Signs of Spring 2019

 This winter has felt extra long so any signs that spring is near have been especially welcome.  Somehow between the snow, ice and cold rain we've had a couple days of sunshine. i get out and hike on those days needing every little bit of sunshine i can absorb.

 The kids missed school again on Friday due to winter weather. Saturday was cold, dreary and rainy and then on Sunday the sun came out and the temps jumped to the high 60's!  We spent the day outside cleaning up gardens, inspecting our bee hives and hiking the woods.

Coltsfoot is one of the very first wildflowers to appear in the spring. Coltsfoot is native to Europe and is considered an invasive weed here.  However, it is edible.  The flowers can be eaten. They can be tossed into salads to add a wonderful aromatic flavor; or fill a jar with the flowers and add honey to make a remedy to help calm a cough or to sweeten a bitter herbal tea.  There are some reports of the roots and leaves containing toxins.
Hairy Bittercress is another early spring flower. Another non-native this plant is great for salads, salsa, pestos and anywhere you would use raw cress with a flavor similar to arugula.  Both the flowers and leaves are edible.

The bees have been all over the hairy bittercress, as there is very little pollen available to them right now.  The bees are mostly still surviving on their winter stores of honey, but on sunny day they are out foraging for pollen, and cleaning out the hive.

Another sure sign of spring is when the hens begin to lay again.  They've been on a break since November. i have been getting a few eggs each week, most of my birds stopped laying completely over the winter. As the days begin to get longer, the hens return to their regular cycle.

i've been really trying to focus on my egg colors. Last year i breed my olive eggers, marans and easter eggers in an attempt to get better egg colors. It seemed like the universe was against me.  i had a hen setting on 10 eggs and one by one all of the olive eggs disappeared.  i was left with 3 remaining eggs which hatched out into two girls and one boy. Of the two girls one is Maran and lays dark brown eggs. The other is a Maran cross of some sort and lays a medium brown sometimes rose colored eggs.

My second attempt at hatching out olive eggers and marans had pretty much the same outcome. One by one the eggs i was trying to hatch out disappeared, however there was no shortage of wild hens hatching farm yard mix chicks. Over 20 new chicks hatched out and i got ONE olive egger. She is third generation so her eggs are extra dark. i'm super thrilled, but was really hoping for more than one green egg layer. i thought for sure i'd have several shades of green.  Instead i have a ton of cream and light beige eggs.

The next sign of spring is when my wild hens start hiding their eggs. i'm really hoping to avoid that this year. i've already given away over a dozen roosters from the last hatch, and am going to be re-homing some hens as well once i figure out for sure who is laying what. 

After such a beautiful day the temps are dropping again, and tomorrow we are back to a low of 30.  i'm hoping to get some seeds started in the greenhouse this week, but with lows below freezing my seedlings wouldn't survive even in the greenhouse.  So i may just spend the week planning out the gardens. Yesterday's sunshine was very welcome, even my kids left their rooms (without being forced) to get out and hike.  i'm really looking forward to the warmer days ahead.

Help Grow the Rebellion with Rebel Gardens! Review and Giveaway!

"Rebel Gardens is about invoking the spirit of WW2 Victory Gardens. But this time we grow not to support a war but to support a Rebellion. The industrial food system is slowly destroying our health and we are not going to take it anymore. Plant a seed with us and grow the rebellion! "

On the surface Rebel Gardens is just a seed company. But under the surface they are actually something a little different.  Their real goal isn't just selling seeds, the real goal is undermining the industrial food system. In a nutshell they believe that our modern food system is not healthy for our bodies, for our planet, for anything really and they we want to be a part of the solution.

Yesterday, we had a Snow day!! What better day to go through my seeds and start planning out my gardens. This year i'm trying to put more of a focus on planting for pollinators. Our honey bees need more flowers! i'm turning one of my vegetable garden beds into a flower bed and am including more caterpillar host plants. Herbs like dill, parsley and fennel are great for the Black Swallowtails. The flowering herbs are all great for the bees!

Rebel Gardens offers a Culinary Variety pack that contains 10 packages of  organic herb seeds. Their seeds are certified organic, non-gmo, heirloom and USA grown and packed!

Rebel Gardens is growing company out of Canby, OR that offers organic, Non GMO, Heirloom Seeds. i got the herb collection, which has a really nice variety of different herbs. -They also offer several different collections.  The Survival pack is probably the best deal. It has 28 packs of seeds for $29.99, but there is a coupon code that drops it down to $19.99. That's less than $1 per pack for organic heirloom garden seeds! 

The Generous folks at Rebel Gardens have offered a Survival Garden-Organic Seed Bank collection to one of my readers!  This collection features 28 packs of organic, heirloom, non-gmo vegetable and flower seeds.   

Can't wait for the giveaway? You can purchase the Survival Garden Collection here.  Be sure to clip the coupon code to save 35% off you purchase! 

Now for the giveaway!

 One lucky reader will win the Survival Garden Collection.

Enter below using the rafflecopter form (it might take a minute to load). One entry per person/IP address. US only. The winner will have 48 hours to respond by email or another winner may be chosen

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Connect with Rebel Gardens

You can find them on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/GrowTheRebellion/ 
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/rebelgardens/
Also if you add Rebel Gardens on messenger chat https://manychat.com/l2/GrowTheRebellion , they send you a 20% off coupon which can be used on any order.




disclaimer. i did not receive compensation for this post, however i did receive a free product to review in exchange for my opinion. My opinions are my own and are not influenced in any way. This post may contain affiliate links.

