January Gardening

I haven't showed you my ET tree yet.  Can you see the pointing finger? I just love this thing!  As you can see, it's part of my clothesline.   Mars cut the top part of the tree off for a couple of fence posts and left me with a natural clothesline! Nothing like a re-purposed tree with some character.

We've been taking full advantage of the nice weather here in Oklahoma the past few days.  Who ever said that winter is a slow time of the year sure hasn't been around here this week! 
We just about have the main garden ready to till in the fertilizer and let it sit and "work" until next month.  There's one more 100 ft row that needs to raked out but its just about ready for the next step. 

   I'm not sure if I've mentioned it, but our neighbors have several horses.  And where there are horses there is horse poop!  Lots and lots of horse poop. We've been told to "help ourselves" to however much we want which is great.  There's a bunch of it that's over a year old and that's the pile we will be loading up from.  You just can't beat "free" manure. It's probably going to take several loads.   

    I know that we'll have to deal with the weeds that will come from it but it's just going to have to be that way.  We still haven't worked out the mulch situation, but we'll figure something out.  As this is the first year we have planted here I'm not sure what the outcome will be but hey, you have to start somewhere!  With a garden this large though we should get  something out of it!  In a couple of years we should have some really nice dirt.  I'm just happy that we have good stuff to start with. 

 The neighbor's chickens are laying again.  They gave us these . 
Sweet huh?? 

 You can sure tell which ones are the store bought ones. 
   Our own little chicken saga is continuing as well.  Mars is working on a smallish enclosed outdoor run for them and the posts are set.  We just need to pick up a few treated 2x4's to secure the chicken wire to.  That's  going to have to wait till the next check though as it's just not in our budget this month.  We've got the wire and he's cut down the old telephone pole for the posts.  We have the material here for the nesting boxes and have figured out what we'll use for the roosts too.  So all we'll be "out" of  pocket for are the 2x4's.  It seems that this project has taken a lot longer than I ever thought it would.  All in good time though I suppose. 

   On another note, we met another neighbor who lives a couple miles up the road.  He stopped by this weekend while he was out on his 4-wheeler and introduced himself.  They have a deer processing business!  He let us know that sometimes folks don't come pick up their deer for one reason or another and that we could get a good deal on some venison or hog occasionally.  WOOT!!  Right now he's got 70 lbs of venison he's asking $50 for.  Sure do wish I had the money to move on THAT deal!  Anyway....

   I should have known that I was worrying for nothing about having no place to start our indoor seeds.  Mar's made us a shelf out of some scrap metal and old wood he had laying around. He mounted it on the one big window we have that gets good light most of the day. Sorry about the picture quality but its cloudy and rainy out today.

    It's not very big but using the egg carton's we should be able to at least get some tomato and pepper plants started.  A good friend of mine sent us several varieties of heirloom tomato seeds last year and I've got 5 varieties started so far. (Thanks Kronic!) Using the egg cartons we should have room for 120 plants in the window.  Well, until they get bigger anyway!  I guess we'll worry about that when we get there....  first we have to get them sprouted!
                               ~~~~~~  Hey ... I'm Just Sayin' ...  ~~~~~~