Monday, April 29, 2013



The little starter pots I made last week are working perfectly and they were free!  How great is that.
 
 I just planted these little Basil seeds last weekend.  They are lovin' the sunny window I put them in and showing their little heads already.  I'm surprised.  I didn't think they would take off so quickly.  The little yellow pot is the basil.  The green box (Tupperware) on the right contains around 8-10 different veggies.

I also planted lettuce, chard, spinach and radishes in the two little metal planters.  They are in a sunny window downstairs in the kitchen.  Its hard to find a place that the kitties don't have access to.  We will see what happens to the little metal pots.  And already Dexter has nearly ruined my only peonies bush in the yard.

I'd like to start planting in our garden but today its very windy and even starting snowing a little while I was working on the blog this morning.

I've hired someone to take out all the old raspberry plants and two worthless raised garden beds that were so full of grass and weeds there would have been no dirt left in them if I'd pulled out that stuff.  He came back today to finish up and it started snowing / raining.

And let me tell you, it was COLD.  But in north Idaho in the springtime, you get what you get, it changes every day sometimes every hour.

What's not to love?

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Spring is finally here.  Our nights are still below freezing some nights, but all in all things are warming up.  Nearly 60 degrees today, into the 70's by next week.  Soooo glad!

Daughter and I will be starting our seeds today.  I don't like to buy the same supplies year after year, so thanks to another blogger at Rural Revolution, I have borrowed her idea.

We've been saving the empty tubes from bathroom tissue.  Peel off as much of the paper remnants as you can.
Then fold the tube long-wise in half.  Turn it and fold again, so it is approximately a square shape.










Measure 2 1/4" all the way around.
Cut at this mark.  Your two halves should be just about the same size.
Mark the little pieces at one end 1/2" all the way around.











Now take your scissors and cut each corner up to the line ... do this just on one end.











Fold the four sides inward to form the bottom of a 'box'.











As seen here, these should form little boxes which we will be adding starter mix to and planting our little seeds in.  Not everything needs to be started indoors, so probably just a couple tomato plants, and maybe something like eggplant or peppers that need a little longer growing season than we usually have up here.  I will be posting pictures as time goes on and we can all see if my 'borrowed' experiment is working for us.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

April 1 and spring has arrived.  The past week has been so glorious and warm for north Idaho.  In the upper 50's and even lower 60's.  It feels so good to be out in the sun even if the wind is blowing and cold.  Our skies are the deepest blue, the forest that surrounds us is green, fresh and healthy.  We are so blessed to live in this beautiful place.

Sometimes it seems like so much work to keep things up.  My yard isn't nearly as well-kept as is has been in past years in other places such as living on the golf course.  But we have so much freedom and it is so quiet up here.

I wouldn't trade it for anything now.  See, here's our first daffodil of the year already.  Always starts right behind our old metal wagon wheel at the end of the porch.  And its always just before we start weeding.

Finished my pygora scarf.  The fiber was from our little pygora goats, LoverBoy, Toby and Snowball.  I had the mill combine them all so I can't really tell who's is who's. 

After washing and ironing it came out soft and beautiful just like I'd hoped it would.  What a difference ironing while still slightly damp makes the woven items.

Its funny how it looks like it is a soft plaid.  The pygora was space dyed blue and lavender while it was still in the hank (a circular way of dyeing with different colors).  Email me if you want to know how to do this.  www.WovenDreamsFarm@wovendreamsfarm.net

As I said, the first of April was gorgeous.  Now we are getting a pretty big storm ... wind, rain, cold temps.  If you watch the weather channel it looks like a huge snowstorm is heading this way, but our local forecasters tell us not to expect snow up here.  Just down south of us.

So please don't think this is Alaska or the Northeast, folks.  We live in the banana belt of Idaho.  I keep telling you this, you just don't believe me :-)