Saffron!!!! Look :O)

Ok guys, I had to show you... yes its the wrong time of year for this. Should from what I have read bloomed in the fall. But we have had a mild weird winter. Its been what 2 years in the making..... I picked this today!!!!!!

So yall remember back when I saw some of my saffron bulbs had rotted due to alllll the rain last spring. Well we all discussed what to do .. leave the good ones. Dig them up and try again in another bed. Well I decided to leave them. I found enough good ones digging around in the bed that I figured as fast as Saffron is suppose to multiply I would be ok IF they lived.

Well this year when I thought for sure well I lost them all as they didn't come up when I thought they should.... then they shot up green stems and I knew I had not lost them. e

But the darn rabbits had a field day with it... I had to get out there and redo my wire low tunnels and cover with something... Which took me way to long to get to but I at least knew they were alive and from what I saw I had every bit as many as I had planted and maybe more!!!

So finally I redid my low tunnel hoops out of 1/4" steel rod (well actually honeyman bent those for me) then I covered the whole low tunnel in fruit tree netting. So the rabbits could not get to them at all to eat them....I figured it was way to late to see any saffron but I knew that I still had a bed of bulbs alive and so I was a happy girl...

Then after the rabbits couldnt get to it to eat the green tops off to the ground.. It shot back up and I thought maybe I might get a few blooms.... Wha La I got one today! Maybe I will get a few more.

There is are reason they call farmers eternal optimist! Its been a 2 year road to get this little fella :O)... but I am feeling realllllly good about a full crop next year!!! Knocking on wood!

Whats going on with me....

Hi guys, I am still here. I get out in blog land when I can and read. :O).
I have not been posting, so sorry. Just sooooooooo short on time right now.
Nothing bad, actually good! Business is good with my drapery workroom and I have decided to take on a farmers market as well. I know, what on earth was I thinking?
Wellllll I am thinking I would rather garden than anything else I can think of!
It is what makes my soul sing.
Sooooo I am trying to move in that direction, gardening for us and also see if I can make a bit of a biz out of it.
In the past here, a farmers market was a market where people were selling imported produce usually from Mexico (we do live in Texas) it was the same stuff you found at the grocery store. Sadly that is still what is at a lot of "farmers markets" it makes me crazy!!! :O(
BUT now organic, local grown has finalllllllly caught on. I have found a farmers market within driving distance in a town to try out.
I am going to keep my drapery work room open as well. I am trying to juggle both.
I enjoy reading you guys blogs as I can and will continue to do so. I will also post as I can.
Thanks for hanging in there with me.

Baby chicks, a new threat, Coyotes aka Coyodogs?

First off,,, the 13 chicks that hatched out in our incubator. They are still enjoyig life in their tub. When they are fully feathered out they will go to the chicken corral and coop to live with the other chickens. They are various ages due to Goldy stealing eggs remember LOL.

I have been saving eggs and plan to hatch another batch :O). This time all the eggs will be hatched at the same time pretty much LOL..I plan to to put them in the incubator January 10th... 18-21 days later we should have a bunch of new chicks :O).

I am a bit concerned with our plans to turn the chickens loose in the yard. We have a large chicken corral that is fenced but they have picked it clean. We have so much they could be eating and debugging :O)....so we decided just let them go during the day and coop up at night. Up until just recently this would be great......

Welllll now we are having issues with what could be Coyodogs. Coyotes that have cross bred with large feral dogs. I know they are not regular coyotes I have seen one up close.. whew.... They are not afraid of people or dogs! They just look at you like ya, ya I am going.. or according to one neighbor they growl at your dog and you! They do not run from anyone. So far us and two other neighbors I am aware of have encountered them. There is a pair and then there is one HUGE one... they look like coyotes but are furrier and bigger and much braver!

The first one I saw I kept thinking that is a coyote.... ummmm I am pretty sure.. But let me tell you the thing was huge. Keeper was barking like crazy at it through the fence but not far from it... It had come up behind our chicken corral.

It didn't run from Keeper and it didn't run when it saw me either!!  Was very glad there was a fence between us all! Yes Keeper right at a 150lb Great Pyrenees was going off like a rocket and it just saunters away like ok, ok, keep your fur on... ... Oh it left but it took its sweet time... then we saw the pair, they are a bit smaller, in our pasture.

