Garden Pics

Let's see if the camera is working properly....

I've been so busy around here I have barely had time to check email let alone update the blog. Spring is always such a busy time!

Here's some pics

Dinner last night...our own incredibly fresh delicious asparagus!

Violas in bloom....

Here's a seedhead on one of our rhubarb plants.

Those need to be cut off as soon as you see them if you want to have rhubarb to use this year! 

Garlic getting nice and sturdy, soon we should be harvesting garlic scapes!

Saskatoon bushes in bloom!!!

Rhubarb and garlic....

Lily of the Valley pips....I love these!

Asparagus in the veggie garden....this is year 4 I think!

We should get abundant harvests from now on. Asparagus beds can produce for years and years once established.

One of the flower beds...tulips blooming, irises and lilies growing, goutweed coming back (this stuff is really invasive...but pretty. I will let some grow and be merciless about getting the rest out.

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Kitten and Wolf

Ginger is settling in quite nicely here.....mornings are mostly spent on my lap. Afternoons are meant for snoozing. Late afternoons are spent on the porch with me and da Wolf.

I'm trying to slowly get her used to being outside....wish I could have gotten a picture...yesterday she was playing on the porch and for the first time, looked out into the yard. Ha! Her eyes got soooo big....yes, there's a big world out there girl!

Da Wolf would still love to get to know her...but she is still keeping a bit of distance! She will walk by him now at least...guess she finally realizes he is not leaving. She is getting us both well trained....

I'm spending a lot of time outside in the afternoons...weeding, moving feed, looking after the chicks.

This afternoon I need to wash out a couple of large totes. Later on, my four old hens are going to go live at my friends....Thursday I have twelve new layers coming.

 I still have to clean the coop...always lots to do here! Good thing I love it so much!

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Flowers and Veggies

A few random pics.....different lettuces  and arugala that I started in the house....I have now potted them up in two pots to hang on the porch. That should make it easy for making a small salad now and again.

Cabbages (the red cabbage I had to buy) and perennials....violas, columbines and then a couple of Chinese Delphiniums that my friend gave me.

Dandelion picking! It doesn't take long to pick a few gallons at this time of year...the dandelions are everywhere!

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Pigs!

Dirty Little Pigs!

I've been spraying the hose for them (and AT them) every day. Since pigs can't sweat, they need a good hosing down when it's hot out!

The like rolling in the mud...it helps cool them off

Muddy lil oinkers!

This one is eyeballing me...you can see if you click on the pic to make it larger.

This afternoon, I am going to try to get back into the garden to keep planting. This is the May long weekend, the traditional "plant your garden time" in Canada.

Glad I got a lot of mine done early this year.

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Meat Bird Chicks

Here's our new chick brooder set up. The Gman had the base already built for another project.....so all he had to do was put up the side boards. This will work MUCH better for us than the cardboard brooders we have been building!

When the chicks are old enuf to move down to the barn, we will just stand this brooder on end and lean it up against one wall of the shop.

Looking at that pic, can u see what is wrong? With the chicks I mean?

See how most of them are piled up under the lights? That means they were too cold. They are trying to get warm by huddling together under the heat lamps.

To correct this, I dropped the lights down a bit, to get them closer to the chicks.

If you find most of your chicks huddled around the Perimeter of the brooder, this would mean the chicks are too hot and are trying to find the coolest place. In that case, you would move the lights up a bit.

It's all kind of finicky until you get the heat lamps at the right height. Watch your chicks carefully and check on them often. Adjust the lights as you need to.

You want it to be 95F under the lights.....

Once the lights are at the right height, you will find some of the chicks under the lights, some around the edges and some eating and drinking. This is a good thing!

I feel like I am running an Animal Day Care around this joint!

Between pigs, hens, a wolf, a kitten and now these chicks, it seems all I am doing is running around making sure everyone is ok, ha!

