Spring is in the Air

It is already April, and somehow, life has just sailed by and I haven't updated in what feels like an eon. Spring is in full swing again, it's warming up and flowers are popping up everywhere.

Noah and I have flown across the world and seen some of the most amazing places on Earth. We had an unbelievable experience and I hope to post an review of the week we spent in Israel. I hope that this is the first of many adventures in Noah's life. I hope that the reality of how truly small our little corner of life is and how amazing, and huge, and wonderful the possibilities of seeing more of our wonderful world can be has been fully engrained in his young life.

We got home just after Christmas and as usual life has been moving along at full speed with little time to stop and take a breath.

Nathan is now 18 and on his last few months of high school. In February he was awarded the honor of Eagle Scout and we are truly proud of his accomplishments in that regard. We look forward to see what he will do moving forward.

Benjamin turned 5 in January, and is growing like a bad weed. He is starting his Pre-School/Kindergarten work and learning his letters and numbers and how to tie his shoes and using his ninja skills.

We still have the chickens and a goat. We are also trying to raise rabbits for meat, and the kids have decided that they want to learn tanning and use the rabbit pelts. I am assuming that the process will be long and arduous and probably will become another project for Matt and I, but I really like the idea of using all of the rabbit, being respectful of it's life and not wasting any part of it.

So the reason for this post was mostly to update on that process and progress. It has been a rough start, and our first experience lead to quite a few fall and winter births and a lot of deaths because of cold, wet baby bunnies and inexperienced moms and inexperienced "farmers"; we lost most of the young rabbits before they got to an age that they could be used for meat.

This past year we had several times that neighborhood dogs attacked and killed most of our population of rabbits and there again we never were able to grow any out to an age of harvesting meat.

Just a couple of weeks ago, we(Matt, because I was busy making cakes for Cub Scouts) harvested 5 of our youngest rabbits that survived from last year. There were just to many young males and they were terrorizing the females that we had left. So now we have three females and two males.

Today we discovered that our little grey female gave birth to five beautiful healthy, active little bundles of joy, and over the next couple of weeks we will have two more bunny nursery boxes to set up, so we should be up to our ears with bunnies again soon.

We also have two dozen eggs incubating that will be hatching on the 18th of April. We will have baby farm animals coming out of our ears before too long...

We have also collected a turtle that was buried in the nest in our back yard that it was hatching from, and today while walking the new puppy(yes, we have a new puppy also...her name is Sadie and she is such a cutie) Noah found a new turtle trying to cross the street. It is about the size of a quarter and is so very tiny compared to the one we found last month. So now we have two red-eared sliders to entertain us. They are very entertaining they have such great personalities.

So...Spring is definitely in the air...



How is your Spring shaping up?

Landscaping: New Native Plants

Matt and I went out to Strawberry Plains Audubon Center in Holly Springs, Mississippi. This place is amazing. They do lots of events throughout the year and there are lots of classes and opportunities to learn about and commune with nature. The event highlight of the year is in September for their humming bird festival that celebrates all types of animals, and the migration of the humming birds. Last week, we went out and picked up some native woodland species to add to our yard. I am really hoping to create a landscape haven for wildlife in our yard, and also introduce lots of species that are edibles for both our family and the wildlife that surrounds us. This also gives us the opportunity to add specific plants that will be good for our new hives of bees giving them plenty of opportunity to have close nectar sources.

There were so many different kinds of plants to choose from that it was really difficult to make choices, but this year we picked up Oak Leaf Hydrangea, which I have been wanting for many years.

Jewel Weed(Impatiens capensis) for ground cover in a damp area of the yard.  It is a common native found in areas along creeks, bottomlands, ditches, ponds and low land damp areas. It is a relative of impatients. The stems re translucent and succulent like. the flowers are bright orange and spotted and the seed pods are sensitive to touch when ripe and explode open shooting seeds out. This plant is considered an annual native to North America, not perennial, but it can be an aggressive reseeding plant and may not be welcome in some gardens. Be sure to plant in an area that you don't mind becoming over-run with these plants. It is also said to be great for skin issues, bug bites, and soothing rashes especially poison ivy. The two plants are often seen growing near each other in the wild. some other names for this plant are;  orange jewelweed, common jewelweed, spotted jewelweed, spotted touch-me-not, or orange balsam.

Woodland poppy (Stylophorum diphyllum) is a native perennial  that grows well in moist woodland settings. It is happy in shade to part shade. It is also called wood poppy, celandine poppy, and poppy wort. It is valued for its bright sunny yellow flowers that have four petals that float cheerfully above the deeply lobed leaves. The seed pods are a fuzzy blue-ish green pod that add interest because of their uniqueness.

The Green Dragon (Arisaema dracontium) plant that is in the same family as Jack in the Pulpit. Although it can be an edible if treated properly, I prefer to have it for it's unique look in the landscape. The plant has a toxin in it that makes if unfavorable unless prepared properly, so we will just consider this a pretty ground cover. These plants are unique, they come up out of the ground with one leaf(with several leaflets) on a stem. when the plant flowers, it creates a stalk near the base of the plant that grows out of the side of the stem and the single flower grows off of it. The flowers are inside a spathe and contain both male and female flowers. The fruits form a cluster of bright orange-red berries at the end of the stem where the flower had grown. It is also known as a Dragon-root plant. It is a native perennial  species found in damp woodland areas of North America. 

Milkweed and Turks Cap for the butterflies, and hummingbirds. Turks Cap(Malvaviscus arboreus var. drummondii) is a wonderful woodland perennial to have in the landscape because not only is it a very showy plant with beautiful red flowers to attract butterflies and hummingbirds, it is also a very useful edible. The leaves can be used in the same way as spinach, steamed, boiled or as a salad leaf(young leaves are better). The flowers can be eaten as a treat off of the bush, used as a salad garnish, or made into tea. and the berries can be eaten, made into tea, or jelly. It is in the mallow family of plants and is a hibiscus relative. Some other names of this plant are Wax mallow, Red mallow, Texas mallow, Mexican apple, and Sleeping hibiscus.

I also picked up a couple of wild ginger plants to put in the front of the house where I am in the process of building a dry bed at the drip line along the front of the house in a very difficult area. Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense), a member of the birthwort family was used by early settlers as a substitute for the ginger that they could no longer get. It doesn't have the same flavor as the tropical version, but in learning from the local Indians they were able to adapt it as a substitute flavor in their foods. It also had medicinal uses for the Native Americans. It is a stemless, low-growing, perennial woodland plant that prefers deep shade areas. It is a very slow growing ground cover that makes a beautiful display in areas that may otherwise look bare. It spreads by rhizomes that grow at or just under the ground surface. It has a curious bell shaped brownish red flower that blooms at the ground surface that attracts small insects such as ants and small flies as pollinators.

I am looking forward to making this plant sale a tradition to continue adding beautiful native plants and perennials to our yard.