The neighbors and us are on full alert. Its not a good situation.  They are very sure of themselves and are coming in way to close to livestock and humans in broad daylight! The pair was encountered by one of our neighbors right up in their yard by their back porch, they didn't run, they growled at the neighbor and their dog! This neighbor was not able to umm well take care of them. But would have had every right to do so given how aggressive they seem to be. Another neighbor has seen one of them in their pasture, he has cows and several are due to calf in the next few weeks. As you can well imagine he is so watching the pasture. He is well capable of handling the situation should need be.

I then encountered them when I went out for a run. Our driveway is 1/4 mile long. As I was running up the drive to the road I saw them cross our driveway the pair, needless to say I turned around, ran back to the house got honeyman. They had disappeared by the time we got back out there....We have Skittles to worry about being out in the pasture. Not to mention our chickens!

Always something on a farm. Predators are always a concern but when they get this brave.... they become a even bigger one!

Merry Christmas

...I hear the angels singing,  hallelujah ...Let mother earth receive her king.........

     .... Merry Christmas to all of you guys....

Brain fog, good grief

So today I get up and get all dressed up. Drove 45 minutes to a Interior Design shop that I do a ton of work for. I make lots of roman shades for them.
They invited me to the company Christmas party. Yes this is the shop I was working for at one time, that is now one of my clients.... after I opened my own drapery room again. So I put all my goody bags in the car for everyone. I am all dressed and ready to... 45 minute drive later I am there... I walk in and I hear the owner of the  shop say

" looks like Sandy got her days mixed up" ummmm???? excuse me?

Guys I was a day early.. GEEEESH.... I was just sure it was today... NOT... it's tomorrow. Everyone got a good laugh out of that. LOL

I have been so busy and there has been so much going on and well I guess I just got alll mixed up...

She said oh well have lunch with us anyway.. I just ordered pizza and salad for the shop .. come go with me to pick it up... soooo she and I went to pick up everything and I stayed and had lunch.

I will go back tomorrow for the real party LOL... I couldn't believe I did that, but lately I seem to be doing a lot of stuff like that ROFL... No doubt just being wayyyyy to busy is why...

Our refrigerator died day before yesterday, not fixable.. had to buy new one and yep I had to throw away a lot of stuff from the freezer that was just mush, which grrrrrrrrr as expensive as food is.  I had been out delivering roman shades that day and didn't get home till evening and well there you have it. We should have realized something was a miss as it stopped making ice two days prior to that...

So yesterday honeyman took off work thank heaven to help me get a new fridge found....we have company arriving for 4 days which we are soooooo excited about!!... this Saturday! Our niece and her husband who we just love to pieces are coming to visit!!!! I wanted us to have a fridge here LOL

So anyway I don't like having to buy things in a hurry, honeyman is much better at that... everything was in ice chest that was keepable so we needed to find a fridge... anyway its in the kitchen now. So we are good to go :O).

Then on top of everything else....I felt really bad yesterday so I was grumpy and very easily agitated,  for which I apologized like 5 times to honeyman. But man I felt really bad. He said I was pale as a ghost all day but finally when I could I went to bed. Then I went back to bed early and slept another 13.5 hours and I felt much better this morning. I couldn't even tell you well this hurt or that was wrong. I just was sooooooooooooo tired and felt drained and was dizzy. But again I am much better today. :O).

I have been burning the candle at both ends for to long... I am sure that is what it was... I am taking off a couple weeks from work for the holidays.... till Janaury 4th is the plan. I have roman shade orders on the books already for as soon as I go back to work!...

 I have a lot I would like to get done at home while I am off.. more on that later....

BUT I am going to make sure to take some time for doing NOTHING as well!

Some roman shades I have made recently

Two very large soft fold romans. I just finished these this last week. I can tell you these babies at 70 inches wide and nearly that long were a handful.

I am so glad I have the table extension honeyman made for my drapery table! I can just raise it up with the metal table extensions and it just clicks in place... a life saver. When I don't need it then just release each extension and it lowers right back down.

Making a soft fold roman wider than your table is not fun. As a matter a fact I have a limit on size I will make. I won't make one wider than 76". I can get that on my table. Soft fold romans are long to work with because they are cut twice the length of a window plus 12 inches. So they are long lengths of fabric. Even if you turn them to fit width wise going down your table then you have a pile of fabric hanging over the side. I much prefer to have it all up on the table laying flat! Even if the length does exceed my 12 foot long table at least its all flat!
This photo is after I have got quite a bit of the work done :O). The tape and rings are on! I must say I always think the backs of soft fold romans are pretty :O). Kind of a work of art in themselves.

