2024 Reading Challenge

I was thinking it might be time to resurrect this blog and fill it with some things I love.  Reading is a big one so let's start by putting out my list of books for the 52 Book Club Reading Challenge for 2024.  Some of the prompts were quite difficult for me to find books to fill the slots but I think I've done ok.  Really hoping I will be able to meet this challenge.  Last year I did a 26 book challenge based loosely on the 2023 52 Week Reading Challenge and I finished that one up just a few days ago.  I didn't have to push myself too incredibly hard on that one but doubling it might be a huge challenge but I'm willing to give it a try.  Here's the plan:

1. Locked-room mystery - And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie
2. Bibliosmia: a smelly book - The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales - Jon Scieszka
3. More than 40 chapters - The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
4. Lowercase letters on the spine - The Nightingale - Kristin Hannah
5. Magical realism - Remarkably Bright Creatures - Shelby Van Pelt
6. Women in STEM - Lessons in Chemistry - Bonnie Garmus
7. At least four different POV - The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time #1) - Robert Jordan
8. Features the ocean - Gift From The Sea - Anne Morrow Lindbergh
9. Character-driven novel - The Masterpiece - Francine Rivers
10. Told in non-chronological order - People We Meet On Vacation - Emily Henry
11. Starting with the letter K - Kingdom of Girica - Melody Kriese
12. Starting with the letter L - Lights Out (Kate Green Book 1) - Elise Hart Hipness
13. An academic thriller - A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness
14. A grieving character - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - JK Rowling
15. Part of a duology - All the Stars and Teeth - Adalyn Grace
16. An omniscient narrator - The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency
17. Nominated for the Booker Prize - The Testaments (The Handmaid’s Tale #2) - Margaret Atwood
18. An apostrophe in the title - Charlotte’s Web - EB White
19. A buddy read - Contact - Carl Sagan (read week of March 10th with Colleen Boucher)
20. A revenge story - The Princess Bride - William Goldman
21. Written by a ghostwriter  - Sam Walton: Made in America - John Huey and Sam Walton
22. A plot similar to another book - Jane Steele - Lyndsay Faye
23. The other book with the similar plot - Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
24. A cover without people on it - The Village Healer’s Book of Cures - Jennifer S Roberts
25. An author “everyone” has read except you - Sackett’s Land (The Sacketts #1) Louis L’Amour
26. Hybrid genre - The Light on Farallon Island - Jen Wheeler
27. By a neurodivergent author - Furiously Happy - Jenny Lawson
28. A yellow spine - Don’t Forget to Write - Sara Goodman Confino
29. Published in a Year of the Dragon - Matilda - Roald Dahl
30. Picked without reading the blurb - Wonder (Wonder #1) - RJ Palacio
31. Includes a personal phobia - Breathless - Amy McCulloch
32. Time frame spans a week or less - I’ll Stop the World - Lauren Thoman
33. An abrupt ending - A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L’Engle
34. Set in a landlocked country - Angels & Demons - Dan Brown
35. Title matches lyrics from a song - Still Waters - Viveca Sten
36. Has futuristic technology - The Host - Stephenie Meyer
37. Palindrome on the cover - The Bitten - Anna Wolfe
38. Published by Hachette - The Innocent (Will Robie #1) - David Baldacci
39. Non-fiction recommended by a friend - The $64 Tomato - William Alexander
40. Set during a holiday you don’t celebrate - The Last Words We Said - Leah Scheier
41. A sticker on the cover - This Present Darkness - Frank E. Peretti
42. Author debut in second half of 2024 - Strange Folk - Alli Dyer (expected publication 08/06/2024)
43. About finding identity - Troublemaker: Surviving Hollywood and Scientology - Leah Remini 
44. Includes a wedding - The Gown - Jennifer Robson
45. Chapter headings have dates - All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
46. Featuring indigenous culture - Firekeeper’s Daughter - Angeline Bully
47. Self-insert by an author - The Bad Beginning (A Series of Unfortunate Events #1) - Lemony Snicket
48. The word “secret” in the title - The Secrets of Lost Stones - Melissa Payne
49. Set in a city starting with the letter M - Breakfast at Tiffany’s - Truman Capote
50. A musical instrument on the cover - Run, Rose, Run - Dolly Parton & James Patterson
51. Related to the word “wild” - Sing, Wild Bird, Sing - Jacqueline O’Mahony - KINDLE
52. Published in 2024 - Olivia Strauss is Running Out of Time - Angela Brown (publication 01/01/2024)

I went through and looked up almost all these books on Audible to see how long it will take (approximately) to read each one.  My plan is to start with the longest one first and then work through them by length.  So...my first book is The Eye of the World.  This is one that my son has been talking about for years and he even asked me to go to our amazing used bookstore here to see if they had all the books in the series.  I think I was able to find all but one or two for him.  Not sure if he's read them all yet but when I told him my first book of the year his response was, "good luck with the long journey!"  I only plan to read this first one this year but maybe if I get time I'll move on to the others.  

