Crock Pot Roast Beef

I love my crock pot, especially during the busy weekdays. Roast beef does beautifully in there, just throw it in, add some onions, carrots and let it simmer all day long. We had mashed potatoes and gravy as sides.

Day 3 with the Chicks

The chicks seem to be settling in well. Samuel and Scarlett help feed, water then pet them every day. Today we thought we would bring out our Amerucana for a few snap shots, and see how she does. She barely moved! The seeds are doing well too.

Greenhouse/seeds

Samuel and Scarlett had fun this morning helping me plant new seeds in the greenhouse. We did yellow squash, hot peppers, bottle guords, pansy, zennia and basil. Off to Home Depot later for more supplies. Sam enjoys chucking all the scraps in the composter to make some nice soil for the gardens later this year. It was nice and warm in the greenhouse even though it was rather windy and a bit chilly outside. The lavender seeds have started to germinate, the sunflowers are doing well as are the lettuce, spinach, cucumber and tomatoes.

Our new pets

We collected the darling chicks from Buck a Buck Farm, yesterday after ballet class. We have six in total. One Salmon Favorelle, Cukoo Maran, Buff Orpington, Nankin Bantam, California White, one Amerucana. We should have a colorful flock, and beautiful organic basket of blue/green, dark brown, brown and white eggs this summer.

Stepping Stones for the Back Garden

On Thursday the children made stepping stones for the back garden. We used some old heart shaped cake pans as the mold.

Some pictures of the seeds that already have their first leaves appearing. The chicken rubbermaid is clean and ready for the beautiful little chicks we pick up this weekend. Samuel & Scarlett planted a tray of beautiful purple aubergines (eggplants) today. Tomorrow we make up the stepping stones for the garden.

Vegetable Seeds

Some of our vegetable seeds that were planted in the mini greenhouses have already begun to sprout in less than 48 hours! Looks like we may be getting our plants sooner than we thought. Even some of the large sunflower seeds are taking.

Chickens

We have purchased our first chicks which, we plan tp pick up this weekend. The chickens will be our pets and hopefully the hens will produce a colorful basket of eggs for our family. After watching Food Inc, I have decided to produce as much organic food I can myself. We are starting out with a few hens, and our own vegetable garden this year. Both the children are super excited.

Today we all went to Tractor Supply after school, and Samuel picked out a red heat lamp and some red plastic feeders. This evening Sam helped me clean out a rubbermaid container, we placed some newspaper down inside and found a good spot in the basment where we plan to raise the chicks until time for the coup outside.

Yesterday we planted melon, pumpkin, lavender, sunflower, lettuce, tomatoe, cucumber and spinach seeds! All are also in the basement in mini greenhouses until it warms up a bit and time to move to the outside greenhouse.