 Another view of the back.

 Ok one more :O). The tan you see is the bottom hem and there is a 1.5 " pocket with the 1/4" metal rod in it. Its not strung yet and does not have the cord locks on the rings but the tape and the rings are on.

 Ok so we have already established in previous post, I am not a photographer :O) I am not sure why it looks like it has waffles in it lol or wrinkles. It didn't... I had a hard time with lighting this day.

It sorta made me think of double knit but not in a bad way, it also made me think of a blanket. :O)  It was thick and soft.  My ugly shade holder and back drop don't do much for them LOL but I am sure in the room with the bedding they will look very nice. I saw the bedding. It will be a monochromatic room. Very neutral in color. I think it will be a very soothing room to be in. Its a bedroom. There were two of these big romans in it.
These babies weighed a ton!

Baby chicks, incubator, saffron update,winter veggies under the frost blanket

Long post but decided to put it all in one while I was here posting. :O). 

I am very pleased so far with my winter veggies!

Things do grow slower in the cooler weather but the trade off is I am growing things now that have not done well for me in the spring. We turn off warm / hot fast here once spring hits. 

I am excited as I think growing right through our winter is going to be great.

 The gals blog I follow that has inspired me is Mother of a Hubbard. She grows 365 days a year in zone 6. She has a harder winter than we do in zone 8. Her winter garden is incredible!

 

                                 Pulled these this morning :O)

So recently we used some of our Amazon points to get a incubator. I planned to use it in the spring. Welllll two of our girls went broody. Esmeralda who hatched out two baby chicks and has been raising them outside. It was early enough in November they were ok out there and now have enough feathers with mom as back up for nights to do just fine outside.

Goldy went broody a bit later, I gave in and gave her some eggs. She just would not snap out of it. Welllll the last week she was broody she was taking more and more breaks from the eggs. Long story short she decided being a mom was over rated. So I had a pile of eggs as she kept stealing eggs as the other girls were still laying. All the eggs are bantam eggs.

So I had this pile of eggs of different ages lol 

They are in the incubator and so far 6 have hatched out and another one is working on joining the world as I type this. It will be interesting to see how many chicks we get.

I am raising these this chicks since its to cold to put them outside now. 

Oh the stuff rabbits, well they were upset and scared at first so I put the rabbits in there for them to get under. Calmed them right down and they love getting under them.

 I dont have the eggs on the auto egg turner because they are all different ages and I don't want one to hatch out and get stuck in the auto egg turner. Ideally you would have put them all in at the same time. Then 3 days before they are to hatch you take them off the egg turner. But since Goldy kept stealing eggs well they didn't all start getting sat on at the same time. I know my bad but well it is what it is. Its working out okay.

For anyone curious this is the incubator we got.. 

Came with a light to candle the eggs

The auto egg turner. 

 I will tell you the directions were very vague that came with it LOL. But luckily my best bud has an incubator and she was able to tell me what to do :O).

 It has a digital thermometer and humidity reader, I forget what that is called. It also came with a manual old timey one that you lay inside the incubator.
Then it also has a digital days read out that counts down the days.

 I have to tell you when that first baby chick hatched out I was just giddy! Then the second one and so. It was fantastic! :O) I told honeyman I could be dangerous with this. Chickens everywhere!!! Its unbelievably cool!

Sorry no pictures of the saffron bed, just info.

My saffron is alive! I had totally given up on it. Figured the bulbs all rotted and well ok it was an experiment.

Then a few weeks back I go out to look at the raised bed thinking ok I am going to move this out of the middle of the back yard. What do I see but Saffron up everywhere! I was just shocked. 

With working so much I don't always get to see everything everyday.

So I am thinking well if it can just bloom before the first freeze maybe I would get some saffron. 

Well the rabbits were just as thrilled as I was that it was up obviously.

They ate it down to about 3" tall! POOF

So I am going to have to put a netting over it to keep the rabbits from being able to get in the row. I have netting on it to keep the squirrels from digging it up. It is laying on the top of it on the row. But that didn't keep the rabbits from eating it.

I will for sure be covering it with plastic the whole row again as soon as it dies for the winter. I do not want to risk it rotting. 

