Mrs. David's Garden Seeds®

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Possibilities On The Farm

This week, we will look at future possibilities on the farm here at the headquarters of David's Garden Seeds®. This will include planting, more animals including possible food animals like meat chickens, building projects, internet work, and home projects. There is so much to be done and so very little time, especially when we are trying to run our business. My biggest deal is having to be in the farm store six days a week so I never get any time off. This has to change so I can get out of here and do something with my farm.

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Possibilities On The Farm - 5/3-5/9/2021

Monday, May 3, 2021 - Possibilities On The Farm

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A Commercial Moment For David's Garden Seeds®

Good Monday morning. I had ten Etsy orders to mail out this morning. Thank you to our Etsy customers. (We no longer have our Etsy shop as of July of 2021.) If you don't know, we have several ways to buy David's Garden Seeds®. Everything we have is on our website, David's Garden Seeds®. And, of course, we sell on Amazon. If you want fresh, Non-GMO seeds that will grow, check us out!

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The stray dog is still hanging around so it looks like we may keep her. Someone must have dumped her right after she had puppies. She is a nice dog. We will have to take her to the vet because we have no idea if she has had shots. She is not wearing a collar.

Jerry and his team are planting more seeds out in the orchard, between the rows of trees this morning. We had a farmer plow rows for a garden before we put our orchard in and they are covered with weed barrier. A lot of seedlings are already coming up. Most are vegetables and melons. Possibilites on the farm include selling our fresh produce and canning a lot of it for sale.

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Future Possibilities On The Farm

As promised, this week, we will talk about our future plans and possibilities on the farm. First, we have an empty pond with a waterfall. It is so pretty but will be nicer when there are plants and fish. We will be making a trip to Marion, Texas this week to go to Water Garden Gems. It is where our contractor got the pump and liner for the pond. He says they are very knowledgeable about backyard ponds. Our problem is finding the time. David said we will go, probably tomorrow.

Another of our future possibilities on the farm is to increase our livestock. I want to get some ducks because they are adorable. I also want to get a few baby sheep and goats. These will be good for our future petting zoo. Goats give milk so I can make goat cheese and possibly goat soap and lotion.

David and I have talked about getting bees. Yes, bees would be one of the best possibilities on the farm. We would love to produce our own brand of honey plus we can have a good supply of pollinators for our farm. Future possibilities on the farm are endless.

Our guineas have ten eggs in their nesting area but they have had some of them for seven weeks now. I don't believe they are going to hatch because they just don't sit on the eggs. I am going to have to remove them and any future eggs, we will gather and eat instead of letting them rot. I am disappointed as I thought it would be fun to have baby guineas.

Our welder is here and asked for the balance of the money that we owe to the metal cutter for our letters and logo to go on our high gate. We haven't seen the letters yet and we already paid $1,000.00. Why would pay the balance without seeing the product first? I told this to the welder. The welder went over to him and got the letters but he had to leave his driver's license with the guy. That is just crazy considering he already has $1,000.00 of our money.

The welder brought the letters back and it says "David's Garden Seed" instead of
"David's Garden Seeds" so it is a good thing we wanted to see it first. The guy left the final S off of the word Seeds. Our trademark is for Seeds, not seed. We sent it back. Hopefully he can get another S made today.

Stephen is outside now pulling all of the Bull Nettle aka Mala Mujeres out of the ground. They are everywhere. I just learned that Holley and Max, the grandkids actually went to our falls on Saturday and climbed in the pond so now we need to fence that off so kids can't get in there. If they do it, you know some of the visitor's kids will climb in as well. They had to go under a low bridge to get there. Their father and grandfather were both with them so I wonder how that happened. We were setting up for Holley's party so we missed that.

I collected all ten of the guinea eggs and threw them away. If they were going to hatch, they would have done so three weeks ago. So sad. From now on, if there are any new ones, I will just pick them up when I feed them. The heat was miserable when I went out to collect eggs and feed and water everyone.

