Random stuff

Okay, so its been a little while since I've posted and I apologize...I'm still trying to figure out what to talk consistently about next, but that isn't going very well.  Any ideas?  I know that's a loaded question. :)  Btw, one of the last times I talked about how my heartbeat was irregular, but I've been on some heart medication for about a month now and it feels perfectly fine.  I had to give up caffeine, which was very disappointing and difficult (I miss you...) but it is all worth it.  I still have to ask the doctor if I have to be off it for the rest of my life or how that will work (I hope not and kind of doubt it, just not as much as I was getting before).  Seems like everything is coming together, lets hope it stays that way.  I've been working on eating better and changing my eating habits and its working pretty well, I think.  Mostly I've been trying real hard to get in more fruits and veggies, which is hard because I usually don't opt for them.  So we have a lot of them around the house and in the fridge (which also means lots of fruit flies, which you will see later).  But it is good, I've already lost a few pounds and it would be nice if it kept progressing that way.  However, we did go to the Iowa State Fair (awesome!) this last weekend and ... well ... you know! :) Fair food is pretty good!  But its back to being a good girl now!

Anyway, enough about me, lets see some pictures from the "garden" and then some other random stuff.
You remember those raspberries I decided to put in pots and see if they worked?  Well...we actually got some raspberries this year!  I'm very pleasantly surprised!

 Here are 2 raspberries I picked on Friday that we ate before we left for the fair...YUM!!!!

I picked one of our watermelons!!  I picked it last week and its still on the counter, so we should probably eat that for dessert tonight :)  Its maybe 8 to 9 inches in diameter!  I love the size of it, and it should be perfect for hubby and I to eat and not have much left over!  I'm very excited!

Here are a bunch of tomatoes that I picked!  This was also last week, right now they are a deeper awesome red!  They look so good!  I wish I knew what to do with them!  I think I'm going to try a recipe for salsa for one, and then maybe spaghetti sauce? Or Pizza sauce?  I don't know about those though!  I've never made any of this!  Anyone know of some good recipes?

Here is a picture of the front yard (across the street).  I wanted to get pics with the hay bales in it before they removed them, and they did later that day, so I'm really happy I did that when I did!  So pretty!!  This is what I look at all day while I'm working! :)

We had a bunch of flies and fruit flies around the house, so I made this for the flies outside by the brooder (now there is probably 20 dead flies in it).  I put it out there last week and its been doing a pretty good job of keeping them down!  I forget, but I think there's sugar, vinegar and water in there...

Here is my fruit fly trap (the top is aluminum foil poked with little holes held on with the ring).  This has apple cider vinegar and a couple of drops of dish soap.

I put this out one morning and the next day I had a ton of fruit flies in it...(here's a picture but you can't really see them real well).  But there's a ton in there now! Yay!!!

We haven't really been giving them anything other than feed, except I put a cucumber out there that they weren't too interested in.  I had some apples that were going bad and I thought I would see what the chickens thought of them.   They were all over them, they had them eaten up in no time!  That made me really happy!

And a couple of weekends ago, we had a bunch of egg yolks left from our eggs on the weekend mornings so I cooked them up and fed them to the chickens!

They weren't quite sure about it all, but some of them really enjoyed the yolks!

We had to cook up the yolks because if the chickens eat them when they are gooey they will know they are eating yolks.  And if an egg breaks in the coop they'll know what it is and where it comes from and that they love it and so they will eat their own eggs.  Which we DO NOT want!!!

Oh!  And we took a little video of moving the coop with hubby's riding lawn mower!  Check it out!  Its pretty neat!

And, last but not least, in an effort to get in some socialization, I started a beginner acrylic painting class.  Its only a 6 week class, but so far I think its helping, and its kinda fun too!  I'm not sure painting is for me, but its worth a try! This week (tomorrow) we get to bring in something that interests us to start painting, I might bring in a picture of one of my chickens! :)  Here is a picture of my first work of art! (haha)

Not bad, eh?  I think it turned out okay, it really discouraged me at some times, but, its alright!
All right...I better get to work!
xoxo
c