lol, damn. Luckily Shiny and I kept our water and power, so we didn't have these crazy problems. Still, shit was crazy. Hopefully this issue does not recur any time soon.

"Next ice age has joined the discussion"

no doubt. On a positive note, we're planted our spring crops and our chickens are laying 5 eggs a day.

"Hell crits and deals double damage!"

It's 32Celsius here. Roasty! I might just move into the refrigerator.

You can keep that! I'm quite happy here, it's averaging about 20c.

I was just wondering about the garden last night Satis, how is it doing? And your chickens?

Thanks for asking! The chickens are being a bunch of little bitches... they're barely laying any eggs at all. If they keep this up, they'll end up as dinner and we'll get a new batch. Only partially kidding.

On the other hand, the garden is doing great. So far the most productive plants have been green beans. We've probably harvested 5-10 lbs of green beans in the last month or so. We've also got some long string beans (like beans that are purple and about 2 feet long) that've been doing great lately. Other than that, we got our first 3 cucumbers, which turned out great, as well as a decent number of blackberries and strawberries. We're both pretty happy with how things are going so far.

Our tomato crop is coming along great... the first of those should be ready within a few days, and with the crazy number we planted, I expect to have a really huge harvest over the next month. We also have quite a bit of squash and melon that's coming up. I'm not sure how long before they're ready, but I'll guesstimate 2-4 weeks. They're not quite so prolific as the beans or tomatoes, but should still be nice. We also have potatoes, onions and garlic that should be getting ready to harvest over the next few weeks. We also have various peppers like cayenne, jalapeno and habanero that are doing fine. I don't expect those to produce in the short term, but the plants are doing well, which is great.

On the flip side, this is Texas and we're trucking into the summer, so everything will stop producing for the most part due to the heat. It should pick up again in September. I'm really stoked though... assuming everything survives the heat, when the temp drops the production of tomatoes, peppers and other crops should be tremendous. There's nothing like home-grown food... you wouldn't believe how great the blackberries, strawberries, cucumbers and (hopefully) tomatoes taste. Far better than what you get in a typical store.

So... yea... pretty excited about the crops.

Sounds great! Except the chickens. Maybe start leaving bowls of gravy around where they can see it, give them a hint I think your next step now is to become one of those crazy preserve everything people so you can have a huge crop now and then when the high summer hits it won't matter, you still have your home grown fruit and veg in some form! Or be one of these crazy smart people who manages to plant enough things at exactly the right time so you've constantly got something coming through regardless of the season. Home grown stuff is definitely better. We've managed tomatoes, strawberries, lettuce and even a few peas on the balcony and it's so much nicer. My parents have gone mad in France and grow all sorts, potatoes, marrows, tomatoes, strawberries, peas, squash... god knows what else but it's great. You guys are doing a fantastic job from the sounds of it