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Dandelion Wine

I don't know what I have done, but I have done something to my camera. I can't seem to get the pics from the camera on to the computer.....grrrr. I need to set aside some time to look thru the camera manuals, but I can't seem to find any.....time, that is!

So I can't show any nice pictures of making Dandelion Wine, like I wanted to! Instead, please go on over here if you want to see the recipe and process....check it out! Dandelion Wine is Very Easy to make and is quite delicious!

So yesterday morning, I picked 6 quarts of dandelions, as I want to make 2 gallons of it this year. Last year I made one gallon, as it was a new experience for us and we weren't sure if we would like the wine.

This morning, I am doing the straining and adding the citrus fruits! Sphere: Related Content

How to Delete Your Facebook Account Permanently

Ahhh...Facebook. How many of our readers are signed up on Facebook?  I've never signed up for it, because I didn't like the lack of privacy stuff.

Guess it wasn't just me, because Canada's Privacy Commissioner got involved and was successful in forcing Facebook to make some changes.

But that is not enough....there are lots of people Leaving Facebook over privacy concerns....the following is from cnn.com

___________________________________________________________________


(CNN) -- Concerns over Facebook's new privacy policy and the online social network's recent efforts to spread its information across the Web have led some of the site's faithful to delete their accounts -- or at least to try to.
On Wednesday's episode of a podcast called This Week in Technology, host Leo Laporte, a well-known tech pundit, said he had to search wikiHow, a how-to site, to figure out how to delete his Facebook account permanently.
After finding the delete button, which he said is hidden deep within the site's menus, Laporte proceeded to delete his account during the online broadcast.
"That's it. It's gone," he said during the show. "And I think that's the right thing to do."
It's unclear how many people have chosen to delete their Facebook accounts in recent weeks. The popular social network doesn't publish statistics on how many people quit the site.
But there has been much uproar online about Facebook's alleged lack of concern for the privacy of its users' personal information, and its clear that some people have become so upset that they're leaving the networking site, which has more than 400 million members.
Still, the account deletions likely aren't numerous enough to affect the site's overall size. Facebook spokeswoman Annie Ta said in an e-mail that Facebook has grown by more than 10 million active users since late April.
In recent weeks, the site has been hit with several privacy bugs and scares that, among other things, made private chat conversations briefly visible to Facebook friends. And on April 21, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new Facebook feature called the "Open Graph," which essentially brings Facebook-like functionality to a number of websites.
CNN.com is one of several dozen sites that partner with Facebook to display and share users' interests.
Some Facebook users, including Sam Schreiber, say they are bothered by the fact that their online preferences are showing up all over the internet now, instead of just on Facebook.com.
Schreiber, a 24-year-old who considers herself social-media savvy, says she may delete her account soon because she doesn't understand Facebook's privacy settings well enough to know that her information is being kept safe.
"People already use them like it's crack, so I don't see what the next step is aside from world domination," she said. "So I just think it's too much."


She was particularly concerned when one of her Facebook friends saw on the music site Pandora that she likes the band "New Found Glory."
"I was like, that's really creepy. I haven't logged in. I didn't give it permission. I didn't do anything," she said.

