

Taylor Swift is a Black Australorp

and Miranda Lambert the 2nd is a Silver Laced Wyandotte.

(She will replace Miranda Lambert the 1st who I lost last year
just after she was one month old.)

Reeses

Barn cats just come with the territory when you live in the country.

We love them and we haven't seen one mouse in our feed shed in three years!

And we store a lot of feed in our shed. :-)

This little girl was born in the spring litter of 2011

and we've watched her grow up.

She was named Reeses by the little neighbor boys 

that use to live behind us.  

More than the other cats, though, she has really attached herself

to our family.  The other ones come and go, 

sometimes we don't see them for weeks at a time, 

but Reeses thinks she lives her at our house. 

She evens puts up with Daisy. :-)

~bluebonnets~

We love our bluebonnets down here in Texas. :-)

And we've had a banner year for wildflowers this spring.

Our highways are gorgeous!

We planted some bluebonnet seeds on our property

 the first fall that we lived here, back in 2010.

We knew it would take at least two seasons for anything to happen,

and sure enough, in the spring of 2012 we had some pretty bluebonnets

pop up in our yard.

This year we've had twice as many.  

The beautiful bluebonnet - state flower of Texas. :-)

Show Time!

Hank the Duroc is all grown up and ready for the county youth stock show.

He was good pig.

So much more gentle and laid back than the rowdy

Wille and Waylon

from last year.

It's always a little sad

the evening that a pig is loaded up.

Even when you know all along that

after the work is done

he's not coming back home,
it's still hard.

The Friday before the show,

the kids get the day off of school 

to check in,

get their pen assignments,

and get their animals clean and ready.

It's always a fun day for the kids.

Lots of hard work, 

and usually a nice lunch out.

And, then, before you know it -

it's show time!

Proud of my girl. :-)