The welder got another S but the letters are not on the gateway yet. In fact, the gate is not hung yet. It is still being painted as well as the gateway.

Possibilities on the farm could include selling baby guinea chicks if only they were intelligent enough to hatch their eggs. They just bury them in the sand and then dig them up and move them around.

Molly came up to me this evening with green paint on her nose. David got her a collar and made an appointment for her to go to the vet and get her shots so I guess we are keeping her.

David just said we are again under a severe thunderstorm watch. The ground is still wet from all the rain we got on Friday and Saturday. The mud is thick. Hours later, we got zero rain but San Antonio got a bunch of rain. They also keep getting hail so I am glad we did not get any of that.

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Tuesday, May 4, 2021 - Possibilities On the Farm

Good early morning. We got no rain overnight. I have been awake for hours. My nose was clogged thanks to the high mold and my leg was hurting. I got up, made coffee, fed the cat and let the dogs out. David is still sleeping. All of a sudden, I am getting a lot of Etsy orders for David's Garden Seeds®. I already have six to fill this morning. They are all printed out from my home office. I only have 128 listings on Etsy and we have almost 2,000 varieties of seeds so I think I need to put more of them up on Etsy.

Let's talk about possibilities on the farm. David's plan for possibilities on the farm includes growing enough extra produce that we can offer fresh vegetables and fruits by the pound to our visitors and then what is leftover after a few days can be canned or dehydrated and offered for sale. We do have a beautiful commercial kitchen for this purpose. The problem is getting our outdoor crew to understand that they need to fill all of our raised beds and furrowed rows with seeds.

David told them all two weeks ago to plant in all the spaces and they said they did. They left rows empty and there are many raised beds that are empty. David had to explain again yesterday that they are to fill up everything. Their thinking is this is too much for David and me to eat. They forget that we have many customers who would love fresh produce from our farm. There can be no possibilities on the farm for selling fresh produce and canned goods if we don't have the produce growing!

It will be great when our trees are producing fruits and nuts that we can enjoy and sell. Oh, the possibilities on the farm will be great once our trees and gardens produce.

Tomorrow, our baby chicks will be eight weeks old. They are sturdy little chickens now and they are liking life out in the coop. However, they are still caged up to protect them from the big hens pecking them.

Our big hens turned one year old this past Friday. I wonder if some of them will ever have complete feathers again. Even with those peeper glasses, they are pecking each other. I wanted them to have their feathers all grown out by now.

They are laying eggs like there is no tomorrow. I need to go out and give them all fresh water this morning. The water was coming out sandy but it should be all cleared up today. We got so much rain over the weekend that it made the water cloudy. I also need to sprinkle the coops with Diatomaceous Earth this morning.

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Possibilities On The Farm With Chicken Eggs

A wonderful idea for possibilities on the farm is selling a lot of fresh, organic chicken eggs. If you need fresh chicken eggs, come by our Farm Store at 5029 FM 2504 and get a box of pretty colored eggs. They taste great. No weak light yellow egg yokes here. You can see and taste the difference between real farm eggs and factory produced eggs. It is amazing.

We feed our chickens high quality chicken feed along with plants and insects they love. Yes, they are spoiled but we love them. Someone out here was telling me they feed their chickens once every other day. What? Why would you let them be hungry? Our chickens get fed early in the morning and then they get treats (insects and veggies) in the afternoon when I collect the eggs.

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I am hoping our gate will get done today. I hate not being able to shut it at night. There is a possibility that we can go to the fish store today. I sure hope so. The pond is lonely. Someone out here said if we get fish, snakes will come. I hope that is not true. That makes me nervous.

We drove out to Water Garden Gems, an hour away, and were pleasantly surprised. The place is filled with tiny ponds that have fish, statues, floating animals, and water plants. We looked around and finally chose four waterlilies, four goldfish, and five koi fish. We got lights for the falls and for the pond inside the gazebo.