I've also been trying to read through all the Meghan Ciana Doige books and I've got quite a few more of those to go and she's working on new books all the time!  There's just so much good stuff to read and not enough hours in the day!!  If anyone stumbles across this blog post and is doing a challenge like this, leave me a comment - I'd love to hear what you are doing.

Garden Tour and Chicken Visit | Everything Grown From Seed!! (Well...no...

Chickens!

I have wanted chickens for years so starting last summer I started doing lots of research.  I picked out the coop I wanted and got it ordered.  It was delivered in March and then it was time to pick up the girls.  Raising them from just a day old has been so fun!  Here are their first pictures:

Mary is a Black Sex Link and is our largest girl.  She's also one of our sweetest.

Nancy is a Sapphire Gem and is the prettiest of the flock.  She is also incredibly sweet and kind.

Mamie and Martha are the twins.  One was supposed to be an AmberLink and the other an ISA Brown but they look exactly alike except that Martha has a little bit longer tail.  Martha is very friendly and always wants someone to pet her.  Mamie is a little more reserved but will come to you if she thinks you have a treat!

Dolley is a Black Australorp.  We were worried we were going to lose her when she was just a few days old.  She wasn't doing very well and was really lagging behind everyone else with her activity and her growth.  She pulled through and even though she is our smallest girl she is probably our bravest!

And finally, we have Eleanor!  Eleanor is an Easter Egger.  She is the top of the pecking order and is very protective of everyone.  She's not the friendliest but she's so incredibly pretty that we let her get away with being a little bit of a diva!

For their first brooder I made a mistake and started out with something way too small!!

They quickly grew out of that brooder and I had to find an extra large bin to keep them in until they had all their feathers and it was staying warm enough at night for them to move out to their new home.  I would recommend starting with something way bigger than you think you need!!  This was the setup I ended up with that kept them safe and warm until they were about 7 weeks old when I moved them out to their permanent home.  When I needed to clean the bigger brooder (usually every three days) I moved them into the smaller one you see with the window screen on top of it.  It wasn't long at all before they were jumping up on the edge of the brooder and trying to escape so we fashioned a cover out of a window screen and a piece of hardware cloth.  I didn't want to spend a bunch of money on this temporary housing.  It wasn't very pretty but it got the job done!!

  

They got a couple of field trips out to the backyard using a dog pen and a sheet on top to keep them from escaping prior to the big move.  The loved it out there!  Peanut also enjoyed himself because he got a much closer look at these things that had been making so much noise.

The coop was made by Smoky Mountain Chicken Tractors and we absolutely love it.  The only thing that I wish it had was a big enough run that I could stand up in there with them.  It's only about 4' tall at the highest point.  They are very social and always want to come see me when I come out.  It would be really fun to be able to play with them all at the same time.  As it is now I have to take them out one at a time.  We are hoping at some point to be able to build a larger run that we can attach to their current one.  Free ranging is really not an option for us as we have a very short fence around our yard and we have a huge amount of predators (eagles, owls, hawks, raccoons, foxes, and several feral cats) that would just love to have a chicken snack!

The girls are all 19 weeks old today and when I went out to check on them I discovered that we got our first eggs!!  I think they probably belong to Mary and Nancy since they have the reddest and largest combs so far.  But...the others aren't too far behind.

I'm really excited to see Eleanor's eggs.  They should probably be somewhere between the blue and green spectrum.  I'm really enjoying these girls so much and so glad that I finally took the plunge!!  Here are some random pictures taken recently so you can see how much they've grown.

Here's Eleanor coming to see if I have any treats for her!  I just love her fluffy cheeks!!

There's Mary with her beautiful feathers and nice comb!

Here's Nancy - she's so pretty with her lavender feathers!  They all love the dust bins so I had to put in three so they would have enough - they spend the warm afternoons in them.  The sand helps to keep them cool and they love taking dust baths.  If you've never seen a chicken take a dust bath, check it out on YouTube - it's pretty funny to watch!!

Here are the twins - Martha and Mamie - messing around with the veggie scraps they got that morning.

The smaller black one in the back of this picture with the pretty tail feathers is Dolley.

2020 Garden

March 8 - Seed Starts

Elderberry Cuttings Received!!

March 15 - Seed starts progress

Green Arrow Peas - directly sown

March 22

 Little bit of lettuce popping up!

 Green Arrow Peas are doing great!!

Little radishes popping out too!

March 30 - Elderberries are leafing out!

April 5 - getting all the outdoor containers ready to go!

April 11 - Time to start hardening off the seedlings!

May 5 - Rhododendron has blossomed!!

May 17

The lettuce are finally taking off!

The Tom Thumb Peas are a success and have put out their first pods!

The Green Arrow Peas have grown significantly!

The Parsley was damaged by a late frost but it recovering

Tomato bins

Daikon Radish

May 20

The first harvest from the Tom Thumb Peas.  They were small but so delicious!!  Next year I will be planting a lot of these little guys!

