FO construction truck sweater

I finally finished the sweater for Mr. Lovebug. We'll thats not true, I finished it some time ago but it was warm and then I couldn't get a picture of him wearing it. It's not easy to get a 4 year old to stand still for pictures. Oh well what can you do.

I'm about 75% happy with it. We'll see how it fits him in the fall, I have a feeling I'll end up taking out the collar and re-doing it. It's wonky and ill-fitting. We'll see how much the kid grows in the next few months, I followed the directions except making the sleeve flat for some stupid reason, I probably should have followed my gut instead but what can you do.

I used Knit Picks Wool of the Andes in Gosling and size 5 needles. Or knee-nulls as Nature Baby says.I made the largest size and purposely made it a bit bigger, you know kids grow no matter how hard you try to get 'em to stop.

I'm really happy how the vehicles turned out and I'll probably use the charts again.

I really haven't been knitting much since finishing this guy. My hands are sore, my middle fingers especially are sore and stiff. It feels like I need to crack the knuckles, but I crack (or don't) and stretch and there isn't any relief. Not using my hands this time of year isn't an option, so I do what needs to be done and knitting falls by the way-side. I have two WIPs with no end in sight. Tough life, I know!

More goings on

Let's see, what's been going on around here.

We have a lot of new residents in our trees, including a pair of goldfinches. They're so bright it's easy to spot 'em. I have seen a few vultures around, which would suggest the salmon are running but I don't think that's true yet. The eagles are spending too much time above the fields instead of the river. Soon though I hope.

We've finished up the fence and now we're almost finished prepping and planting the garden. There will be more on that. We have strawberries! Our plants are heavy with fruit and they're surprisingly not getting eaten by the chickens!

Mr. Lovebug is finished with school and home full time. We have some fun things planed for the summer.

I've ordered some hedges for parts of the yard, we're building a new play structure for the kids and an address sign for the yard, again more on all of that later.

It's the time of year for weird weather, sun showers, hail, and beautiful evening rainbows like this one. The kids are always amazed when we get to see them.

Cost per dozen for April

Oh boy, I'm a bit late on this one! April (and now half of May!) flew by, the girls were trouble makers as per usual. No one was broody, eaten or injured, so that's a good month. Truckee (The Rooster) continues to do his job of protecting the ladies. We have had a few eagle scares. This seems to be becoming a weekly event, but Truckee groans and the girls hide. If he isn't near them he will come running to protect them. He is a good rooster.

We had 217 eggs, 18.08 dozen. My cost for feed and straw was  $19.38, I sold $24 of eggs making $4.62 profit. Hurray! Months like these the girls are earning their keep. I can't complain about that.

They have been making a mess of the garden and now traveling into the other neighbor's yard (but they don't mind). We'll be adding a garden fence this year, I'm not sure if that should factor into the cost per dozen.

At some point in June I will be doing a deep clean of the coop and deworming the flock, that will definitely have a higher cost per dozen but you've got to do what you've got to do.

Garden 2016 let's get this thing going.

I feel like I'm really behind in terms of the garden this year. It's already May and there's NOTHING done! Well... not nothing, the compost is spread and the ground has just been tilled. Now it's time for the really hard work. Building the rows.

check out the before (top two) and after (bottom two). Huge difference!

Enjoy the garden while you can girls, you're getting fenced out. 

This year we opted for a tractor and harrow instead of just rototilling. My goodness, what a difference! The soil is so smooth! We have heavy clay, this year it was better but still very heavy. I added compost and that helped. I might add sand next year but that's not even worth thinking about yet.


Now for the hard work, building rows, then landscape fabric, planting and drip irrigation. I'm going to use straw in-between the rows. It'll break down quickly, help keep the weeds under control and it's cheap.

We've been doing a lot of work outside and with each step of each project I want to do more. More more more!We have a few more fence panels to put up. I'm like to run them out to the field, but we might just stop where the long grass starts. We'll see what happens.

In case you're wondering what our garden looked like last year, here's a few highlights (The first tilling and what it looked like by July)

I can't wait until I have more produce than I know what to do with!
Are you growing anything this year? Tell me about it! I love to know what other people are doing!