Schreiber said she tried to change her Facebook privacy settings to keep that from happening again, but had to turn to news articles for information about how to do so, which she thought was unreasonable.
Facebook: Read the site's privacy policy
Facebook appears to be rattled a bit by these changes. The blog All Facebook reports that the site's executives called an "all hands" meeting Thursday to discuss its privacy policy in light of recent criticism.
And there are rumors that the site may amend its policies, as CNET reports.
The site has had its detractors before. Each time Facebook makes changes to its privacy policy, thousands of users tend to complain.
But interest in deleting Facebook accounts appears to be rising.
If you type in the phrase "How do I" on Google, one of the first suggested searches that comes up is "How do I delete my Facebook account," a factoid discovered by Danny Sullivan, a blogger at Search Engine Land.
Sullivan looked at similar searches over time and published a graph that shows searches about deleting Facebook accounts have been on the rise sharply since 2009.
"Yes, there's definitely a rising trend," he writes in a blog post on the matter. "Over time, more and more searches at Google have involved [deleting Facebook accounts], it appears. In fact, if you go back to Google and start typing in 'del,' you get 'delete facebook account' as the top suggestion."
A number of tech pundits, including Laporte, have also written recently about deleting or deactivating their accounts.
The blog Silicon Alley Insider posted a list of these on Friday with a headline that says, "Suddenly, everyone is quitting Facebook!"
The blog lists Peter Rojas of the blog GDGT and Matt Cutts from Google as among those who have deleted or deactivated their accounts.
That blog also posted a list of 10 reasons most people will not be able to part with their Facebook accounts, an apparent nod to the fact that, as Facebook continues to grow and to spread into other websites, it may become necessary to have an active Facebook account to make full use of the Web.
The New York Times also reports that people who once made a career promoting Facebook now may cancel their accounts. The newspaper says Deanna Zandt, author of a book called "Share This! How You Will Change the World With Social Networking," may delete hers.
"It's getting harder and harder for me to say, yes it's worth it, you're giving up your privacy to get these services, and I have to put my money where my mouth is," she told the paper.
Tech blogs have asked whether a "Great Facebook Deactivation Wave" is about to take off, and have listed reasons people should ditch the popular site.
Meanwhile, there is a second set of concerns about how difficult it is to delete your Facebook account if and when you decide that's what you'd like to do.
Facebook says on its website that you can "deactivate" your account by following these steps:
"To deactivate your account, navigate to the 'Settings' tab on the Account Settings page," the site says. "Deactivation will remove your profile and content associated with your account from Facebook. In addition, users will not be able to search for you or view any of your information."
But the social network will hold onto your photos and posts if you only "deactivate" your account.
If you want to completely "delete" your account -- meaning that all of your information will be deleted from view, although some of it may remain on Facebook's servers for a bit -- you can follow these instructions from wikiHow.
The user-edited site lists several methods for deleting a Facebook account. One of them is a seven-step process.
In his podcast, Laporte said one of the main reasons he felt he needed to delete his Facebook account is that having one gives his friends and family members an incentive to join, too.
And, because many people don't understand that everything on Facebook can be public, Laporte doesn't think it's responsible to have an account. By having a Facebook page, he said, "I'm coercing people I'm in relationships with to do something bad."


http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/13/facebook.delete.privacy/index.html?iref=allsearch
 
 
And from wickipedia....the steps to take to make sure you permanently delete your account.
 
http://www.wikihow.com/Permanently-Delete-a-Facebook-Account
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Strawberries and Containers

Ha! You thought I would already be harvesting berries??? Fat chance! We're still dipping below 0C during the nights....so no, my berry plants were still buried under all that straw I put on them in the Fall.

But yesterday, I did take about half of the straw off. I want the ground under the plants to be able to start warming up, and it can't do it with all that straw on top.

So, I'll leave them like this for another week or so, then if the temperatures are kind, I'll remove the rest of the straw, give the beds a good weeding and hopefully then the plants will start to grow!

I've been doing a bunch of weeding and trying to get the odd flower container ready. I've had these two pots for proably 8 years or so....they were starting to look pretty bad!

I bought a couple of plant stands to use out on the porch, so I gave these pots a painting....

I LOVE this stuff! It's fantastic for spraying plastic. I used to use it on our old lawn chairs, the plastic white ones you can buy. I changed them to green using this stuff!

Here's the end result. Don't those pots look Much Better now? I've got a Wave Petunia planted in each container.....eventually I'll have one pot on either side of our porch. But right now, I am still hardening off the petunias, so I have them bunched together. Just makes it a tad faster for me to move them out to the sun, then up tight against the house at night time.

My living room is completely overflowing with seedlings. Yes, I have corn growing in the living room, ha!

I have already started hardening off the cabbage plants, and I may just go ahead and plant them in the garden this weekend. They are quite cold hardy, so I am thinking they should be fine.

