Whoa

Bubba died. We found him bloated next to the chicken coop on Saturday morning.  We are not sure what caused it.  We initially thought it might be the freshly mowed grass we dumped in the pasture, but after talking about it, we all agreed he didn't eat more than a bite and then turned up his nose.  There is speculation that he was sick before we got him, or maybe he ate some hardware we missed when we checked the pasture,  who knows.

We had to wait until Tuesday morning to get him picked up.  The kids had to walk by his bloated stinking body on their way to and from school   When his body was gone everyone was happy.  But he was a nice cow, and we lost our initial investment in him almost right away.  So that hurt.

His pasture - mate is doing ok. His name is Stinky.  He is skittish and doesn't like to be near people.  We make him bolt.  If he feels cornered he will run away as fast as he can.  He needs a pasture mate I think. We don't know what we are going to do yet.

The chicks are rapidly growing.  I think we are on schedule for them to start laying in July.

My strawberries have been selling slowly.  I speculate that I will end up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,000 to 1,100 plants left in my garden when all is said and done. Don't know if I will do that again. But in the end I spent around $80 for that many plants so I got a great deal there.  Just have to figure out where to put them all.

The garden transformation is almost done. The 9 4x4 beds are in and the sprinkler systems are all attached.  The end of the garden has been rototilled and gated pipe has been installed there and down the length of the pasture.  I'm pretty excited about that since we will be able to more efficiently water the pasture.  I just hope it all works the way it should.

In the garden we have peas and onions as well as lettuce, various herbs, and lots of strawberry plants.  The greenhouse is overflowing with plants all in need of repotting!  Our squash is looking awesome!  They are truly huge and already need transplanting from the 4" pots. I'm a little worried that we will be drowning in zucchini from late June on!

I will try and include some pictures next time.