So much going on. We are trying to fence in the boundaries of our property. Surprisingly, as far out in the country as we are, we are being threatened by someone who hunts in the property behind us that if we don't keep our dogs on our own property, we will be fined as much as $100 per dog if they are caught on camera off of our property. Unfortunately, the person who complained doesn't even own any property around us, just hunts it and its not even hunting season. Crazy, huh? Oh well, it should benefit our pigs and cows in the future, as well as keep our dogs out of our growing area, as we are hoping to sell garden products in our produce stand in the future.
We are attempting to level our ground in the back for weddings, as we are hoping that diversification may attribute to the success of our small farm. Next is the planting of grass. A funny story about this is when I was hurriedly raking rocks out of the soil, I forgot to watch where I was stepping and landed in the 3' deep frog pond. How refreshing! (Read muddy and cold.) I am so glad my husband did not have a camera! After smoothing out the soil, my husband spread 40 lbs. of rye grass seed, which our chickens just loved! We are hoping the rye will advance and provide a hiding place for us to sow fescue (hiding place from our chickens, that is.) In the meantime, we ran across some small azaleas for $2.50 each that we bought four of, and transplanting to our woods trail with some daffodils.
We also are trying to stop erosion on our backyard slopes and have decided to create flower beds on each side of the basement area. So far, we have planted rosemary for small shrubs (such a better deal for $3.87 each than the $30 we found shrubs for), dusty miller, and red verbena. We are planning to fill in by plants that we are hoping to glean from helpful neighbors who might need some eggs or garden weeding. We have found that any plants in our yard that we have gotten from family or neighbors are so much more meaningful. It also gives us another chance to get to know our neighbors, as we spend time with them. Additionally, all of our seedlings have made tremendous progress by taking them outside during the day and bringing them in at night. They are hard to even recognize from the last picture.
They will be ready in 15 days to plant out in the garden. Another story is about the sweet potatoes. We got 5 sweet potatoes from a friend and put them each in a jar with water added, so they would grow slips for the garden. Four of the jars of sweet potatoes did great, and the last one appeared to be a dud. However, I started thinking about how when it was putting out roots in the upper section and slips in the lower (under the water) and decided that I had nothing to lose by flipping the sweet potato over in the jar. That seems to be what it needed, as now the "dud" seems to be sending out new slips. Also, the slips that I took off of the potatoes previously seem to be doing well and forming new roots.
Well, indeed necessity is the mother of invention. As we were finishing up our fencing in the front, we realized that we needed a walking gate through the fence over by the chicken run. We also needed a way to let our chickens out towards our front yard, as the dogs are moving out of the growing area (since it is time to plant) and into our backyard. I wanted to use wood that we already had on hand, so I designed and cut out two gates that my husband helped me to put together and put up. Since they are kind of side by side, I planned for them to look alike, but the chicken gate was, well, chicken sized. Even though the days are longer now, we are still having to resort to our headlights to finish our projects as it starts to get dark. I love the way they turned out! To put the chicken gate in the side of the chicken run, we pounded some treated stakes into the ground and put a center piece between. We then stapled the chain link to the framework, cut a hole in the chain link, and stapled a second row on the framework so there will not be any loose ends to catch the chickens. My husband sprinkled a little food outside of the gate, and that was all they need to entice them to try the new gate. 
