Keeping busy

Please forgive my lack of updates. It's been pretty crazy around here and it takes all I have just to keep up with everything while Mr. Paradosis is in Uganda.
That aside, I have been busy with farm life as well as the house and kids. I'm thankful for my mom keeping me company. If it weren't for her I'd go crazy. She has been a great encouragement in the way of schedule keeping and also an amazing help with meals and laundry. Plus she has taught the girls to embroider. One of the biggest things she's helped with is setting fence posts. We have been busy getting the garden fence in so that the chickens can peck away all the grass so I can dig up the soil. They will have the grass gone within a week or so, I have no doubt. We've done 11 so far I think with 4 more to do. The weather is suppose to cooperate over the next 2 days so my goal is to finish and begin stretching the fencing. Mom is great with a hammer so I have no doubt we'll get that fence stretched in no time flat.
Garden time is quickly approaching and it's time to start seeds indoors. I have never done this before, but because I have a great desire to expand the garden significantly this year I thought I would try my hand at it. Yesterday, we bought tomato seed, squash and pumpkin. I put up a
a big table in my bedroom, it gets the most light as it is on the 2nd floor with 4 big windows that face east, south and west. I found an old electric heating blanket and lay that on the table. I read that the temperature of the soil is one of the most important things for successful germination and in my Countryside magazine they said an electric blanket works great as a heating mat. So we'll try it. I planted 18 Oregon Spring slicing tomato seeds and 18 Early Cherry tomato seeds. I ordered 2 other varieties from Valley Nursery. They'll order what they don't have for you from Territorial Seed Company and there is no shipping charge. One is a saucing tomato and the other is called Gold Nugget Cherry. I had some from a friends garden last year and it was delicious! I also ordered red pepper seed(can't remember what the name was) I want to try out. I ordered Small Sugar Pumpkin, Gold Bantam Corn and our all time favorite, Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans!
There is much to look forward to this spring and summer and I look forward to a well stocked pantry come fall.

TTFN