Spring Time events

15 April, 2010
I’m trying to keep up the blog, and at least think about things that should be put on it.
Had to buy a new lawn mower this year. Been putting off fixing the riding lawn mower and bent the shaft on the push mower last year, so had no operable mower. And the grass is getting pretty bad, so had to get one. Thought about a used one, but not sure what I’d get that way, so I broke down and went looking for a new mower. Went to Sam’s and they were out, but what I did find was a 225 foot roll of weed cloth for $30. Now that is a deal I have been looking for and trust me, don’t think I’ll have any problem finding a use for all of it. Ended up buying a Craftsman at Sears, for way more than I planned. And it was the cheapest one they had.
So, mowed most of the front yard this morning. Looks nice. Got a lot more mowed on a tank of gas than I used to. Now need to get the back yard mowed.
Candled the eggs again tonight. Today should be day 18 of 28 for the goose eggs and day 11 of 28 for the turkeys. There were 12 goose eggs and 5 showed development. Cracked open the others and my guess would be that they weren’t fertile. And I noticed something else. Some where I read that the first few aren’t fertile any way. So we ate the first three, made an excellent omelet. Then I started numbering the rest as I got them. And the ones that we threw out tonight were numbers 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10. Not sure if nature does it that way on purpose, but so it is with these. So we put 11 through 16 back in the incubator. There are also 5 turkey eggs and all of them showed development.
We also got a new incubator and set it up so the temperature is correct. Put the next set of eggs in it tonight, 9 goose eggs and 3 turkey eggs. They all take 28 days to hatch so the expected hatch date for them will be May 13th.
Went out on the back deck and watched the fireflies about 830 tonight. Didn’t think they were out yet, but there were several of them. There will be more when it warms up more, but nice to see them.
Still working on the garden. Not sure where to put everything. Had problems last year with bugs and such and realized part of the problem was that I hadn’t rotated my plants and was growing things in the same spot for the second year or so. So did some research and read an article in Mother Earth News about crop rotation, and now I’m trying to design a plan for rotation. Once I get that figured out, It will be easy each year to plant the garden. And once I get the ground all taken care of it will be easier to plant, period. With the new roll of weed cloth, and the huge pile of wood chips in the front yard, set to have quite a garden, either this year or next. Looking forward to it.
In just over a week I take my Praxis II exam for Middle School Science. My last hurdle before I do my student teaching in August. So looking forward to that. But there is a lot of stuff I need to review and study for the exam, so that is what I am trying to concentrate on the most.
Till next time.