brrrr! cold day for looking at houses!

We are still house shopping.  Its really hit and miss, a lot of homes overpriced for this economy and even more that need more work than would be sensible for us with a toddler roaming about.  We're looking pretty much anything within an hour of Indianapolis that has greater than 4 acres.  Its a smaller list of homes than I would have anticipated. 

Our realtor is also sending out letters and making phone calls to the houses that border our lot and see if anyone has been considering selling.  To us, that sounds like a pretty good option too.

We are putting in a poultry order this weekend for shipment in April.  If we are still in this apartment by then it should make life REALLY interesting; keeping chicks in a small apartment isn't my favorite idea but fortunately its only until we get away from frost and they gain some feathers to keep them warm or until we get a place where we have room.  So far the order looks like it will be 25 meat chickens (a mixed bag of heavy breeds), 10 layers (2 americanas, 2 blue andulusians, 6 buff orphingtons), 2 geese, 7 ducks and 7 turkeys - all whatever breed they give us.  Should make an interesting brood!  I'm following the advice of Joel Salatin to get only as many birds as you can eat in a year on your first bunch being as we are new at this.  I'm really hoping we get a decent breeding set of chickens, turkeys and ducks out of the deal so we can either let them restock us next spring instead of placing another order. 

I'm still working on my seed inventory.  I think I've got most of the garden covered though.  I'm going to try picking up some organic sweet potatoes and starting my own slips this year.  I completely forgot to grow them last year and they will be a brand new experience for us.  I kept all my smalls from my regular (and by regular I of course mean Cranberry reds, All Blues, Yukon golds and Russett burbanks) to plant this year and I'm really hoping they'll be good by time planting comes 'round.  I think I found a use for all that hay that was ruined last year....garden mulch!  Surely we can use it for mulch and maybe it will breakdown and help improve our garden soil.