Rainy Spring

I've been postponing planting our garden. Yes, we are now in Hawaii and for the most part it is warm throughout the year. So why not plant any old time? I'm nervous. It's rains quite a bit around here, which is a good thing, but this is not a nice gentle rain. It will be sunny one minute, then suddenly we are faced with a torrential downpour! Man does it come down hard. In an effort to not drown my seedlings, I've decided to wait just a wee bit longer. Maybe till mid or late April.

I've been very antsy about this whole planting thing, (must be all the gardening catalogs) so I planted a few papaya seeds, my potatoes (which were bought from the health food store, it seems only sweet potatoes are grown here. We'll see if these grow.) and some almost dead lemon grass from a friends neighbor. Heather makes the most amazing lemon grass tea, so her son pulled a plant for us to take home and plant but I waited too long and it pretty much died. I trimmed it back and planted it with hopes that it will revive itself! See below... pathetic I know!


lemon grass before planting

White pineapple planted back in October

Bella and Noah with Chickens.

The kids are still crazy for the chickens. These poor gals get chased around the yard constantly. It's amazing that in about 4 short months... they older girls should be laying! Noah has become quite good at catching them, and is working on taming the less friendly ones.

Last night I made a long list of things I'd like to grow and shared it with Jaime. He basically laughed and said he wonders where am I going to plant all of these things? He has a good point... I may have to turn over more of the yard. I think my biggest hang up has been switching over to a tropical garden. Most of my left over seeds are for things that enjoy Seattle's much cooler climate. I'm very excited to try melons, peppers, and eggplant. I may even try to grow some peanuts! There are so many heat loving plants... the switch over shouldn't be to difficult.

Playing Favorites?

We are not supposed to favor one over the other...right? We are supposed to love them all equally...yes? And I do, I think. Most of the time. Or maybe everyday I have a new favorite? There are enough to have a favorite for each day of the month. Thirty one to be exact. Thirty one little chickies. Some living in a temporary coop in our carport, the others a bit younger and living in a cardboard box on top of our dryer, with a lamp to keep them cozy.

Our first batch (26 of them) arrived in early February. Two were dead on arrival, and within the next 48 hours, six more died. We later read somewhere that you can expect 25% of the day old chicks to die within the first couple of days. So there you have it. When the girls were about three weeks old, we had them outside in a run while we were in the house. I heard some major chirping and freaking out, I looked out the window to see a mongoose running to the bushes with two of our chickies. I could not save them, I was just too slow. We were down to Sixteen chicks. A good friend of ours adopted five, so we are left with eleven. A very manageable sized flock.

We have:

3 Buff Orpington

2 Rhode Island Red

2 Black Star

2 Barred Rock

2 Araucana

Araucana (my favorite for today)

We loved our little chickies sooo much, we went a little crazy! You see, we thought we needed more. They are just that cute! Not to mention very entertaining. Oh and did I tell you how much the kids love them? Bella begs to carry them around all day long. When I say no, I have to deal with major tantrums. You know what else?? They eat bugs. Yep, lots and lots of them. They especially seem to love the little roaches around here that totally creep me out. So, UMMM yeah, we ordered more. Twelve more.

They arrived late February. All 23 of them. Yep, we ordered twelve, and received twenty three! The second batch was from a different Hatchery, one that they guy at the feed store recommended. They sent the twelve that we ordered, plus eleven males (didn't specify the breed) for warmth. We lost only three of them. HMMMM Now we have all these little boys running around here. Guess we're gonna have to eat them.

In the second batch, we have:

1 Silver Spangled Hamburg

3 Araucana

3 Buff Catalana

3 Rhode Island White

Silver Spangled Hamburg (also todays favorite)

The girls get lots of love around here, and the older ones are becoming quite tame.

We should have our first eggs in July (crossing our fingers).

(Blogger completely re-formatted my post, so it's all squished together. I'm to Html illiterate to fix it... believe me I tried! Doing more harm than good)