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Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Garden Prep

Last week was a beautiful week weather wise.  It made me think about our garden even more.  We are expanding it this year (We had pigs beside it last year conditioning the soil for expansion), and hopefully we will get it out of the new garden stage and into a more established bed.  We weren't able to get it tilled up in the fall because of a number of reasons, but we have a friend's tiller being tuned up right now to hopefully put to use soon.

Right now I also have my sweet potatoes growing at the kitchen sink's window, a spot in the laundry room ready to go for starting plants with a grow light (although I still need to buy my garden seeds), and I recently brought home sand and mixed my peat/sand mix today for doing cuttings. (I have decided to do greenwood cutting with the blueberries, raspberries, edlerberries, etc,  but I'm planning on trying some hardwood boxwood cuttings this week yet, and maybe some other plants if I find a parent plant - I'll try to get pictures.)

I'd love to hear what you have going on for this season's garden.  If you are still looking to get started this year, you can always start saving milk jugs, making homemade planting pots, or even give a try to starting sweet potatoes if you bring some home soon.

Friday, March 18, 2011

5 Signs of Spring

Robins have been back for a little bit now, but yesterday really got me thinking spring.  Here are 5 things I was able to enjoy yesterday.
  1. The temperature hit the 70's
  2. I took the winter cover feed sacks off of my orchard trees, reusing them as mulch
  3. The hive of honeybees was very active
  4. Spring peepers have begun singing
  5. There is a hint of green in the grass
    Part of our chicken flock searching for those first green blades of grass
Winter cover feed sack turned to mulch

Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Sunny Days Ahead :)

Wow, I guess it's been awhile again since I last posted!  I was heading up a project fair with our home school group which took quite a bit of my time - planning for the event and helping the kids with their projects.  After it was over I had quite a bit of catching up in the house to do with things that got put on hold for the fair.  I still have quite the line up of things that need to get done and things I want to get done with spring coming, but I thought I would take a moment and throw up some pictures just to not have such a big break on my blog.  Plus, it's been awhile since I've put up any farm pictures.

With the warmer weather, our egg production has been increasing, and it might be increasing more than I can tell.  Not only are our hens starting to lay more eggs, but they are starting to get a bit of spring fever themselves and are stealing nests all around the farm.  When I go to collect eggs now, not only do I go to the nest boxes, but I look inside tubs, reach through fences, and even crawl inside hog huts.  This little gal even went broody already.  She had WAY too many eggs though, and they were all cold.  I tried to move her (she was in the stock trailer with a nest, and we needed to pick up some feeder pigs) and give her some new eggs, but she didn't take them.  It is a bit early so I was okay with it.  Plus, she can really only sit on 3 regular sized eggs, she is so small!! (She is only about the size of a quart jar. Those are her little eggs in front of her so the picture is deceiving.)


When I go out to collect eggs in the afternoon, I walk through the other animals too to see what they are up.  Here is a picture I took of our pigs enjoying some soft bedding and the sunny day. 

It's nice to see the animals enjoying themselves with the nicer weather.  It makes me anxious to see them out of the winter lots and around the farm on green pastures and in lush wooded areas!
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