First, I put all four waterlily plants in the pond by the falls. It gets sunlight but the other part of the pond does not since it is under a covered gazebo. Next, I floated the bags of fish in the pond and put some stuff in the pond to de-chlorinate it. After 15 minutes, Matthew helped me put the fish in the pond and they enjoyed swimming around.

In the evening, I went to feed them and could not find them. An hour later, I saw one swim by.

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Laugh Of The Day!

On the way home from getting the fish, we had to stop in the road fairly close to home. A cow was coming down the road. Then a sheriff came and escorted the cow back to his property. It was something you don't see every day!

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Wednesday, May 5, 2021 - More Possibilities On The Farm

This morning, I went to go feed the fish. I could not find them, but I did put some food in the pond. A few hours later, I saw one fish swim by over in the gazebo pond.

Today was a very busy day. So many things happened. This afternoon, we were admiring the newly finished gate and I noticed that the welder, who is Jerry's son, left his dog water dish to water his puppy that he brought each day. I was walking behind David, Jerry, and Jay. I called out to Jerry and then I started to tell him about the dog dish. That is when it happened. Somehow, my foot hit a rock and I started going forward quite rapidly, falling. I tried to get myself back up but soon, I was flat out on the black part of the parking lot. Fortunately, my face did not hit but my glasses came off of my face. My wind was knocked out a little bit and my elbows were burning as they were scraped up and coated in the black stuff from the parking lot.

I just laid there for a while in pain. Of course, several of our people were out there. Jerry, who did nothing wrong, kept apologizing to me. I told him he did not do anything. Then I finally got up, went into the store, grabbed my stuff, and went home for the day. I had had enough.

I scrubbed my elbows and put antibiotic on them. They are still hurting.

Earlier in the day, the welder came and put up all of the letters. The gate came out looking amazing.

A horn worm ate some of one of our pecan trees. Jerry sent it on into eternity and there is still some of the tree left. Last night, I was walking through the orchard and found a grapevine completely stripped of all leaves by cutter ants. Yes, they're ba-ack! Matthew was still here and sprayed them and put Diatomaceous Earth on them. I believe the ants died last night. He left it by the grape vine so it could be inspected this morning.

Also this morning, our neighbor said today is the day to get her guineas. We left ours inside the nesting area, opened the door on our pen and a few minutes later, her guineas were in the pen. Then Jerry grabbed them both and put them in a little cage that I just bought. Bam. Problem solved! I called Carolyn and told her and she could not believe that we caught them. She had told me that I would never get them. Challenge accepted!

So we got the guineas with no problems. She came and got them and put them in a pen. She has never penned them. They used to walk all over around here until they discovered we had guineas. We have kept ours penned up. If she will keep them penned up for at least a few weeks, feeding them their big meal at night, they will head home at sunset, knowing they will eat and be safe. Birds like to feel safe at night because their vision is hugely diminished in the dark. If they are in a pen at night, predators can't get to them. It is security for them. I hope it works.

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Thursday, May 6, 2021

Good Thursday morning! I had a bit of a rough night. Of course, my elbows are painful. Then I woke up at 3:15am and my nose was clogged and there was a lot of drainage down my throat. I went to the couch to sleep and I woke up around 5:45am. Then I went back to bed and woke up at 6:30am. One thing I noticed is my right shoulder is in pain again. Back in 2009, I tore my rotator cuff when I fell down the stairs at my house in San Antonio. I guess I jostled it somehow when I fell yesterday because it is sore when I move. Fun times.

I have been mainly working from inside today because we have a new housekeeper and this is his first time. I did go out and put cash in the store and I fed the fish. I could not find any of them. I wonder if they are still alive.

Then Jay needed business cards for seed collection sets. I keep them in the house; otherwise they walk away all by themselves when I step out of the store and I don't realize that they are gone and I am out of them until it is too late. So I took a few boxes over today and we got to talking about my fall yesterday and a fall he made at a wedding several years ago. There were a lot of laughs as we relived that with some of the employees. Good times.

