My home made vanilla flavoring project is an ongoing work in progress but a success. The far left jar is the three month old version done with whole vanilla beans soaked in vodka. The jar on the right is new, as you can see from the label, but was made with the leftover vanilla beans, cut open and seeds scraped out. I'm pretty sure the second version will be the most flavorful if color decides any part of the outcome. 
Then there's my winter sowing project....not so successful. Here on the right is all I salvaged from the five seed starts. It's one of the types of seed I harvested when I was out and about somewhere so I don't even know what it's called except that its a bushy plant with orange daisy like flowers that are hearty in heat. They don't seem really happy right now in these little pots but I don't have a good spot to put them so am stalling a few more days till I find a sunny place. Not so easy anymore since there is more and more shaded area in my yard.
Here's a not so successful (the jury's still out) example of my winter sowing project. From this distance while it looks like there's nothing.......
here's a closer look and there are actually little seedlings! I'm not sure that they aren't just little weeds that will soon just die, I am having fun watching to see what will happen. One thing I know for sure is that they're not what I planted in the milk carton. This is the container where I planted the castor seed. It didn't take. The good news, though, is that I went scrounging around in my seed collection and found what I thought was a castor seed. I wasn't sure and the seed had to be at least two years old and had been out int the elements. But I figured it was worth a try so I planted it. And now I've got a castor plant growing out in my garden under the hollyhocks. So when the hollyhocks are spent for this season I'll just cut them down to make way for my baby castor plant to grow into the glorious and beautiful addition to my garden.
Okay, remember the potential-wildflower-but-probably-weed I picked from the property that used to belong to my ancestors? Well, now it's just pretty much a weed. Actually it looks like it may want to bloom something but I think some wierd little some kind of bug came along for the ride from the country because it's eaten what might have been a bloom. I can't tell for sure if my theory is correct about the blooms but there is definitely some strange bug that's chowing down. It looks like a walking stick bug but is tiny. The good thing is that I still have a reminder of our family outing in the country.
This next picture is sort of an update on the chickens. Because of them I pretty much can't have any exposed dirt or plant that's accessible to them. Therefore, I've had to make little fences with chicken wire for my dragon wing begonia....
and my impatiens on the porch. Kaylee and I built a makeshift fence around my little veggie garden so now I've got tomatoes growing safe from scratching and pecking. The chickens still get into my flower garden sometimes when I'm not around to shoo them out with the broom but they haven't done that much harm so I guess I'll give them a pass with that. For now.
And here's the final update. I have an unexpected and always welcome day off from my driving job today so I took a picture of where I might be headed, oh, around 1 or 2 this afternoon, for a little nap. Ah, the plus side of the empty nest!