I think I will eventually learn what I need to know to actually get some saffron!

I do plan to redo the row add more sand for even better drainage. 

I just need 48 hours in a day!

I love burning the wood stoves

We have this wood stove in our living room. We do have central heat but have not used it since we got the wood stoves. Except to test it and make sure its still in working order etc. just in case we did need it. We love heating with the wood stoves. I grew up with wood stove heat so I knew it would be great, honeyman was not so sure. :O). But now he loves it too!

 We have a smaller wood stove (no picture sorry) with a glass door in our bedroom. We have a see through fireplace from our master bedroom to the bathroom, sadly we could not find a wood stove with glass doors on both sides. Well not in the U.S. anyway. We found one but it was in the UK. There is nothing like going to sleep with it burning and the flames flickering. Your toasty warm and it makes lovely little popping and crackling sounds, its so relaxing, romantic, calming, comfy, cozy :O)

UPDATE
This is the first time I have attached a video, I must not have done something right as it doesn't work. But the picture is there anyway :O)

Skittles

UPDATE:
They thought Skittles was adorable but because he has horns they could not take him, they said. So ok I move on and keep looking.
If you live close to me and are looking for a pet goat, he needs other animals, a donkey, horse, goats something, he cannot live alone that is why we are in this position, he is NOT to eat. Email me. We can talk. He is super friendly.
Our location is East of Dallas.

Skittles has not done well since Cubey passed away. He has never been alone in his life. He and Cube were exceptionally close and that is why we kept him to stay with her when we made the decision not to raise goats any longer. It was a easy choice, it had to be Skittles to stay with Cubey.  She was not Skittles Nanny but she took care of him even when he was little to some degree.
From there they just were always together.

Since her passing he isn't eating good, he maws a lot, its a sad maw. He is lost. It is sad. We have decided to find Skittles a home with other goats. He has to have some other animals its simply not fair to him to be all alone.

We have some feelers out now trying to find him a good pet home. We will not let him go to a home we feel he could wound up being eaten.  We are not selling him, we are giving him to someone. Right now we are checking into a family who does Birthday parties for kids. They have a petting zoo for the kids, miniature horses, Shetland ponys, a goat, some other animals. I am crossing my fingers.
I have assured them that I would take him back if he doesn't settle in good with the other animals.
Though I know he will. He would be so elated to not be alone. He loves attention, to be petted and eat snacks. He also knows how to play a game honeyman taught him. He can be such a clown.
Keep your fingers crossed for us on this home for him. I think it would be perfect for him.

 

She was the boss, she was the queen of the herd... she was the BEST goaty friend ever...RIP

 RIP Cubey

I said many, many times, if all goats were like Cubey aka Sugarcube,  everyone would have 100 goats. She was the perfect goat! She was the sweetest, most loving little goat ever! We will miss her more than I can say.....

Changes, some good, some welllll we will see how that works and some unknown lol.....

Hi
Well its been a busy time around here,,,

This time of year the Interior Design field heats up just like retail. Everyone wanting their home to look lovely for the holidays :O) So I have been really busy with work.

I have embarked on learning a new skill, something I have often thought of doing but let the "what if" keep me from doing it.
I am taking online courses in computer programming,  they call it coding now not computer programming. :O)  Where will this lead, well I don't know! But it something I have always wanted to learn. So far I am loving it! Though I will admit with work its a bit of a struggle to keep up.

Honeyman and I  have been rethinking our long term plans. I can tell you giving up a dream is not a easy thing. Even thinking you are giving up a dream you have had for quite a while is very difficult...But I can also tell you that I think sometimes its good to stop, step back, try to look at something from a new perspective...where your headed etc.

The winter graden rows are doing well! I have planted lots of yummy winter veggies. My onions are coming up and today I planted some elephant garlic. I have more to plant. I ordered some regular seed garlic as well and it should be in any day. Decided to plant that at the last minute. Well ok, the sale they had on the seed garlic help me decide as well. LOL

Lots of changes here at our place. Not sure where it will all lead but that's ok. Yes I actually said that.... I am trying to stop thinking I must know the entire outcome of every single decision before I act. LOL I am a planner by nature, its how I do things. I like to have a plan .. expect it to go as planned LOL... Its the Capricorn in me. LOL But I have learned over 50 yrs of life.. Rarely does a plan go to plan ROFL... But I still plan anyway.