Long Winter

It's starting to feel like a long winter.  Most years we have one good snow and that's about it.  This year we've had several snow storms, a few ice storms and we've lost power twice for multiple days.  The first ice storm was in November, and we just had another in February.

These pictures were taken back in January.  One of the few storms where we didn't lose power.  The ice was pretty and only lasted a few days. The melting and refreezing caused the kids to miss quite a few days of school.  Although the main roads were clear, back roads were a mess and most of the county is back roads.

When the sun hit the ice everything was glistening and looked quite magical. It's really hard to capture with a camera though. 

Through snow, ice and freezing conditions our shiitakes still grew. It's really pretty amazing. i never expected that we'd be getting fresh mushrooms all winter. It's usually only a few at a time, but every time we have a warm spell they just start popping again.  This has helped me fulfill my constant need to grow stuff, which is usually pretty impossible in the winter.

Although i don't ever really do New Year's resolutions, i started this year with the strong desire to learn new things. Lots of new things. Although i learned to macrame years ago, typing hemp in my collage days. i wanted to learn this new macrame that i keep seeing. It's done the same way but uses really thing waxed cords.  Learning to wrap a stone was my first goal, now i'm working on re-learning all the different knots.  Most of it has come back pretty easily, but i'm struggling with changing direction while knotting. As soon as i get one knot figured out, i have to do it on the other side of the piece, in a different direction and then my mind just goes blank and i forget how to do it entirely. i never realized how much harder it is to learn things as we get older, but i can attest that it is very true. i'm hoping with enough repetition i'll finally get it to click.

Bread baking is another of my New Year goals.  i've really been enjoying the process of making  (and eating) homemade read. So much so, that's i make at least one loaf a week.  i have a couple favorite recipes, and plan to slowly add a few more.  i'd like to start making sour dough with a starter, but have just been making simple breads like challah and a basic honey white bread so far.

Over the weekend we lost power again due to high winds. It's still dropping down below freezing at night, but we have the woodstove for heat and we have a generator to keep the fridge/freezers going. 

We've a couple nice days giving us a little taste of spring, but March is planning to come in like a lion with lows of 10 degrees and possible snow next week.  

As always i do enjoy the slowing down of the season once we get passed xmas, but am also very eager for spring.

Grandma Morgan's 90th Birthday- Quick Florida Trip

 My grandmother and husband share the same Birthday, Dec. 26th the day after xmas.  This year my Grandma turned 90 and my folks had planned a celebration for her in Florida. So the day after xmas, my folks left our house and headed down to Florida and the day after that we headed down as well. The party was scheduled for the Sat. after xmas, not on her actual birthday which gave us a couple days to make the trip and get settled.

 We do not get to see Grandma very often so it was really nice to be therefor her birthday celebration.  It was held at the park where she lives and there were a ton of people there to celebrate. Although she is 90 she is one of the most active folks at her senior park. She teaches water aerobics and walks at least a mile every day first thing in the morning.

We don't have my pictures of the kids with their grandma, so this one is quite special.

This was a super quick trip we literally drove down for the party, then drove back home a day later but we tried to pan out a few fun things to do while we were there.

We stopped at the Trout Lake Nature Center, which is just down the road from where my grandma lives.  It was small, but nice with a walking trail and indoor exhibits.

On our way home we swung by Dayton beach and spent a couple hours walking the beach, collecting shells and visiting the tourist shops.

 It really wasn't as crowded as i would expect for Daytona, the beach and boardwalk were both fun to walk.

After leaving Daytona, we drove up the coast a bit and made another stop at Flagler beach and then headed toward home. We'd considered driving straight through, but ended up stopping in Orangeburg South Carolina for the night.  i think the whole trip lasted about 3 1/2 days, which is just about perfect for me.  i would probably vacation more often if we could squeeze it into a long weekend. 

The couple days of warm temps and sunshine were a nice respite from cold weather at home, but i worry too much about my animals to be gone much longer than that.  Although i really wasn't thrilled about making the trip, i'm really glad we were able to spend time with my Grandma and parents. As much as i love living where i do, the older i get the more i feel bad about living so far away from family. 

New Year Crafting- Product Review

One of my favorite things about reviewing is getting to try out products i wouldn't normally try. This week i get to play around with a #LeatherWorkDesigns 45 Piece Leather Craft Hand Tools Kit. 

This leather tooling kit is an ideal way to introduce just about anyone to the art of leather crafting. It comes with a wide variety of tools- High detail stamps allow beginners to personalize belts, wallets, saddles, or other leather goods, and grooving tools enable intermediate, expert and professional leather artists to customize their clothes and accessories in high detail.

Leather earrings are really big on my Cameo silhouette group right now, and since i don't wear leather i was looking around for some alternatives. Turns out faux leather works just as good. i made a couple pair just using some scrap i had on hand.   

i already ordered some more faux leather to play around with, i'm not sure if the stamps will work on faux leather, but i watched a tutorial that used them on polymer clay to accessorize the faux leather creations which i thought was a pretty cool idea. 

These are just a few of the faux leather earrings i made using the cricut faux leather.   My next project is going to be a hand sewn pleather dice pouch for my boy. This kit has almost everything you need to get started! Last picture shows everything that's included in the kit, the pliers (first pic) are not included in it, i was using them on the earring wires. 

You can find the full kit here -  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HHD9GN1http://amzn.to/2FBLGv5  #sponsored #productreviewer #DIY #leathercrafts #veganleather #handmade #crafterlife