The Rain Notebook

I know I know… I didn’t blog yesterday.  Even though I was trying to blog every day, I failed.  I know all of you are just incredibly disappointed, and to make it up to you I’m making this blog all about my garden.

Little Egg Farm, That is the name that has been dubbed to my garden by some of my future egg clients.  This is because all my laying hens I have are bantams.  So of course I get the little white eggs.  Its actually quite funny, they keep asking when they are going to grow up and lay bigger eggs.  Each time I explain that I have bantams and that they will always lay these size eggs, they are full grown! But that my standard size chicks are growing fast, and will be laying the large brown eggs.  They still don’t seem to get it but have named my farm to the Little Egg Farm.   I think when I get my big hens laying I will rename it to the Little Big Egg Farm. :)

So out on the Little Egg Farm my garden is growing like crazy.  I have about of 100 sq  ft of actual planting space and have enough plants in it!  I’m growing tomatos, peppers of all sorts, 4 different squashes, carrots, cucumbers, beans, peas & snowpeas, kohlrabi, kale, garlic, onions, eggplant, elephant garlic,  and herbs of all sorts.

I love my garden and each year I want to make it bigger and bigger.  I think I will win this fight next year though. :)

So here its my beautiful garden pics!

First we start of with the entrance to my garden sanctuary.   During the rains and the cool mornings you will find me out here with my laptop and coffee. :)

These are some cucumbers I started by seed a month later then the rest of my garden.  But in the time that its had, its been doing great.  You can also see the carrots growing in front of it.  As well as pots of some snow peas that I thought were cucumber seeds. ha ha

Here is my main tomato bed.  I did overstuff this sucker and will learn my lesson for next year since I can’t seem to see what is growing in the center.  But they get enough nutrients and they are almost 4′ tall.  So I think they are quite happy.  Mixed in here are tomatillos, early girls, beef eaters, the yellow pear like tomatoes, and cherry & grape tomatoes as well as lots more different kinds.  I also have carrots and onions in, but I don’t think they’ll be doing too well with all the tomotoes hovering over them.  Well see come harvest time.

Half of my zucchini patch.   You can see part of my Turkey cage in the back there.  I love my Turkeys. :)

Speaking of Turkeys, look how big my turkey is!!  He is only 3 months old!

The other side of my zucchini patch.

Its probably the meanest thing to do to my chickens to put their coop RIGHT next to the garden.  They do eye it an awful lot.

All my pepper plants.  From Anaheim, to Cayenne to the bell peppers I have one of everything I could find.

And here is a mixture of more pepper and tomato plants.

Whatcha doing mom?

A close up of some of my first fruits.

Look how big!

Look how small!

Mmmmm carrots

And here we have some pictures of the chickens right after the rain we just had…

Handsome boy isn’t he??

You can see the silver silkie right next to the SAME AGE standard Buff Orpington….

After getting all “dirty” after the rain, the chickens had to take a bath in the dirt.  Silly birds.

Some final shots of other fun stuff in the garden

Garlic

Basil

Kohlrabi

And that is my garden… hope you enjoyed the pictures as much as I enjoyed sharing them with you!  Have a great Thursday!! :)

Earworms is a serious affliction that has affected everyone at least once in their lives.  For me it’s very chronic.

James J. Kellaris‘ studies demonstrated that different people have varying susceptibilities to earworms, but that almost everybody has been afflicted with one at some time or another.

Gross you may be thinking.  I don’t have ear worms.  But what exactly are Earworms?  Here is a quote from Dictionary.com

And you thought I meant real live worms! ha ha

This usually happens to me once or twice a day.  Which is always why I have to have music playing.  This is actually seriously annoying.  As much as I love music, to hear the same song over and over again, gets pretty annoying.

I will actually wake up with an ear worm of a song that I don’t remember hearing in a long time.  Its crazy.   I don’t get why I get them or what brings up the songs in my head.  I mean seriously?  Do I dream all night of these songs?   Makes me wonder…

How about you?  Do you get ear worms often?  Do you wake up with them?  Or am I the only crazy one!?

As a professional photographer I have had the opportunity to be interviewed by a local radio station. I figured I’d share a question I was asked and the answer I gave.

Do you have any suggestions for the average person to take better photos?

There are a lot of ways you can create better photos. Composition is the easest and fastest to pick up.  By taking time to compose your images you will be surprised how much better your shots will be.

One way is to get closer.  We tend to do more snapshot type pictures with the cool background.  While those shots are fun to have, change it up a bit.  Have the subject move closer, or you move in closer.

Another way is called the “Rule of Thirds” Imagine your image is split up in thirds vertically and thirds horizontally.  You will have 9 sections total, and it will look something like this.

You want to have your subject on the third of the image.  Whether is the bottom left or top right.  This helps create interest and more appeal to your photo.

Here are a few shots that I’ve taken that display this, hopefully if I didn’t make sense in how I explained it, the images will explain.

