Chickens in the Garden

The perfect day finally came for us to clear out the weeds and plant the garden for spring!  It had just rained for a couple of days so the weeds were easy to pull.  This year we decided to make rows, a first for me!  And we put labels on everything and made a map.  Now all we need to get is the food to grow.  We planted lettuce, spinach, cucumber, carrots, tomato, pumpkin, artichoke, leeks, kale, chard, broccoli, cilantro, basil, oregano, amaranth and some flowers. Hopefully with that list we will get some food!

While we were weeding we locked Toby up and let the chickens out.  Gayatri, Melody, Arizona and Penelope.  (Charlotte died last week :( after Toby grabbed her and brought her into the house).  The chickens ate weeds and weed seeds while we pulled and dug.  It feels like Spring!

The first four rows.  There are 7 rows total.

Pregnant shot in the garden

Andre after setting up the drip system. 

                                                                  The chickens!

The chickens doing their job of weeding and fertilizing.

Update for the Family - Week 22

Hi Family,
We are in Week 22, aka 5 1/2 months.  As some of you know the pregnancy is 40 weeks long  so we are just over half way!  Baby Pate is moving quite a lot now and is about 10 inches long.  We can feel the baby move at least once or twice a day.  So far everything is looking good for us to have a healthy, safe home birth.  My health is good, iron levels great, blood pressure good, glucose levels normal. We are taking a weekly childbirth class with our midwife Celesta and we've watched several outstanding movies about babies and birth.  I am getting so excited to see our baby out of the womb!

Andre and I are making plans to get the bedroom ready for our new addition.  We are switching from a Queen bed to a King size and are in the market for a used dresser from the thrift store to house Baby Pate's belongings.  We are planning on undertaking cloth diapering and according to friends who are already doing it it will be quite enjoyable and easy.

We are working on our registries (how much stuff do we actually need!) and have also registered for a Cloth Diaper Service at www.pishposhdiaperco.com.  There are two baby shower's planned, one at Gay's house on the Saturday of Mother's Day weekend, May 11th.  The second is at my good friend Jessica's house on Saturday June 8th.  We are also registered at Babies r us and Baby Earth.  We are hoping to get all of our cloth diaper needs met through the registry but are also relying on craigslist for any extras we might need.  Many people sterilize and sell their cloth diaper stash for half the price on Craigslist after they are done diapering.

I'll be writing more updates and posting more pictures soon so stay tuned!