What are your gardening plans for the weekend??? I am going to try to keep going with getting the main veggie garden planted. Plus weeding, plus kitty watching, pig watering, egg gathering....lots to do here!

Oh and I have my meat bird chicks coming next Wednesday, so I have a few more brooder related things to get finished on the weekend. Fun times!

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Romaine lettuce recall expands

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/05/11/lettuce.recall/index.html?hpt=Sbin

(CNN) -- More romaine lettuce has been recalled amid an investigation into an outbreak of food-borne illness that has sickened at least 19 people in three states.
Vaughan Foods of Moore, Oklahoma, is recalling romaine lettuce with "use by" dates of May 9 and May 10, the Food and Drug Administration said in a statement. The company sold the lettuce to restaurants and food-service facilities, the administration said.


Vaughan's recall comes after Freshway Foods recalled romaine lettuce last week because of a possible connection to an outbreak of food-borne disease linked to E. coli 0145 in Michigan, Ohio and New York.
Authorities are investigating a farm near Yuma, Arizona, where the tainted lettuce was harvested, the Food and Drug Administration said. Vaughan Foods received lettuce from that farm, the administration said.
Investigators have confirmed that the outbreak has sickened 19 people: 10 in Michigan, seven in Ohio and two in New York. Twelve of the 19 have been hospitalized, including three who developed a potentially life-threatening complication called hemolytic uremic syndrome, or HUS, the administration said.
In addition, health investigators cite the outbreak as the "probable" reason that 10 other people have fallen ill: five in New York, three in Michigan and two in Ohio, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
E. coli O145 can cause abdominal cramps and diarrhea, which may be bloody. Though most healthy adults recover within a week, young children and the elderly are most at risk of developing HUS.
Federal health authorities are encouraging anyone with such symptoms to contact a health care provider immediately.
Ohio-based Freshway Foods said that the recalled shredded romaine lettuce was sold to wholesalers, food service outlets, and some in-store salad bars and delis.
The company said it sold the lettuce in question to businesses in Alabama, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia and Wisconsin.
Consumers are urged not to eat "grab and go" salads sold from in-store salad bars and delis at Kroger, Giant Eagle, Ingles Markets, and Marsh stores.
The recall does not affect romaine lettuce and other types of lettuce and leafy greens from other producers.


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Half my Main Veggie Garden is Planted!

Woot, woot! I'm a happy farmer because the entire right hand side of the main Veggie Garden is now planted! I know it doesn't look like much......yet.

Top right is all potatoes, with a few extra rows in the top portion of the lower garden....does that make sense?

Also seeded are Spinach, Kale, Chard, Beets, Turnips and Carrots!! Weeeeeee!

Progress in the Berry Bed.....

Garlic in background, Chives on the left, Lovage in the front, and one of our Rhubarb plants on the right.

The goodness of Garlic! This year, I am going to double the size of the garlic bed again!

I'm planning on making braids this Fall with the Garlic.

My new Perennial Bed, along the pathway down to the Barn. I've got the solar lights in there now, and the plants seem to be settling in. I hear a neighbour has even more plants to give me!

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A Brilliant Move!

Why, O Why, did I choose a kitten that blends in so well with our flooring??

She's been underfoot since she got here and I've almost tripped over her already!

She sure looks cute tho, sitting in the windowsill!

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Da Mouser!

Wellllll....I hope she will be a Mouser!  Here's the latest addition to our farm....

eventually I am hoping she will spend a lot of time down at the barn,

chasing down mice and then

curling up in hay in her off-hours.

Does she look like a Ginger to you? Or do you have a better name to suggest???

For now, I put her in the bathroom along with a litterbox, food, milk and a blanky to curl up on.

Yes, I would be most appreciative if you would do your business in there...thanks so much!

Now THAT'S fantastic! Awesome thinking! Yes, go there.....

(She's hunkered down in the bathtub now, sleeping on a towel I laid out for her.)

