4/14/10 spring time garden

Working a little along to get my garden back in order. I planted Swiss Chard and Spinach and covered it with a row cover. I was surprised to uncover it today and find such lovely plants. I ended up picking 4 baskets of chard and 2 baskets of spinach.



Colorful Swiss Chard

Broccoli and Cabbage. Rosemary in the pot.

April 8- new chicks

Russell and Jeff went to the post office this morning and pick up 800 chicks. I think the postal employees were glad to have them off their dock. 800 chicks make a lot of noise! 300 of the chicks went home with a friend, Todd Brown. Russell and Jeff had the job of unboxing the remaining 500 chicks. They were divided up in to 12 brooder boxes with heat lamps to keep them warm and food and sugar water. We have 100 Cornish Rock Cross chicks which will be our meat chickens and 50 Golden Comets that will be our laying chickens. The rest will be to sell.


A cute little Barred Rock chick.


A handful of fluff...2 Cornish Rock Chicks in Jeffs hands


Trying out the new watering system we installed this spring.


Happy chicks staying warm in the brooder pen.

Pig kissing 3/2010

Sunny Cedars Farm provided the pig for the Tuomey pig kissing contest. This is an annual fundraiser for the March of Dimes. A dollar will buy one vote for your favorite Tuomey employee. The 5 employees with the most votes get to kiss a pig. March 26, we caught Miss Penny and brought her in the house and gave her a good scrubbing. Once with "people shampoo" and once with dog shampoo. She really objected to being in the water but she sort of liked the scrubbing. Dr Grier was the recipient of the most votes.

Miss Penny after her spa treatment.

Comforting a nervous piggy.

Dana Oxendine from L&D and her daughter, Marley who wanted to kiss the pig, as well.


Dr. Grier holding Penny.

March 21, 2010

We are preparing for the shipment of 400 baby chicks that will be coming April 7. We have poured a concrete floor in the brooder house. We are excited about no longer having to shovel out the dirty sand and shovel in fresh sand each spring prior to chicks coming each spring. We will put wood shavings in the floor of each pen and rake it out and replenish it as needed. The discarded shavings will be good for the garden. We are also putting in an automatic gravity watering system. Russell and I worked on it all day Thursday and got most of the watering system plumbed. We tested it and were thrilled when it actually worked!! It is all taking shape. I'll post pictures soon.

Weekend at Ron and Cindy's 3-13-10

Weekend at Ron and Cindy's 3-13-10 --Sat am BBQ pics

We have had a great weekend with Ron and Cindy. We went up Friday night and stayed till Sunday afternoon. Jacob had drama things going on so he stayed home to do that and feed the dogs. We went by Columbia and picked up Lora and got to Ron and Cindy's about 9pm. Jacob called about 9:30 when he got home from drama and was locked out of the house. After much consternation, we decided for him to try to get off the storm window on one of the screen porch windows. The storm window broke (which was ok) and with Papa's help, they got the window pried open and he was able to get in the house.
Saturday, Ron and Cindy took us to Charlotte to ride the new Lynx lightrail commuter train and visit the Museum of the New South. We happened upon a St. Patrick's day parade and stopped to watch. The weather was beautiful and we had a really nice day.
On the way to Charlotte Saturday morning, we stopped to see Cindy's brother-in-law Tim who was cooking 116 Boston Butts for a church fundraiser. He and his Dad had built the gas grill with electric rotisserie and smoke box. It was complete with piggy decoration. Russell was impressed.
Boston Butts cooking
decorative piggy on top
motor for totisserie
smoker box for hickory logs

Weekend at Ron and Cindy's....more pics-St.Patty's parade and Lynx

Russell and Jeff at the Lynx
Ron, Jeff, and Cindy
Lynx stop downtown Charlotte
Loch Norman Bagpipers
Leapin' leprechauns