Pre-Summer Update

Sorry it's been so long, but it's been a fun spring of outdoor projects (irrigation for the cedars behind the solar panels, planting guilds of helpful plants around the fruit trees, prepping the garden, weeding and planting the green roofs), finishing up house projects (trim, paving, exterior paint, moving equipment back to Expert), learning about pregnancy and infants (including a great pregnancy class that made Jon laugh and turn red just about every week), some hiking/snowshoeing and helping out with the climbing class, and getting to know neighbors and other families/homesteading people in the area. 

As far as the pregnancy front goes, all is well, I'm measuring true-to-time 30 cm uterus for 30 weeks and the baby is moving around like crazy, sometimes kicking me in the lungs in a way that makes me gasp. We are waiting to find out the sex, though we have our guess ;-) Though it is a few days until official summer and the weather lately has been mostly very spring-ish, keep us in your thoughts as mid-August rolls around when I'll inevitably be late, hot and grouchy ;-) For now I can still do most everything, and get to enjoy feeling the baby's hiccups and listening to the heartbeat. 

Anyway, here are a few pics: We finally have grass and beautiful Iris (thanks Marilyn!) growing on one side of our front walkway, with the last pile under plastic on the other side, awaiting final landscaping soon...

Jon has been greatly enjoying showing the chickens the wonders of the world outside their garage-coop while we build a chicken tractor, including introducing them to the goats... We have four breeds and the range of intelligence is pretty interesting, with this breed now intimidating the goats and giving us a fun game of hide and seek last Sunday. 

If you didn't know, we have four goats now, my two babies Rowen and Harper who are 5 months old, and another couple of sisters (Kerala and Ofeibea) who are 10 months old, learning the ways of walking on a lead and slowly getting less domineering with the younger goats. 

Better late than never, right? I finally have the garden almost prepped. I am doing a hugelkultur bed where you bury logs to slowly decompose and act like a sponge for moisture as well as slowly releasing nutrients. A friend helped me cut up and haul a couple of fallen alders from our stream bank and I finally dug a trench and buried them today. We'll see what I get going, probably mostly some fall crops and food for the goats in the winter (mangel beets, pumpkins, kale, collards). When I realized how late I was going to be with the garden I started working at the CSA in Woodinville again for the summer so we're stocked with veges, and I bring home all the weeds for the goats, which they devour...

And finally, our last 'big' project to get done before the baby, a mondo chicken tractor fit for our eight chickens, with much design work by Jon and much handing of screws from me to Jon as he does all of the work. All it needs is another coat of stain, a roof and chicken wire, and then we'll have the chickens out on pasture. 

I hope you're all doing well and enjoying the beginnings of summer! Come visit if you're ever in the area :-)