This afternoon, a plumber came and hooked up a bunch of stuff for the well water container on the cement pad. I asked what it all was, but no one would tell me so I will just show you photos. Somehow, this will make watering easier for the outdoor crew when they water the gardens and orchard.

At 5pm, I collected eggs. There was one new guinea egg which I took since they wasted 17 eggs over the past six weeks, not knowing how to sit on them and hatch them. I also feed and water the guineas and chickens in the afternoon. They look forward to a snack and fresh, cool water.

After that, David realized that he took his truck in for a full detailing job early in the morning so I had to go with him to pick it up and drive my car back. I have not driven much since we have lived out here. I didn't like it but I did okay. The truck riding my tail all the way from Devine did not like me being on the road...I had a hard time keeping it at 70 since we were not on a freeway but he would not pass me.

The farm manager found a dead bunny this morning. They were fine when we looked at them last night. The rabbit mom on the left had brown bunnies this time instead of white ones. Interesting because the father and both mothers are white with trim on the ears and face that is brown and black. They are Californian rabbits.

Possibilities On The Farm

Here are a couple of personal possibilities on the farm. I would like to put a private pond out in the back, a bit bigger than our current pond, maybe even a natural swimming pool, which would be awesome. You build it so that natural life including plants and fish live in there and you can swim in there without chemicals. You just have to add the right plants and fish to clean and filter it. I have always loved swimming and when I was a kid, there were no pools around. There were ponds, lakes, creeks, and rivers and it was always fun when we got to go swimming for the day!

Possibilities on the farm also include putting a fire pit in the back with some seating. I would love to put a hot tub out in our fenced in area by our above ground pool so we can relax and stretch our muscles out in the hot water. I know that would be wonderful. 

Long Term Possibilities On The Farm

Now for a few long term possibilities on the farm. First, we would like to acquire the property on either side of us or behind us. Currently, none of it is for sale. We have tried but all three owners say it is not for sale. If we get ten acres, we can shoot on our land. I would like to build an outdoor practice range but on four acres, it is against the law. I think this is one of the most wonderful long term possibilities on the farm.

The second of my long term possibilities on the farm, if we had some more property, we might have room for horses and cows, both of which I would like to have. Of course, by the time we acquire more property, we will probably be too old to ride or to take care of cows.

David has been talking about the third of our long term possibilities as we are running out of room already. He wants to buy some property elsewhere and build a big building for production and fulfillment so most of our employees would go there to work instead of coming to the farm. That would free up parking spaces for our customers instead of having all of the parking spaces gone in our store parking lot. Our employees are not supposed to park in front of the store or in front of the delivery docks, but they do. Of course, our outdoor crew, kitchen help, and store help would have to stay on site.

I would stay here, too. I like to help the customers in the store but I would prefer to do my computer work at the house. Here is why--I can't get anything done in the store. Our employees, vendors, and contractors, along with customers continually interrupt me when I am working on the computer and they can't just wait a minute until I am through with my task. Then I forget what I have and haven't yet done. When we are in a time crunch and have to get a certain thing done, I need to concentrate and get it over with. I don't need a play by play of what happened out in the field or in a raised bed. I don't need to be interrupted by the mailman or a contractor who want to know why we are doing something outside. LOL!

I am not sure if David will keep his office here or if he will drive to and from the new location. Everyone always works better when he is around. So he will have to go over there at least a few times a week to make sure everything is being done correctly.

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Friday, May 7, 2021 Possibilities On The Farm

Good morning and Happy Friday! I have been awake for a few hours because I could not breathe again. I fed the cat and all of the dogs including our new stray, Molly. Molly is still staying outside until she is cleared by the vet and then gets groomed but that is not until next week. The vet out here is always busy, yet the one in San Antonio could always fit us in the same day. Go figure.