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Certain Trades Cancelled Due to Yesterday's Plunge

Nasdaq Operations said it will cancel all trades executed between 2:40 p.m. to 3 p.m. showing a rise or fall of more than 60 percent from the last trade in that security at 2:40 p.m or immediately prior.


http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6456QB20100506?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews Sphere: Related Content

Markets Sent Reeling After Possible Trading Error

Markets Sent Reeling After Possible Trading Error







$700-billion of U.S. stock-market value wiped out in less than 10 minutes before mostly recovering






Boyd Erman and Joanna Slater






From Friday's Globe and Mail Published on Thursday, May. 06, 2010 10:44PM EDT Last updated on Thursday, May. 06, 2010 11:50PM EDT






U.S. regulators and stock exchanges are searching for answers after what is believed to be a trading error set off a heart-stopping plunge in markets that rivalled the crash of 1987 for ferocity.



Unnerved by fears about Greece’s debt woes, investors were already sending stocks lower early on Thursday, but in mid-afternoon, without any apparent trigger, shares went into free fall. At one point, the Dow Jones Industrial Average had tumbled nearly 1,000 points, or 9 per cent, before snapping back. It ended the day down 3.2 per cent.

In a tacit acknowledgment that markets had gone haywire, the Nasdaq stock exchange said it would cancel all trades executed between 2:40 and 3 p.m. Thursday, during which shares oscillated more than 60 per cent beyond earlier levels, though it maintained that its systems had functioned normally. The all-electronic trading platform operated by the New York Stock Exchange said it, too, would annul trades.



Uncovering how $700-billion of U.S. stock-market value was vaporized in less than 10 minutes is the task ahead for market regulators. Both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said they were reviewing Thursday’s “unusual trading” and plan to make their findings and recommendations public.


Thursday’s dive was “one of the most extreme moves I can ever recall, including 1987,” said Steve Sosnick, equity risk manager at Timber Hill LLC, the market-making unit of Interactive Brokers Group Inc. in Greenwich, Conn.

 The abnormal trading activity comes at a delicate juncture for financial markets and Wall Street. Investors are increasingly anxious that European policy-makers are allowing Greece’s debt crisis to spiral out of control and spread to other countries. Many had hoped that the European Central Bank would announce bold steps to rein in borrowing costs on Thursday, which it did not do, prompting shares to lose ground.

 For average U.S. investors, Thursday’s wild trading will once again shake their confidence in the stock market, already battered by the financial crisis and subsequent controversies like the civil fraud charges against Goldman Sachs Group Inc. In minutes, companies that are household names saw their share prices evaporate. Philip Morris, the world’s largest publicly traded tobacco maker, at one point had sunk 96 per cent to $2. It ended the day at $47, down just 3.5 per cent.


Much of the scrutiny will focus on whether computer-driven trading caused or exacerbated the plunge. Such automated trading has long worried some investors and regulators. So-called program trading has often been blamed for the 1987 crash in stock markets, and while the nature of electronic trading has changed radically in the more than two decades since Black Monday, the idea of humans taking a back seat to computers in markets still unnerves many.


“I think the machines just took over,” said Charlie Smith, chief investment officer at Fort Pitt Capital Group. “We’ve known that automated trading can run away from you, and I think that’s what we saw happen today.”


The focus now will shift to finding the cause. Traders said it may have begun with what they call a “fat finger” – when a trade is bungled by hitting the wrong key on a keyboard, perhaps b for billion instead of m for million.


Speculation revolved around Citigroup, with rumours that a trader there had accidentally sold much too much of something. Some traders said that it was shares of Procter & Gamble Co., which experienced a huge drop, plunging to $39.37 from about $60 near the beginning of the sell-off. Other traders said it could have been a futures contract tied to stock prices. Citigroup said it found no evidence that any of its traders were involved.


