President Obama released his 2013 budget proposals on Feb. 13 and, with respect to taxes, there are items of interest in both the income and estate/gift areas.

Our life on the farm, sports – two dogs, two rabbits, three parakeets, one cat, and a ’65 four-on-the-floor American-made Chevy pickup truck, an ocean blue beauty, suited for taking the menagerie on a Sunday drive. A trip to the poultry show at the San Joaquin County Fairgrounds provided two female silkie chickens. They are really beautiful chickens. No roosters, for me, just eggs, making life on the farm complete for at least a while.

Over the weekend we assembled a chicken coop. My son says it looks like a Barbie house. He thinks we’ve gone nuts. Not!
Polish chickens are what I’m looking for. They weigh 4 pounds and sport big feather hats, sort of a ’30s glam look, very chic and a fair amount of eggs.

Talk about a busy life waking up at 7 a.m., making the rounds to each cage, filling everyone’s food and water dishes. It’s quite the undertaking. My grandparents were farmers in Pennsylvania. Now I understand why they had seven children. This stuff takes time and effort.

Honestly, I love every minute of it. The joy of these little creatures warms my heart. My niece from Stockton visits our farm on weekends and she doesn’t stop smiling the entire time. She’s an 11-year-old city girl. Ha, not anymore. Lauren jumps on the golf cart, flies through the vineyard with our 5-pound dog, Sophie, on the seat beside her and our newly acquired 65-pound chocolate Lab, Buddy, sprinting close behind. Lauren handles the job of bathing the bunnies. I’m amazed at the tolerance our furry friends have for water. It doesn’t faze them. We thought we purchased two females bunnies, but from the looks of the recent activity in their cage, we may soon be grandparents.

Our parakeets are another story. We had to separate the birds due to fighting. Greg Fleming, owner of Farmers Feed Co. on East Miner Avenue in Stockton, warned us of this possibility. Luckily, we had an extra cage and put the culprit in a “timeout” all alone.

Things immediately calmed down. I never dreamed I’d be “grounding” a bird. Geez!

I’ve been doing a bit of research on the Internet and also purchased several books from our local Barnes and Noble about heirloom seed gardening. Boy, there’s more to raised bed gardening than I ever dreamed.

This weekend we planted all of our tomatoes, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, onions and eggplants in greenhouse seed starters. If all goes well, transplanting will be done after the full moon and before the new moon. Yep, you heard me. This stuff is a science. Looks like I’ll be in the market for manure – yuk – mulch, peat and top soil for my raised beds. I never knew that so much thought went into planting seeds or transplanting. I can’t wait until we actually get some vegetables.

Have you ever planted heirloom seeds? These are seeds that have been around in some cases for hundreds of years. Heirloom seeds haven’t been altered. They are pure, natural, and can be used for seeds themselves, year after year. Most store-bought seeds have been genetically altered to provide us with one planting and specially engineered not to be used to harvest more planting seeds. Crazy, but true. Seeds a controlled substance. Go figure. If all goes well, we will be canning up a storm again this year.

My mother must be smiling from heaven watching all this domestic activity at our house, especially since as a girl I refused to do anything that resembled tasks done by Beaver Cleaver’s mom. I wanted to hunt and ride mini-bikes, fish, build tree houses, catch and sell my night crawlers, never allowing her to teach me to be domestic. Wow, I guess I am turning into my mother.

Look for your copy of the 2011 Book of Lists publishing March 1. Reserve yours today, call (209) 477-0100.
Remember that Presidents Day is

Feb. 20. Send a prayer out to heaven for our Founding Fathers who fought hard to provide us with the greatest nation on earth. We must work to restore the values they lived by, the Constitution they believed in, and continue the struggle for freedom of the people, by the people, for the people. Make your voice heard, get involved and vote for change. We must change the direction our country is headed and restore America back to her former glory.

Happy Valentine’s Day
and God Bless America,
Sharon Alley-Calone

The Internal Revenue Service recently released its fiscal year 2011 enforcement and service results.

Once upon a time, there was an automated web attack called “Lilupophilupop.”