Garden and Animals

Spring is not only here, but it has gone so fast that summer is approaching!  Our garden is in full bloom now: green tomatoes are hanging on the vines, corn is about as tall as my 4 year old, squash plants are enormous and starting to get big yellow blooms, green beans, purple hull peas, cream peas, cantaloup, okra, coming up nicely, watermelon looking a bit "iffy" but hanging in there, we even have some peppers and an eggplant!  In the square foot garden we have some red swiss chard, a few strawberry plants, different herbs, one little lettuce plant that is trying to grow, some turnips, and a whole box of carrots!  Our neighbor, who has been keeping our chickens due to lack of adequate housing at our place, has given us a hen along with her 7 chicks to keep in our chicken tractor!  They are so adorable, and the kids love watching them play!  We've spent way too much time chasing chicks and putting them back into the tractor, though, either because they got under and through the cracks, or someone little opened the door when they weren't supposed to (hmmm.....).  There has been talk of getting a calf soon, whenever the next time our neighbor hears of one being available.  And speaking of our neighbor, he's been going through some animals lately. :)  He decided, due to expenses and one horse always getting into mischief, to get rid of one of his horses, and his other horse has been grazing at the church property for months now (sounds great to me...goodbye lawn mowing for the men of the church!).  He first got the most gigantic mule I'd even seen!  He was a nice mule, always friendly to us and the children, but always running from our neighbor.  Not fun when you want to ride him. :)  Then, he sold that mule, and got a milder tempered mule, who proved to be gentler, but not quite gentle enough.  Now, he has a mule that was trained to be ridden by a 7 year old!  We'll see how he does, but the children are so excited about getting to ride him one day.