Quick garden update

Here are a couple of recent photos from my garden.  I will add more later this week when I get access to a faster internet connection.  Mine is slow and frustrating.  I guess that is the price we pay for living in the country.

Anyway, here are my first zucchini...

I decided to try using natural supports for my pole beans this year.  The indians used corn to stake up their beans -- but I'm not growing my own corn this year.  The plot that Uncle Dave let me use in the garden this year was were the sunflower patch was last year.  I had a row of volunteer sunflowers already popping up from last years seeds (the ones the birds missed).  They were about 6 inches tall when I planted the pole beans.  The sunflowers took off quickly and I was worried that the beans might not get enough water/nutrients once they sprouted.  So far it appears that I have nothing to worry about.  This is a photo of how the beans are wrapping around the sunflowers and climbing.  This one is 6 feet tall already!

Here are the hollyhocks - I love the way they look in front of the chicken coop.  I fed the chickens a bunch of my lettuce that got too big.  They loved it!

And here are the pigs.  They are cute if you ask me.  They are so skittish when you first get them, you hardly get to see them (they all try to run into the barn at once - the problem is that they hit the bottleneck of the barn door and get stuck three pigs across -- wedged into the doorway.  It is hilarious!).  Now they know that people give them food, and they come crowding around to see if you have anything tasty to give them.

That is all I have time to post today.  I have lots to do today.  I'm going to spend some time panning for gold (I'll explain later).  We are also going to fill out the application for a home loan today.  We have contacted a realtor and are officially looking for our own place.  More about that in the future as well.  I will have fast internet on Wednesday as I am on vacation all week and heading to Grand Rapids toward the second half of the week.  More on that as well.  Stay tuned  for all the exciting details.  :)