What did you do in the garden today?

[TJAnonymous]

I need a vacation to a warm, tropical paradise after the weekend I've had... DH and I were frantically trying to get the new duck coop finished. We got a dusting of snow Friday night but luckily the water troughs didn't freeze for the animals. I hadn't put the de-icers out yet. We worked all day on Saturday until I realized our neighbor was at the house looking for us. Apparently the pasture gate wasn't fully latched and the high winds knocked it open. All of our horses were out and running down a BUSY 4-lane highway. I'm surprised no one (including the horses) was killed or that the cops weren't called. DD did say several people had posted about it on social media... It took DH, DD, and several volunteers, and me about 20 - 30 minutes to catch them. We are all still trying to recover from that drama... Skipped church to try to finish up the coop. We worked until sundown and JUST managed to get it done! Woooohoooo! Also put the de-icers out. Here's the new Hoop Coop.... I will probably make a separate post about it later.


On a bad note, because the coop took so long, I never got out to the garden. I have the peppers still in the ground and covered by feed bags to protect them from frost/snow. I need to get the yacon harvested too and store it in the garage over the winter. The freeze we've already had may kill it... Praying it's OK. They are planted in a big tire bed with lots of straw mulch. Hoping the straw protects the rhizomes until I can dig them up later this week. Plants have already died back because of the freeze.

 

[Acre4Me]

Goats!

7 month old Nigerian Dwarf goats.

They seem settled in alright. We get to learn all about them in the next few months.


Garden:
My fridge has about 70 bottles of pepper sauce

The garage fridge has 49 more bottles.

Not hot sauce. It is peppers, vinegar, salt. We age it for about 3 weeks in fridge, then freeze it for use throughout the year. The yellow ones are just for fun-we has some peppers that ripened yellow, so we had some extra bottles do we made them into sauce. In general, we pick, dice and freeze the peppers and make pepper sauce at same time.

 

[Ascholten]

I need a vacation to a warm, tropical paradise after the weekend I've had... DH and I were frantically trying to get the new duck coop finished. We got a dusting of snow Friday night but luckily the water troughs didn't freeze for the animals. I hadn't put the de-icers out yet. We worked all day on Saturday until I realized our neighbor was at the house looking for us. Apparently the pasture gate wasn't fully latched and the high winds knocked it open. All of our horses were out and running down a BUSY 4-lane highway. I'm surprised no one (including the horses) was killed or that the cops weren't called. DD did say several people had posted about it on social media... It took DH, DD, and several volunteers, and me about 20 - 30 minutes to catch them. We are all still trying to recover from that drama... Skipped church to try to finish up the coop. We worked until sundown and JUST managed to get it done! Woooohoooo! Also put the de-icers out. Here's the new Hoop Coop.... I will probably make a separate post about it later.
View attachment 3322115View attachment 3322116

On a bad note, because the coop took so long, I never got out to the garden. I have the peppers still in the ground and covered by feed bags to protect them from frost/snow. I need to get the yacon harvested too and store it in the garage over the winter. The freeze we've already had may kill it... Praying it's OK. They are planted in a big tire bed with lots of straw mulch. Hoping the straw protects the rhizomes until I can dig them up later this week. Plants have already died back because of the freeze.

It's not exactly tropical but it's warmer and i can cook, come over here for a few days.
it'll be a vacation for YOU because Ill feed you well and got good drinks.
it'll be a vacation for ME, because YOU get to deal with the chickens outside and the Rottentoo inside while I hide...

Aaron

 

[Sueby]

Going to TRY to put coats on alpacas in the morning.
Want to get in on the under/over of me being spit on?

I would like for you to video that. Good luck!

@karenerwin - what a beautiful family!

@TJAnonymous - so glad you got everyone back safe, how scary. Duck coop looks great.

@Ascholten I hope the back is better today.

@Acre4Me we had 2 dwarf goats for a bit - they were hilarious but we couldn't keep them in anywhere. They were major escape artists but we were set up for horses, not necessarily goats. I love the bald face on that little cutie!

Morning all. Back to normal cold weather. I left the dahlia bulbs out over night to dry because there was supposed to be no rain. So now they're inside re-drying on my chest freezer.

 

[WIchickMama]

Today brings the snow, so no work in the garden for me. Covered tunnels still have carrots in ground and seek to be doing well. I am on the fence if I should keep watering or not, I mean I don't want them to freeze but don't want them to dry out either.

 

[Ascholten]

I had a buddy in the navy, long story short camel type animal spit on him a few times, so he started spitting back, get it in the eyes a few times, talk aggressive to it, I'll BEAT YOU you $#^%# it stopped spitting at him by the end of the day. A dominance thing maybe? do they spit at each other? Couldn't hurt to try. If it isn't working up front, up the ante with some Copenhagen or something.

Aaron

 

[WthrLady]

I would like for you to video that. Good luck!

@karenerwin - what a beautiful family!

@TJAnonymous - so glad you got everyone back safe, how scary. Duck coop looks great.

@Ascholten I hope the back is better today.

@Acre4Me we had 2 dwarf goats for a bit - they were hilarious but we couldn't keep them in anywhere. They were major escape artists but we were set up for horses, not necessarily goats. I love the bald face on that little cutie!

Morning all. Back to normal cold weather. I left the dahlia bulbs out over night to dry because there was supposed to be no rain. So now they're inside re-drying on my chest freezer.

So who had me getting spit on? You win.
Man, they were in a mood this morning. It's borderline coat weather, still warmish during the day, but nights down to single digits and not making freezing during the day would be hard on them for a long stretch. I got a coat on the oldest, so that's what I was shooting for.
The youngest isn't woolly, but hairy, so I worry about him too, but he fought, bucked, kicked, spit, stomped......you know like a toddler throwing a tantrum, so he can just be cold. The rest were, by then, all wound up and I wasn't in the mood to fight them. So everyone is naked except the oldest, who now has my permission to gloat in his coaty warmness to the others that if they would have just behaved.....

Little turds.

Extent of my 'gardening' today.

 

[WthrLady]

Goats!

7 month old Nigerian Dwarf goats.

View attachment 3322172

View attachment 3322171

They seem settled in alright. We get to learn all about them in the next few months.


Garden:
My fridge has about 70 bottles of pepper sauce

View attachment 3322175
The garage fridge has 49 more bottles.
View attachment 3322174


Not hot sauce. It is peppers, vinegar, salt. We age it for about 3 weeks in fridge, then freeze it for use throughout the year. The yellow ones are just for fun-we has some peppers that ripened yellow, so we had some extra bottles do we made them into sauce. In general, we pick, dice and freeze the peppers and make pepper sauce at same time.

Ummmm...that's a LOT of hot sauce! LOL.

 

[Acre4Me]

Ummmm...that's a LOT of hot sauce! LOL.

Most of it isn’t hot. The paprika and Anaheim ones might carry some heat, but otherwise just fully ripe/red sweet Italian type peppers blended with salt and vinegar. They age a few weeks then get frozen.

 

[WIchickMama]

Most of it isn’t hot. The paprika and Anaheim ones might carry some heat, but otherwise just fully ripe/red sweet Italian type peppers blended with salt and vinegar. They age a few weeks then get frozen.

Looks amazing....got me thinking about a road trip to OH