peacock – Page 2 – Peacock Orchard

Country Kitchen Remodel Update

I’ve been remodeling the kitchen since October. It’s the project that never ends. Still, I’ve moved walls and plumbing. I’ve been helped with (and figured out) electrical. We’ve painted and hammered a ton. It’s been a seven months. Here is what’s been happening:

This is the wall of cabinets that shouldn’t exist, as I was determined to rip out that wall. Now it’s a wall of awful red cabinets that need stripped and re-painted. It’s a work in progress, as you can see.

This cabinet was at an angle on the now gone wall. I moved it, ripped out the drawer. Took off the door. Put a plank backing on it and now, it’s a perfect fit for my kitchen aid and finishes off this wall nicely!

This is the other side of the awful red cabinet wall. I had knocked a massive hole in it before realizing it couldn’t be removed. So it’s all patched up. Needs sanded, textured and painted still. Always something!

Finally stained the trash drawer. I like it much better like that.

I can finally consider the pantry completely finished after building these great wooden doors and planking the side wall of it. I love how it all turned out!

The entire house has been re-arranged. Pre- wall removal this was the kids playroom. It is now the dining room. It’s been painted and decorated and I’m in love with how it turned out!

I was extremely happy to find these peacock plates at home goods

Herbs are sprouting nicely in my chicken feeder herb garden.

The hanging scale is to die for. Functional as well. I’ve been weighing animal feed in it. I love the column I found at an antique store and the peppercorn plant is doing great in it’s greenhouse.

Other things happening are because of the big household rearrange. We moved all of the main spaces in the house around.

This space in the new playroom was begging to be a learning center. Now it is! I built that lovely table and benches and I couldn’t be more happy with how this space has turned out!

Now that our living room is near the fireplace the empty, ugly space had to have something done to it. This is two tails from our peacocks and it’s marvelous!

That’s it for now. Still to do is finishing the cabinets off, removing the current island, installing new flooring and building a new island. Worlds of changes to come!

Proof that Permaculture WORKS!

As if you needed proof, I know. Still, I am excited today.

A review of the orchard shows more trees that survived the winter than I had anticipated. The mini kraters and swales have done amazing things. We are set to have a bumper crop of plums this year, so long as we don’t get a late freeze, fierce wind, or some other completely likely weather event.

Why would I say this small 5 acre orchard is proof that permaculture works? It is dry here. Very dry. Made worse by the incredible wind we suffer from. We are high up, cold, besotted with pests. There is no genetic material available from our state to base our plantings on. We have everything going against us, including public opinion.

“You can’t grow _____ in Wyoming!” I hear it every single time I talk to a local about the orchard. When we are open to the public minds are going to be blown!

If I can grow trees here with little to no watering (certainly no irrigation), than permaculture planting techniques are a blazing success.

This winter we harvested so much snow we even created an ideal place for pests to hide.

I do hate those ground animals.

I’ve also been successful at growing garlic and onions for the first time. Ruth Stoute and mulching, a real winner!

I’d highly recommend permaculture planting techniques to everyone and you should too.

Daughter’s Fairy Tale/Princess Room

Daughter’s room was a real labor of love. I will not deny that I was blissful about having a daughter. I have an amazing relationship with my mother, who helped in the muraling of both Daughter and Son’s rooms. I want that relationship with my own daughter. So far she’s far too much like me and likes her Daddy better. Life!

This is a peak at her room when she was a baby. It is now nothing but an excellent walk in closet for both children as Daughter sleeps in Son’s room. When they don’t wish to share anymore she’ll be moved back.

You know from Son’s room that I’m a fan of changing tables. Unfortunately this mobile was far too long and was ripped down by Daughter pretty early on.

This castle. It is so much more magnificent in person.

There is a knight in shining armor but I will let daughter decide if it’s a female or male. Also, I had a mane and tail on the pegasus but I hated it so painted over it and just haven’t bothered to put a new one on.

