Vegetable Garden Could Get Woman 93 Days in Jail

I can't help but think after watching this video that we live in a time where too many people are too worried about controlling every little harmless thing that everyone else does. This woman's garden is neat, clean, attractive and well maintained. What is the problem? I say prosecuting this case is a complete waste of taxpayer's money and the good people of Oak Park should keep that in mind when elections and time to vote for city officials comes around again.

Grub Eating Garden Helper

Wow, I did not realize it had been so long since I wrote anything on this blog. Time sure does seem to fly by when the weather warms up and you are busy writing new items down on the old "to do" list faster than you can check them off. We put in two gardens this year and that is one of the things that has kept both my husband and I busy lately. Luckily we did have some help from Cinnamon the chicken. When we first tilled up the old garden spot awhile back we found lots of grub worms just waiting for some new garden plants to unleash their evil grub worm destruction on. We do all agree grub worms are evil right?
What is one answer to grub worms when breaking soil before planting? A hungry chicken! Cinnamon went right to work eliminating every wicked grub worm her keen eye could find, she was ruthless. Cinnamon proved she was no dumb bird by following behind the tiller where the most grub worms could be found.

Then she went to work on the rest of the garden spot, scratching and pecking. No grub that dared peek it's ugly worm head out of the soil had a chance with Cinnamon the chicken on the job! When her hard work of grub worm control was over she took a well deserved dust bath and laid an egg in the horse trailer. Thanks for the help Cinnamon...and the egg!

Prayers for Joplin, Mo.

Joplin, Missouri was hit with a devastating tornado yesterday which has resulted in terrible damage and many lives lost. The people of Joplin are certainly in my thoughts and prayers today and I hope they will be in yours as well. Joplin is only about an hour's drive from our farm and I have been there many times. I don't even recognize it now in the terrible pictures and videos of the town that have been posted since yesterday.

I don't believe the people of Joplin had much notice of this tornado at all. It is very scary and my heart goes out to every person that has been affected by this terrible disaster.

If you would like to help you can donate to the American Red Cross and The Salvation Army. There has also been a Facebook page set up at http://www.facebook.com/helpjoplin and a website at http://www.helpjoplin.com/. Blood donations, especially Negative O blood are also needed. The helpjoplin website says to go to the Springfield donor centers to donate blood.

And the Winner Is...

There was supposed to be a video of my husband picking the winner here but after he picked the winner's name out of a bowl and I tried to load the video on to my computer it would not play. I could not figure out what the problem was. So sorry about that but the name he drew out of the bowl was Lydia! So congratulations Lydia, you are the winner of the two bars of goat's milk soap!

I want to thank every person that took the time to suggest names for the baby goat! We went over the list of all the names suggested and it was hard to pick one out of so many great names. (many of which I am sure we will use for other goat's names in the future!) In the end I decided to use Flartus's suggestion of "Zoe" and add a Y. I have been calling her "baby" (what all unnamed baby goats get called here) and she comes running for her bottle now when she hears it so I thought "Zoey" sounds a lot like "baby" so she should still come running when she hears it. The name also seems to fit her very well.

I also want to apologize for being a couple days late announcing the winner! Things have been so hectic with new baby goats and trying to get the garden going with some pretty strange weather this year.

There had been lots going on here on the farm with new baby goats, the garden and getting ready for the farmer's market not to mention remodeling the kitchen and dining room. More on all of that later! Thank you all!