Around the Farm

We have been working hard in our garden, but things are progressing on the rest of the farm too...

Namely with our 21 new chicks. They are really cute. Here are some of the photos of them.





Josiah is in love with these "naked neck" chickens. He thinks they are the cutest things he's ever seen. I think they are rather ugly. But I'll love the eggs next year. ;)



One is named Vladimir. The other is Poof-in. Get it?




Here are some ADORABLE Mercy photos. She is really so cute. The medication for her hemangioma has helped her heart so much that she is obviously feeling much better. She has a lot more energy and is growing fast.



Doesn't she look just like Boo from Monster's Inc.?



Here we told her to show us her hemangioma... she really has no clue where it is no matter how many times we tell her! Haha.



Look how light it's getting!



That's all for this weekend on the farm. Have a great weekend!

How does my garden grow?

It has been a BUSY garden week at the Petersons! We have been taking advantage of the good weather and getting things weeded, chopped, bought, planted, etc. It's been fun!





- We transplanted some established strawberries. I have two boxes I put in the back of the house that we are going to get rid of as we want to put in a volleyball court in that space. So we put the strawberries in the big garden.



Then I had been given a bunch of strawberry plugs which may or may not live, so we put in as many as we had room for. I gave some away... anyone local who would want some, talk to me and I'll pass you on the the person who I gave them to. I doubt she'll use them all.

We transplanted 32 green, established strawberries. We also put in 80 of the plugs. We'll see how they do.

- My lettuce and spinach I planted last year has come up and is ready for harvest. We'll have a couple good dinner salads out of it.




The chickens were IN my garden... let's not talk about that, shall we?

- We transplanted 79 plants we officially KNOW are broccoli. There are another 18 which are labeled broccoli, but may be cabbage. I'm not sure. So we put them at the far end of the broccoli (the cabbage will be next in the row), and we will see what they turn in to...



I have another 80 0r so cabbage which we could not get in before the rain came. We'll do it tomorrow, hopefully.




- I also put in 32 Cauliflower in my side garden. These are the gardens my husband and sons have hauled cedar for the sides, and we have spent all winter putting our compost and hay down on. I did have to buy topsoil at the hardware store, and we had to buy fencing supplies at Lowe's last night so it is no longer free.



- Eric and I went to Lowe's last night and bought 3 apple trees (Red and Yellow Delicious, and a Granny Smith), along with a Peach, and a Nectarine. We have been meaning to do this for years, but never have. If we had done it the first year we were here, we would have lots of apples this year. Lesson learned.







I was in our local hardware store today, and saw that cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower plants were being sold for $3 for 9 plants. It would have cost us $82.50 to buy the same number of plants as I am planting.

Last night at Lowe's we saw Bamboo poles like this for almost $3. Josiah cut me almost 200. Savings: almost $600.

Garden Club for Friday, April 3, 2009

I am not quite ready to put my post up... lots happened in our garden this week! So I am going to get the Garden Guru up so you can all link to it, then I will work on my post this morning and link to it myself.

Sometimes you gotta do things like that, you know!

Mercy Update 4/1/09

I don't have any photos today, but Mercy is looking great. Her face is almost totally flat now. Watching this thing go away is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. To see it go down when we have watched it grow for two years just defies explanation. It is a wonderful sight.

Even the doctors were amazed... Dr. Adams walked in the room and said, "Oh Wow. She looks wonderful!" That's a big deal to me... even the doctors see the progress. They are cautiously optimistic. This is such an unknown... how long do we keep her on the propranalol? What dosage? What will happen when we take her off? Will it grow back? These are all things that no one knows, since it is a very new thing to use propranalol for this purpose.

For right now, the dosage question is answered by the fact that even on just 1 ml / kg Mercy's blood pressure is very low. Since we are seeing progress with this level, they are just going to leave her here. I will have to get her blood pressure taken on Friday, then again the end of next week. If it is lower we will have to do something else.

We are praying it stays the same or raises a bit, back to normal levels.

So that is all on our Mercy!!!

In other news on the farm, we are preparing our garden beds for planting the broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, peas, lettuce, spinach, and strawberries. We also got 20 or so chicks today. I am sure photos will follow when I am not exhausted. Maybe in 20 years or so.

That was a joke. I think.

A Breaking Heart

In more ways than one... my heart is breaking tonight. First for Baby Stellan - you can click on the link to the right and check out his story... he is 5 months today, and needs a miracle for his heart to continue to endure the trouble it currently has.

Secondly for a little one from our church - Caden got pneumonia last week and the infection traveled to his heart. I don't think that anyone knows if the problems have been there since the beginning, or if they are caused by this infection, but he has been put on the heart transplant list. I pray for a miracle.

And I pray for the family who will have to say goodbye to their own little one for it to happen.

Caden's and Mercy are both 2... we were pregnant at the same time. Along with 8 other women in our church. It is only by the grace of God that we are not having similar issues with Mercy's heart, which is enlarged due to the extra blood flow needed to supply the hemangioma.

I have never met Stellan or his family in real life, I have loved and prayed for Caden's family for years. But tonight my heart is breaking to think of them, and I am asking everyone to pray for them. Pray God heals these babies hearts, and that they grow into Godly Men... living for Him.

Most of all, I pray that God gets the glory... would you please join me in that prayer?