Obviously no daughter of mine could live without a life sized peacock on their wall.

Also, sparkly floors.

My mother painted this tree and it looks AMAZING. I am not very good at people so I asked her to drawn the fairy and owl, which she did amazingly. Owls are a bit of an inside joke here as we get them quite often and they always kill our birds.

Current use pics:

A walk around the house

Come take a look around with us. Turkeys approve this message, so long as it comes with snacks.

Yellow sweet clover? We’ve got 30 acres of that! It’s also freakishly tall.

I finally found rubber boots for the kids. They want to wear them everywhere now.

Prince is losing his train and Ella thinks it’s hilarious to try to tickle him with the feathers.

We saved a butterfly last week!

Taking a ride to feed the babies.

Hazelnuts are on the cusp of doing well and dying. how is that possible you ask? Well excessive rain and that sweet clover that grows taller than everything else. Ugh!

White oaks are doing alright though.

Ducks still think I’m Satan.

Paw Paws are doing well!

Vetch. Love it!

We have lots of flowers popping up.

Bindweed. Super depressing amounts of it!

The duck and Prince love each other.

Sugar snap peas. I haven’t cooked a single one. They get eaten right from the pod!

Grapes are struggling a bit

Gourds are doing alright. They’re even rooting along the vine. Crazy!

This is one of the Kraters. It’s doing well!

Jiki our pyr has to come out with me to protect me from the coyotes!

We have salad!

BABY PEACOCKS ARE HERE

I have 2 india blue peahens and an india blue blackshoulder peacock. Last year the hens hatched out 6 eggs combined. All of the babies they hatched died. They were driving me crazy with how terrible they were as mothers. The chickens hatched out pea eggs last year and they had 2 survive. So I was pretty sure it was the hens who sucked. This year I took all but 2 eggs from the peahens. I did let them brood them until we saw they were peeping, then we took 6 from the one peahen and put them in the incubator.

They began hatching out immediately. (Note that I had chicken eggs in the incubator already.)

All 6 hatched.

One chick has spradle leg and we have it taped up. We will see if the chick recovers. You might also notice something a bit….odd.

Albino?????

New purchases and Updates on growth

We recently purchased some grape vines from a hobbyist in Colorado, 5 dormant frontenac grapes and 2 Tramenier grape vines . We also received our Gurney’s grape order of 5 Reliant grape vines. They arrived bare root and dormant and so I took the risk of putting them outdoors, heavily mulched.

Furry butt here is the reason the grapes are caged. Don’t want him getting bored and chewing them up.

The pistachio tree is doing quite well.

The apple seeds I’ve been growing are hit and miss, but mostly doing well.

The lone locust tree seedling I have is growing slowly, but growing.

My tomato seedlings look…unchanged. I’m doing something wrong, obviously, but I do not know what.

I’ve had bug issues. The bamboo brought them into the house. The grapes cuttings I’m trying to root were the worst hit. I’ve since put diatomaceous earth on all of my indoor plants. We shall see if what they say is true, and the bugs die.

Everything else is not noticeably different but doing well.

I have planted out the hill I built for the kids slide, mulched it and tried my best to keep the mulch in place. I’m hoping in a few weeks I will be able to remove the fencing.

The birds enjoyed making it into the yard, usually heavily guarded by dogs. The ducks took the most advantage, though a few chickens came in. We had to escort everyone out before dinner, so the dogs could go back out. This gave the kids an opportunity to pet a chicken.

Yesterday we also brought home a new peacock, to replace the one that was killed by the dogs. He’s an india blue black shoulder. He had some broken feathers in transit but is still looking mighty fine. The kids took the opportunity, while the pea decided whether to come out of the cage or not, to pet his long tail and peak in on him.

We hope he adjusts well and that we can open the door to the barn again soon. They’ll all be locked in there until we are sure the new pea won’t fly away.

Here are a few extra, gratuitous pictures.