Not even going to try to excuse myself...

I have neglected my blog something terrible. :( And there's no excuse for it.

I will instead show what I have been working on. At least some of it. Ceramics...I got two kilns and a pottery wheel recently off of craigslist. they're pretty fun.

I made a toad house (used to lure beneficial creatures to the garden to feast of insects...)

A bowl for my best buddy...

a piggy bank for my daughter:

And I needed to do something to try out an idea... this will be a trivit for hot dishes on the dinner table... the bird is watercolored...

The garden is growing nicely and is producing bunches of vegetables. I am busy with appointments and stuff while also trying to get the kids ready for the new school year. Makes for a hectic lifestyle right now, and its wearing me out, but I am still using my crafting to keep me grounded and give me a much needed escape. I have all kinds of projects going on around me and hopefully I will be able to share some of those soon too. :)

In the meantime, be blessed!

Due for a May update.

May has hit, and hit hard here in the Rockies. What should be gently warming days has in reality been days of bitter icy cold, sleet, hail, snow and frost warnings. Hard to believe that camping and Barbecue season kicks off in less than two weeks. I am cautiously optimistic however that indeed the warm weather will come. I have good reason to be looking forward towards the future of the garden.

So, lets get the month started right with the monthly acrostic.

M Mother's Day. This Mother's Day, guess what I got?? Dirt. No, I don't mean that as to say I didn't get anything, I infact, got...dirt. Four cubic yards of dirt. And With this we expanded the north garden. Hubby also got the rough work done for the sprinkler system back there.

A Aquatic Livestock. We're beginning to get the aquatic animals brought into the pond and Aquaponics project, like this guy and his buddies...

Y Yellow. Yellow is one of the first colors to spring fourth here in our yards. Yellow Daffodils, Irises, and even a lilac. Here's a quick view of some of the Irises.

WIth the Acrostic out of the way (yay for a three letter month!!) I can talk about some of the happenings here. First, as mentioned above, we got more dirt moved into the garden for the north end of the property. Adding that nearly doubled the space I can garden in. I have added two new to me plants ths year. Sugar Cane, and Sunchokes. Sunchokes I have had a little experience with mut not in my own garden, at least, not on purpose. I removed most of what I had before I started gardening, mistakenly thinking they were weeds.

The garden is coming along nicely. Lettuce, spinach, most herbs, chard, broccoli, some root crops, and the fruits are up and beginning to show life. I planted tomatoes and peppers. And during an inspection of the grape arbor (teehee, that sounds all kindsa fancy, yes? Acutally we bought an arch at a discount store, and they grew up it...that's sort of an arbor. If you squint.)  is growing nicely. In fact you can see hundreds of clusters of what will hopefully mature into harvestable grapes! The currants are doing their thing too. I have flowers on all the fruit trees and hope that I will have some fruit this summer for the kids.

This week we got six new chicks to add some youth into the coops. Two Easter Egger chicks, that I failed to photograph yet. And four ducklings. Two are Welsh Harlequin and two are Cayuga. The Welshies we are confident are female, the Cayugas are straight run. Could be male or female, only time will tell. The Cayuga are nearly a week older than the welshies.

Just a quick note

H and I plan on going to a few garden stores tomorrow and perhaps digging in the back garden to plant some potatoes tomorrow. If we get the chance to do either, I will take pics to show everyone

Missed an entire month

I missed an entire month of posting. But it's for a very good reason. Wait for it...I got a job. And not just any job either. A dream job...well, for me anyway. I now sell poultry and poultry related accessories. I won't mention the name of the company, as I am an independent contractor (and I haven't thought to ask if it would be ok yet to mention by name) I got the go ahead to mention the name...Purely Poultry (www.purelypoultry.com if you are interested in baby chicks and other poultry, check it out.). I love it. Even when people are less than friendly. I LOVE IT. And I get to be home with my children. i get to be present when company comes and so on. We aren't dug out of all our problems but we are making a nice sized dent in it all because of it. :) Can't beat that.

So without further ado, I will get the April Acrostic up for a recap of the last few days.

A Anticipation. The buds on the trees are just about bursting open telling us that spring is indeed bringing good things with it. 



PPriceless. The dog, in a moment of "hey, pay attention to ME." Got a photo of not only him but the evidence that he uprooted one of my hostas...again! That's the clod of dirt to the right of him.

R Rocky Mountain scenery...Garden of the Gods Park is at the base of all these red rocks. The one on the right has a formation called Kissing camels, where it looks like two camels kissing. On the left side of the rock. Here's my photo,

If you were interested in seeing another view of the same rock, try googling "Kissing Camels Colorado Springs" there's lots of closer images. It's close to me and I hope to share more about this park on the blog later this year. This is a beautiful are to live in. And to see images like this daily, well, makes me smile.

I  Impromptu, an unplanned visit to the park leads to an impromptu lesson about the poem America the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates.

L Lazy. Moguai taking a lazy nap behind the computer...

Alternatively "L" could have been LIMES, lookit, lookit! My lime is producing again :

The days have gotten warmer, but the girls are still not laying. I could pull my hair out. Here they are, freeloading as they do  You'd think with their days numbered on the homestead, they'd pick up that (stolen from my tool basket) paint roller and at least paint the coop or something. Especially after they took their run down to bare dirt!

The quails are at least trying to work at the computer to earn their keep.

Some veggies are beginning to come up. Some we had to plant ourselves while we wait for the seeds to come up. First is a few lettuces, second is some of the cole crops, and third is my rhubarb. Not bad for our region and it being April.

That's the news from our Urban Homestead.

FEBRUARY (yeah, I'm super late)

Lots of really rough stuff happening here right now. I don't even know where to start.

But in an effort to focus on the positive, here's February's acostic

F - Frugal



A shopping bag made of what otherwise would have found it's way to the garbage. A wash with soap and water and it was scent free, and because the plastic is woven well, it'll work for several applications this spring. And it'll make lugging the smaller bags of cat food a little easier. I made this after seeing something similar in a forum I frequent. I looked at the pic and kinda went from there. I figured if I didn't like the result...I could order the one displayed.)

E - Expectation



I am eagerly anticipating planting season

B - Brrrrr

A image of the temperatures from the beginning of the month. In the middle of the photo. It was taken mid-day. Thankfully it has warmed up a little since then.

R - Rejection

We have been having a hard time getting some things accomplished here on the homestead. Job applications have fallen through and things are getting tight. Since this blog represents our real life, I figured that even the "not so great stuff" should make it onto the screen as well.  No picture for this one. Rejection is a part of life though. It's a part of life that is just as important as success. Knowing how to dust yourself off and try again or to reassess the situation to find a different course of action is just as valid, if not more so, a learning experience as sweet victory.

U - Unexpected

An unexpected treasure was found when going through the garden beds last year. An ear of ornamental corn...dried.

A - Anagrams

E is playing one of our newest favorite games, Scrabble Flash. Each one of these little screens shows a letter, you have 1 minute to arange and rearrange them into words from three letters to five. The more words you create, the more points. It's super neat how it works.

R - Reading...Writing...Arithmatic (the three R's!)

The Homeschoolers working on their school work together.

Y - Yarn

Working on a project for a friend, it'll be hand warmers. She asked me to make a wrist warmer, only longer. Like a tube with a hole for her thumb to stick outta. So that she can still type at work.