Whatever started the carnage shortly after 2:30 p.m., the damage spread fast as computer trading programs known as algorithms kicked in. Some appeared to start selling, while others pulled out of the market altogether, taking all their buy offers with them and jerking the rug out from under the market.


“It was going so fast that it didn’t seem like it was purposeful,” said Michael Mainwald, head trader at Lek Securities in New York. Stocks can fall quickly, he said, but typically they don’t accelerate on the way down.


By 2:46 p.m., the Dow had fallen almost 1,000 points compared with its standing at noon, staying near that level for two seemingly endless minutes before it snapped back, recouping half of those losses.


The spasm rippled through all financial markets. Treasury bond prices soared, gold rocketed higher, and risky corporate bonds tanked.


The bewildering round trip – which all unfolded within 15 minutes – left investors dumbfounded.



Almost every stock in North America gapped lower, from huge companies like Accenture Plc, which briefly plunged to a penny from over $40, to smallish Canadian firms that lost half their value before bouncing back.


“The big difference [from 1987] is the speed that this can all happen,” Mr. Sosnick said. “Nineteen eighty-seven took place over the course of hours, this took place here in the course of minutes. The one thing with the electronic marketplaces: the time frames get compressed.”


It was a big day for investors lucky enough to be anticipating a big fall, or who had placed what are known as “stink bids” for stocks way below market value.


“When the market was down 1,000 points, we were so way up it wasn’t funny,” said Paul Ma, international equity manager at Calgary-based McLean & Partners Wealth Management Ltd.



Mr. Ma said he believes that more than just a glitch was at play, and that there’s a fundamental case of nerves in the market. By the close of trading on Thursday, the Dow was still down 3.2 per cent. The backdrop remains worrisome, especially with photos of violence in Greece on Thursday’s front pages.


Peter McCorry, a senior equity trader at Keefe, Bruyette & Woods in New York, said, “People are on their toes. There’s nobody complacent out there.”


With a report from The Associated Press


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The DOW is Falling, The DOW is Falling!

Holy moly! What a free fall....here's a 6 month DOW chart....look at that red candle today, YIKES!!!

As I type this, it has fallen 987 points....

The TSX has wiped out the entire year's gains.....

holy Shite!

I'm rubbernecking here at the computer, can't turn away....unreal, what a dive!

When it bounces, I am back in...until then, I better go plant some more veggies :)

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Garden Planting

I haven't been out in the garden in the last couple of days, mostly because we had SNOW!

 It didn't stay very long, but yeah, for two days we had snow again.....

This afternoon, I am going to get out there and at least get in a row of these Seigland Potatoes....look at the sprouts on them!!

Check this out if you want to know the specifics on planting the potatoes....

And...friends gave us some Jerusalem Artichokes.

Now is the time to get them in the ground.

He told us to stick them in a garden area where they can stay over winter....

next Spring at this time, we will be able to harvest some.

I was told to plant them about 2 feet apart, so there is plenty of room for the tubers to grow.

They taste like potatoes.....and since they can be harvested at this time of the year,

 it may be a good idea to grow a whole wack of them to feed off to the piglets next Spring......

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And the Winner is.....

The Gman pulled the winning slip of paper 

Nina Diane from Virginia is the winner....

I hope you have fun spending your $50 over at Cookware.com !

Thanks everyone who entered!

Nina, Please email me to get your coupon code!

The "lucky" hat....hilarious!

We picked this up in Mexico last Winter.

It fits right in here in the 'Boo!

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Here's The Contest!

Want to win a gift certificate worth $50 for you to spend over at www.cookware.com? They've got a great selection of all kinds of kitchen goodies, pop over and check them out!

If you want to enter, all you have to do is leave me a comment on This post. In your comment, I need for you to let me know how you originally found our blog.  That's all you need to do!!

Monday at 6pm PST, I'll close the comments and soon after will announce the name of the winner.

Good Luck!

My day is going to be spent making cheese with my Valley friend. I'll be bringing the camera and taking lots of notes! Enjoy your Sunday! Sphere: Related Content