David has taken my car to be detailed this morning. There was a beautiful sunrise and the coffee tastes so good today. My elbows are feeling better from my Wednesday fall but my old rotator cuff injury pain is back. I really feel it whenever I raise my right arm or lift something a bit heavy, like yesterday when I was folding a comforter and when I collected eggs from the top row in the nesting box. I haven't felt any pain from my injury until after I fell. That is amazing. I hurt myself in February of 2009 and I did not have insurance so I could not have surgery.

In fact, at the time, both of us were out of work and our savings was dwindling. It was difficult to find a job. We both had been looking since November and we did not get unemployment. Then in April, I started a new job and David started one in September. In the meantime, we did odd jobs and sold books and dvds on Amazon to make money to live. It was a rough period and I was in so much pain but could not get my shoulder fixed.

Work Possibilities On The Farm

In regard to possibilities on the farm for work, I need to get someone who will assist Matthew and me in the store. Matthew was promoted a few weeks ago to store manager but I have not had time to show him a lot because we have both been so busy doing other things in the business. Matthew does a lot of special projects as well as running errands for the business. We both jump in and do whatever needs to be done. It doesn't leave us much room for training.

Sidebar: A Lesson In Grace And Ingratitude

I had a store helper last July who started out doing a great job. Little by little, she started doing what she wanted to do and she would do things differently than what David and I showed her. It made a mess of things. Back in January when I was talking to her one day in the store, she shouted to me, "I don't care!" There are actually nicer ways to let someone know you don't want to hear what they have to say. And if I am paying you well, just be quiet and listen. You don't need to explode. That is rude.

At that point, I should have fired her for insubordination but I was shocked after all of the ways we had helped her monetarily speaking. So she kept on working there but I wanted her out of the store. Two weeks later, someone in fulfillment quit so I told David it was fine with me to move her over there. He did. That was on a Friday. She went to her new manager, afraid she would lose her job, even though it was supposed to be temporary.

The next Monday, David called her into the store with me there. He proceeded to reassure her and tell her the move was temporary until they could find someone else and that we had helped her in ways she didn't realize. We had given a lot of money for her to the church we had attended so they could buy her a car as well as paying for car repairs and other things. At that point, instead of thanking us, she yelled out, "I don't care. I just want to come to work and have fun. What happens at church, stays at church. What happens at work, stays at work."

I expected David to fire her right then and there. Instead he dismissed her to go back to work because he has compassion for her situation. That was over three months ago and if she regretted saying that ugly stuff to us, she has never apologized. She should be gone from the first outburst, let alone the second, but we gave her grace on both occasions. She gave us no gratitude. 

It is hard to be an employer. Some of the team members are so unappreciative. I just know that if I had ever treated management the way we were treated when I was working all of my jobs since 1978 when I first started working, I would have been terminated immediately, no excuses. If I did something wrong, I always apologized and said it would not happen again.

Back To Possibilities On The Farm

Back to my point on possibilities on the farm, we need a good helper in the store who can step up to the plate and help our customers when Matthew is taking packages to UPS and when I am out in the field working or cleaning the chicken coop.

I also need to find a good housekeeper/organizer. I thought we had found one but I never heard back from her. Three weeks ago, a lady showed up to talk about helping. One of our team members referred her. She seemed wonderful and I wanted her to start right away. She said she had already committed to helping someone else for the next two weeks, but after that she could start. She never has called or come over. I hope I hear from her soon...

It is now 7:45am so I need to get ready and get on over there to the store.

We had two customers early in the morning shortly after we opened this morning. There were orders to fill throughout the day and I spent most of the day updating our collection seed sets. We have a lot.

Phil and Jerry worked on the pond lights and they work nicely now, changing colors. I caught a glimpse of five of the fish when I fed them tonight.

The UPS man dropped off a Harry and David package filled with gifts for me from David for Mother's Day. Every package has something good to eat. It was fun. Possibilities on the farm can include us making good treats to eat to sell here now that we have a commercial kitchen.