Something else that applys with this rule is where your horizon is in your photo.  Again dead center is a little plain, instead raise your horizon level higher and show off more of a sky.  Or lower it and show more of the foreground.

In December last year, I wrote up a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days. And if I could help it I wanted to blog about each item I checked off the list.

In the meantime I forgot about it.  I forgot about the things on the list.  I remembered some things yet forgot others.  Today I got to looking at the list and discovered I already got one thing on the list.

Number 41.

Go see a movie in the theaters by myself.

Now I have done before and I liked doing it… however it had been years and years since the last time I did it.  So I wanted to add it to my 101 list.

Back in April I went to see a movie by myself.  I had a blast.  My honey had a friend up from the valley and they were up to their own projects and I didn’t want to be home feeling bored to tears.  So I went out to the movies.   My honey’s friend thought it was so weird.  He couldn’t understand why I would want to do it, but worse he said other people were going to think I’m weird.

I blew it off because I knew it wasn’t weird.  It didn’t bother me.  So I went to go see a chick flick, since it would be like pulling teeth to get my honey to take me to it.  What did I see?

Backup Plan

Now this movie was hilarious and I enjoyed it so much.    In fact I couldn’t stop laughing at the theater!  Granted every one in the movie was laughing but I laughed much louder.

However in the middle of the movie I got to thinking… uh… single (looking) woman, childless, in her late twenties, watching a movie by herself… but not just any movie, she was watching the Backup Plan.  About single motherhood backup plan and laughing her butt off about it!

It all of a sudden hit me… what would people be thinking?  I was there by myself, did I have desperate and weird written all over my face??  I did have my promise ring on but by this point they probably thought it was fake.

I didn’t let it stop me from enjoying the movie, though I think I controlled my laughter a bit more.  But I look back now and laugh.  This item on my 101 list gave me something to enjoy during and smile and blush as I think back about it.  ha ha

This is a blog of random thoughts and ideas. This is what we would be talking about, if you were right here with me having coffee on this Saturday. So pull up a seat and enjoy your cup of coffee with me.

Rain

So when am I not talking about rain right? Besides the fact that I love the rain. So does my garden… for several reasons. One reason being the obvious. When it rains they get watered. And any gardener will tell you that they do so much better when they get water from the rain. The water from the tap keeps them surviving but water from the gets them flourishing. It’s natures fertilizer.

I credit this to one reason I love the rain. Its the source of life. Just look anywhere outside after a few rains. You will see that outside blooming and so green. Especially in the desert or high desert we have. After the rain everything just takes off!

But the other reason my garden and I love the rain, is the fact that I conserve the rain water when it comes down off the roof through the gutters. I do this because about this time of year our well starts to run low. Of course showering and washing dishes is far more important then watering my garden, my garden usually suffers. So after doing some research I’ve found that we can collect an insane amount of water after just one storm.

After yesterdays storm that came and went in about 15 mins we were able to collect 65 gallons of water. Off of the rooftops and into the gutters to came down to a little setup to conserve water. The was only a third of the rooftop. We could had collected so much more had we been setup properly. So we changed barrels and another storm came in over the night and collected another 65 gallons. That is 130 gallons of water collected in one day. Now I estimate that my garden takes about 60 gallons a day to be happy and healthy. But we collected two days worth of water in just one day and because of the good rains we don’t have to water today.

This is also great because we collected natures fertilizer. So now my garden gets great water all the time. For the most part, once the monsoon rains start we always have a collection of water and by the time we start to run out another storm comes. This is one big reason I love the monsoons. And I’ll definitely have to blog about my set up and how much rain we collect another time, so stay tuned!

Bees

So I’m sitting out in my garden, enjoying the fresh air, the moist ground and the chickens chirping away. But I look to my left at the buzzing sound and see about 3 or 4 bees in my zucchini patch. They are enjoying the pretty yellow flowers. I know they aren’t going to come sting me. Bees are actually quite docile if you leave them alone. They care about me one bit, they rather fly around and roll around in the yellow stuff of the flowers.

The bees actually got me thinking about another blog. But of course… thats another blog. But I ran inside, grabbed my camera and came out to take pictures of them. I have a macro lens so I had to get some close up shops of the tiny little creatures. I welcome these guys with open arms into my garden. And I’m so pleased to see them. For awhile there I didn’t think I had any. I never saw them but I had fruit, so obviously those little workers were there and gone.

I like bees, and soon I’ll explain why.

Peaceful & Happy

Really my garden is all I’m thinking about this morning. Its so peaceful out here, that I don’t want to inside. I don’t want to think about working or really anything other then My happy little farm. Right now every thing seems so perfect. Here it is 10:00 nice and cloudy, the chickens are happily taking dust baths, the turkeys are free ranging, the bees are pollinating, even the flies are happily sitting on me. lol Though I’m so at peace that they don’t bother me, with an occasional swat away they for the most part are just another thing of the garden that I enjoy. I could die right here and be the happiest girl in the world. With that note I figure I’d post a picture of my perfect little setup.