Another garden in my life

Recently we decided to have chickens again. Josh is helping me build a hen house and the chickens arrived on Tuesday. There are 10 Rhode Island Reds, 10 Plymouth Rocks, and 10 Black Sex Links. They are so adorable and right now so tiny. Eggs are so expensive and soooo old when we buy them in the store and this way they will be fresh. Liza has already had 2 people at work tell her they want to buy eggs from us.

News From Elder James

Last week we received our weekly e-mail from James who is serving a mission for our Church. He is now on the Island of Curacao in the ABC Islands-- just 42 miles off the coast of Venezuala. He will be learning a new language called Papimento-- it is a combination of French, Dutch and Spanish. So he will also be be learning enough Dutch and French ( already speaks good spanish) to learn the new language. The Book of Mormon is only half translated into Papimento. James sounded pleased but a bit scared about learning a new language. We know he will do great with whatever the Lord gives him to do. I am so proud of him for serving a mission. I don't think there are many missionaries on Curacao as he will fly to Aruba for Zone meetings. The Mission President told him he would be there a good portion of his mission. Curacao has only had missionaries since last October. What a great opportunity for James.

Our Newest Garden

This year we are adding chickens to our little farm. We have had chickens in the past-- both here and in Connecticut and we love having fresh brown eggs. We do not have a chicken coop here on this farm so Josh is building a new one with my supervision. On Saturday afternoon we poured the floor for the part that will have a floor. The coop will be 8 X 14 with 8 X 4 being a storage area and place for new babies to be under the lights until they feather out. We have ordered the chickens and they will be here next week. We are getting 6 Rhode Island Reds, 6 speckled sussex, 7 buff orphingtons, , 6 light brahmas, and 6 barred rocks. All but the RIRs are coming from a hatchery and the RIRs are coming from a local source. I had wanted Giant Black Jerseys but they will not be available until mid July and that would make them alot younger than the others. So I will wait until next time for them. We have always had Rhode Island Reds in the past but I thought that a variety of hens that lay brown eggs would be interesting and pretty. Any roosters will end up in the freezer-- although we paid for all hens and they guranteed that 90% would be hens. It is difficult to sex a chicken when it is 1 day old. Next year I think we are going to build another coop and raise chickens for the freezer. As well as some more laying hens. Liza was not totally thirilled about having chickens again but she now has a few people at work who want to buy their eggs from us so she is happier about the hens. This will also give us a good source of eggs for our collies who absolutely adore boiled eggs.

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Spring

Well I think it is finally Spring. It has been warm the past few days and today it will be 72 and very windy. But tomorrow's forecast is for rainy weather and in the 40s. But that is Spring for you-- warm one minute and cold the next. We have started burning off the gardens and alon the fence line. The grass is turning green and the collies have been able to stay out side all day for several days now. I have bought my onions and my pea seeds and have ordered potato onions and Egyptian Walking onions. Corn seed is so exspensive this year . We will grow tomatoes, peppers, onions-- red, yellow and the two new kinds, beans-- both romas and regular green, carrots and radishes and lettuces. I am also going to start some herbs this year. We have chives already and I am adding several others. The strawberry plants are beginning to look better and I may add some new ones. Last Saturday the raspberries were not looking so good but it is still early. The new neighbors down the road have a couple of goats that periodically come up here and we are going to have to fence our garden as they do nothing to keep them home.

My grandchildren garden is growing nicely. Wendy writes to me via e-mail fairly often and I love hearing from her. James is enjoying his mission in Puerto Rico although he is working hard each day. They had their first baptism last Saturday.

I have done alot of quilting this winter. I quilted a couple of small lap quilts and Wendys quilt is finished as is Sarahs. I just have to quilt Andreas and Michaels and bind them. And I finished the quilt for the Collie Club of America and it auctioned for $600+. That makes 12 that I have done. Next years quilt is going to be a signature quilt and at the National this year they collected all the signatures they could and others have e-mailed them to me. It should be a fun quilt to make.

I am still loving serving in the Family History Center each week for two days.

my grandchildren

I have not written since my Birthday on Nov 27. I get busy and forget that I need to write. Alot has happened in the past 6 weeks. The holidays were wonderful and on January 2nd we took James to the Missionary Training Center in Provo Utah to begin his two year mission for the Lord. He was so excited to be finally leaving. We are so proud of him and know that he will do well. He will be in Provo for 3 weeks and then goes to the MTC in the Dominican Republic for 6 weeks of training before he goes to Puerto Rico for the rest of the two years.
Josh has made the 8th grade basketball team and is so excited about that. He is now 1/4 inch from being 6 feet tall and he is still growing-- he wrote a letter to his brother last night and signed it "your little brother-- no I mean your younger brother". He is enjoying having his own room and we have discovered that he is a neat nick about his room when he is not sharing.

I am busy making quilts as usual. I have most of the quilt for the Collie Club of America National done and am working on the lettering this week. The theme this year is something about a circus-- the show is being held in LaCrosse Wisconsin where one of the circuses winters over-- so I have used 16 inch bright blocks in all primary colors. I am also working on t shirt quilts for Wendy, Andrea, Michael and Sarah. Two of the quilt tops are finished and the other two are just about ready for the borders.

So much has happened in the Family History area the past few weeks-- we are Beta Testing several things that will make genealogical research on the internet so much easier. We are also indexing all the East Idaho Death Records-- it is a big project and many of us have put our own research on hold in order to help with this huge project.
My kitchen is finally done-- at least the painting and the floor is next. We have the tile and just need the backer board and the glue and the big item-TIME. The breakfast room will have to wait for awhile as we are going to put random width old pine plank flooring in there. I grew up in old New England homes with pine floors and am excited about reproducing them here in parts of this house.

I am beginning to plan for this years garden-- we will have tomatoes, peppers, onions, corn, peas and a few other things. The garden will be much smaller this year until we see how my back reacts to gardening after last years injury. I have missed the peace and solitude of spending my summer mornings in the veggie garden and look forward to being able to garden again. Judie

My kitchen has needed redoing for a long time. So this Fall we painted it-- the cabinets are now a deep New England Red and the walls are blue denim color. James and Josh have done a great deal of it and I just love it. In the Spring we are planning to get new counters. Last year we moved the fridge into the breakfast area and this past weekend James built me shelves and a temp counter where the fridge used to be. He also built me a cute shelf to put pretty things on and made a scalloped apron for the shelf.

Bob and Lori and the kids were here on Sunday for dinner and the afternoon. We had a great time and it was wonderful to have them here for a visit. They fly back to Vermont tomorrow.