The sign company finally finished our signs and dropped them off at 4:30pm, just as our guys were leaving. Originally, they were going to hang them all but they wanted another $1500 to do so. We said no so we have a bunch of huge signs just hanging around that we paid a lot of money for. Now we have to get a contractor here to hang them all up. They look cool but for the money we paid, they should have been hung and they should have some precious metal in them.

David dropped off my car early this morning to be detailed so we went into Devine and picked it up this evening.

Molly is now jumping over the fence to get into our backyard. She is also trying to get into the house and when she doesn't get in, she howls for a while. She just wants to be with us all the time. However, we need to get her checked out by the vet. The vet won't take her until Tuesday. We have had the appointment for almost a week now.

Possibilities On The Farm

Today's possibilities on the farm include paving the parking lot and driveway so I don't have to trip or turn an ankle on a rock. I am constantly turning my ankles. When they put in the parking lot and driveway, they did not bring nice, crushed rock. They used big old chunky rocks so it is scary, especially since I fell earlier this week. I am hurting from that as I seem to have injured my rotator cuff again. I have been having tons of pain whenever I forget not to use my right arm.

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Saturday, May 8, 2021 Possibilities On The Farm

Good early morning. Soon, I will have to open the David's Garden Seeds® Farm Store for business. I wish I could stay home and fold laundry and get some things done...

I have a ton of farm fresh eggs from this week. Come on out to the Farm Store between 10am and 2pm and get some today.

I have opened the store and I saw some of the fish while I fed them. Our farm manager came in this morning to make up some time but he left right after I opened the store. He watered a lot of the gardens since it will be hot today and tomorrow. Right now it is 80° and will get to a high of 94°. Most of our stuff is in direct sunlight because there was just one tree up at the top property line. The rest was used to grow peanuts, one giant peanut field that included the lot next door as well.

Times have really changed now. Including sheds, we have 14 buildings on the property, a pool, a greenhouse, a gazebo complete with pond, five hoop houses that house 100 raised garden beds plus 16 raised beds around the property that are not covered. We also have a 100 tree orchard with rows of vegetables growing in between the rows of trees. Now we have a giant metal gateway and soon we will have some big signs hung up. This is not your father's peanut farm any longer. It is David's Garden Seeds® Farm!

The temperature got up to 96° Fahrenheit this afternoon. As the sun started to go down, it was breezy and cool outside, making the evening walk about the farm very pleasant.

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Sunday, May 9, 2021 Possibilities On The Farm

Good Sunday morning and Happy Mother's Day! We got up and went to church. Then we came home to Church's chicken that my son brought for us.  I ate some of the treats that David got for me and did some fun laundry.

David gave Molly a bath and brought her in the house because she was whining too much when we all came in and she did not. He kept her in too long so she had an accident on the floor in the den. After we got that cleaned up, we watched some movies. David started filling our above ground pool after it got cleaned up again. It was a good day.

Amazon said we each had a package delivery. They were not on the front porch like Amazon said and there were no photos. Funny how they don't take photos like they are supposed to. I went to the loading dock. Nothing. Went to the mailbox and to the gate (like the driver did yesterday.) Nothing. I climbed up the steps to go to the commercial kitchen. Nothing. I started walking toward the store. There, on the middle shelf that is for our plants, I saw two Amazon boxes. Never mind the signs that say "all deliveries here". So I got the packages and headed home. Another fun scavenger hunt courtesy of Amazon.

Possibilities On The Farm

The biggest of all the possibilities on the farm is having one drop off station with a huge sign so I don't have to go on constant scavenger hunts.

Possibilities on the farm today include putting in an in ground pool and hot tub which would be awesome. We think a fiberglass pool would work pretty well in this sandy ground.

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Return from Possibilities On The Farm to Farm And Business Life

Since 2009, over 1,500,000 home gardeners, all across the USA, have relied on David's Garden Seeds® to grow beautiful gardens. Trust is at the heart of it. Our customers know David's Garden Seeds® stocks only the highest quality seeds available. Our mission is to become your lifetime supplier of quality seeds. It isn't just to serve you once; we want to earn your trust as your primary supplier.

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