Tuesday, May 29, 2007
as i predicted, the warm air and sunnier skies have kept me (and the entire family) outside instead of inside reading and writing. and i find myself having a hard time finding something to blog about. so...do i leave the blog alone for a while and let it grow cobwebs until the cooler air returns, or do i just write about what has been keeping us busy? because what has been keeping us busy is basically what i've been blogging about for...oh...the past five entries.

are you sick of hearing about the gardens and the chickens and my boys? if you are, you are invited to read the next highlighted blog in your bloglines account. because this entry will be no different than the past few. if you're still around, i'm flattered.

last friday afternoon, friends of ours from pittsburgh took time out of their busy lives to come to our home and help us figure out just what we have growing in our gardens. the perennial gardens just have us perplexed. our friends gave us amazing advice on how to treat and relish and enjoy our bushes, gardens, and trees, and identified many of the gorgeous flowers growing in our beds. we feel so much more confident in our ability to keep our grounds watered, fed, and beautiful in the years to come now that we know what we're housing in our soil.

several colors of foxglove, purple miniature iris, white iris, lupin, poppy, and jack-in-the-pulpits are our strongest plants, and are becoming my favorites. i'm waiting for the poppy to break open its bloom...but everything else is opening up. i honestly don't remember half of these flowers in the garden last year.

and our row of peonies? there are literally hundreds of bulbs bending their stems over to the ground, covered in ants. i read that you can cut them when their bloom is full, but not-yet-opened, so i cut and brought a few inside (after is hook out all the ants). they smell incredible. and they are slowly opening up now that they're in a vase.














our chickens, now fully free-range, have ventured farther in the yard each day. i walked out the front door this morning, and three chickens greeted me on the porch. we lost track of 5 of them...orwan found them hanging out behind the AC unit on the other side of the house. they're learning to get into their coop all by themselves around dusk, and can't wait to leave the coop when we let them out in the morning. they enjoy their freedom just like college freshmen.

Wednesday, May 30, 2007 1:39:40 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 3:27:15 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
This is exactly what I want to read about in your blog! I love the pictures! Always, more pictures! Do the chickens let the boys come near, or do they run away? How often do you have to do hawk/dog/fox watch?
Wednesday, May 30, 2007 11:03:06 PM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Wow - beautiful pics!
Thursday, May 31, 2007 12:16:45 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Dad spent this afternoon at Ted's house in Fox Chapel. His back yard area is covered with fox glove - Ted said it repels deer.

Love your pics....

Mom
Thursday, May 31, 2007 1:39:10 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
ellen - the chickens RUN AWAY when they see the older two boys coming. i think it has something to do with the fact that rowan cannot get it into his head that you don't tease, swipe, throw/drop any sort of small animal. HELP! how do you teach this to young kids? sawyer seems to have a grasp on it...rowan? he could care less. i keep trying to tell him that if he wants the chickens to be his friends (like he always says they are), he needs to let them come to him and pet them. we show him over and over....argh. it's just timeout after "no more chickens" with him every day. can you tell i'm frustrated?????
foxglove repels deer...that's interesting. we only have a few of them. i should look into planting more.
does one find these plants at nurseries, or do i have to order them through catalogs?
~liz
Tuesday, June 05, 2007 2:12:33 AM (Eastern Daylight Time, UTC-04:00)
Beautiful flowers, beautiful chickens! Have you posted a picture of the coop yet, and I somehow missed it?
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