Critters

It seems as if our new place comes with a pile of critters.  Namely mice.  They've gotten into my bird seed and it appears that one crawled into my husband's car and got eliminated the other day.  I'll spare you the gory details but it wasn't a pretty sight.

We have deer which will be interested in my garden.  We have birds too.  Lots of birds.  We are starting to see some Blue Jays now in addition to the little finches and Robins.  If we get cats to help control the mice we'll need to put the bird seed up higher so the cats can't hunt the birds quite so easily.  Also, I spotted what I'm pretty sure was a coyote in the back pasture.  He was far enough out and I only caught a glimpse.  We really need to get some binoculars.  We used to have a pair somewhere.  Maybe in the last few boxes I'll find them again.  I think we got rid of them though.

Garden beds are getting dug this week.  During Tom's spring break he'll work on my paths.  I'm excited to be getting this garden going.  It is going to be quite a bit more real estate than my last one.  I thought we had a big garden before.  I got out the measuring tape yesterday.  My back fenced area is 40 feet x 40 feet.  My main focus area is going to be a 30x40 foot area.  We have two trees and a sandbox that is interfering with my planning.  I want to keep them but they are stalling me when it comes to planning around them.

I need to figure out where I'm going with my laundry too.  I think we'll start with an umbrella type clothesline and see how that works.  I've always just stretched a line from a house or tree to a fence or another tree.  There really aren't any trees or fences to stretch a line here. 

My list of tasks that need done early this year:

Dig beds
Put in clothes line
Plant grass seed
Plant flower seeds
Grub out sage brush in front yard
Build path for front walk/door
Get side yard ready for chickens
Repair/replace front gate for side yard
Replace gate from side yard to back garden
Repair fencing around garden in a couple of places
Get latch for walk thru gate to back pasture