May 31

First Green Arrow Pea harvest - these were really tasty.  Steamed for just a couple minutes and they were perfect!

June 24

The Tom Thumb Peas were starting to get too hot so I moved them to a shady part of the porch.  I'm hoping to keep them going until the fall so I can get another harvest out of them.

The lettuces are doing really well.  The tall ones are Arugula - I'm trying to get them to go to seed.  The shorter ones are several smaller varieties.

This is the Tom Thumb Lettuce - it's very tasty and has been growing very well in this shabby part of my garden.

These are the Rocky Top Lettuce variety.  They are growing really well too.  I like the variety - almost like the spring mix you can get at the grocery.

I've got one little strawberry trying to grow - I just don't have the heart to remove the plant so I continue to watch and root it on!  LOL!

The Purslane was doing great until about a week ago when part of it started dying off.  But I have lots of new growth occurring too so I'm going to hang on and see what it does.

I had some bugs eating my pepper leaves but I seem to have that under control now and over the last week they have started really growing.  Haven't seen any peppers yet but I've got my fingers crossed.

These are the Green Arrow Peas.  They do not like heat so it's time to pull them out and put in some beans.  Once the beans are done I will plant some more peas from some seed that I saved.

These are some bush beans that I wasn't sure were going to make it after our last frost but they seem to coming to life over the last couple weeks.

These are a couple tomato plants I started from seed that looked like they didn't make it after that last frost but they are now doing pretty good.  Unfortunately I used a water soluble ink to write on my plant markers (*headbang*) so I have no idea what varieties these are!  I'm hoping that when they put out fruit I will be able to identify them.  There is some celery companion planted in there with them but it doesn't seem to be growing very big.

This is my best cabbage plant.  I can't wait to see how much bigger it gets.

These are some carrot seed that I had left over from a couple years ago.  I wasn't sure it would germinate but they seem to be doing pretty good.

These are some DAR Cucumbers from Baker Creek.  I'm really looking forward to seeing those blossoms turn into some yummy cukes!

In front of the cucumbers are some scallions and marigolds.

This is that parsley that I almost lost after our last freeze.  It's doing great and I've harvested from it a couple times already.

This is a cilantro that I started from some old seed.  Again, I wasn't sure it would germinated but it did.  However, it is trying to flower out and it's not even very big yet.  I'm going to pinch those flower buds off and hopefully that will get the plant to put more energy to its leaves.

This is some dill I planted from that old seed too.  It is so incredibly small right now - I'm not sure if it will actually make it.

These are the daikon radishes.  They are just about ready to harvest and then I can put in another round of them.

This is the only turnip that made it.  The seed was from several years ago so I'm surprised I got this one to germinate!

This is some Purple Kohlrabi.  It was a free seed that I got from Baker Creek.  I've never grown this before nor eaten it.  You are supposed to sow it every three weeks.  I'll be putting more in this weekend.

This is one of the bigger Marigolds.  Most of the seeds I put in sprouted but they are all pretty small.  This one for some reason is growing really big.

This is one of my Jalapeño plants and a Jigsaw Pepper.  These were also attacked by bugs early on but have been doing much better the last couple weeks.

These are my Kales.  I have harvested from them once and need to do another harvest.

This is my Beefsteak Tomato.  It was one of the plants I bought to replace the tomatoes I started from seed that didn't survive that last frost.  I've got several good looking fruits on it now that I am hoping will ripen soon!

This one is a Brandywine - it was another one that I bought from the garden center to replace the ones that got destroyed by the frost.  It also has several good looking pieces of fruit on it.

This is a Cherokee Purple that I also picked up at the garden center.  The fruit on this one is smaller than the others but still looks really good.

These are my potato plants.  They are doing really well!

I thought I could companion plant some green beans with the potatoes but I don't think they are getting enough sun.  They have put out a couple of these puny beans but I don't think they are going to do well.  Live and learn!!

These are some impatiens I got at the garden center.  I tried to grow some from seed but they didn't do very well.

Now on to the front beds.  These are an experiment to see if I can grow them in the front.  None of them are doing very well.  I think if I get some containers next year to grow in, they will do much better.  The rubber mulch here is really deep so it was hard to get them into dirt.  This is a pumpkin.

 These are cantaloupes - sad little plants!

These are my zucchinis.  Neither of them look very healthy but the one on the top has actually put out some fruit so we will see what happens.  I'm going to replant in a container I have in the backyard and hopefully I'll be able to still get some zucchini this year.

This is a Butternut - again...not doing very well really.

This is a spaghetti squash.  It's putting out flowers now but I don't really expect it to do that well.

These are my flower boxes that I have on the railing of my front porch.  I started all of these from seed and they are doing pretty good.  I had hoped they would fill these boxes a whole lot more but I'm still happy with them.

And this is one of the Elderberries I put in the front.  I wasn't sure if they would do very well since this part of the yard doesn't get a huge amount of sun.  But...this one has actually put out some flowers!!  I'm actually a little concerned because none of my Elderberries seem to be getting very big.  I'm hoping that next year they will really take off.