Spring is the time of the greatest collection of energies on a farm. The long death of winter creates massive amounts of anticipation for the renewal season, and the marking of fresh foods to be found abroad. Seed planting and harvesting the fall sown kale and spinach really gets a homesteaders palate whetted for the wild foods bounties laying just beyond the garden fence. 

   

The first one I see is inevitably the dandelions. While this sends a great deal of people scrambling for digging contraptions or flailing to get to the spray bottle of ACV, I get to picking. Firstly, there is not a single animal on my farm that doesn't LOVE dandelions. Especially the new shoots, and the younger, the better. I pick them for my rabbits, pigs, turkeys and chickens, then I let the goats out on their tethers (always supervised, of course) and watch them clean every last yellow spot in their reach before even contemplating the grasses that also fill the yard. I also enjoy the young dandelion greens, but I prefer them in a mixed green salad. And then there's the accounts of nearly mythical dandelion wine. I make a lot of wine every year, and I love to experiment, but I still haven't tried making a batch of this yellow miracle... I can't even fathom how potent it would be.

   

Next comes the asparagus around the Forgotten Forty, and marks my favorite time of the season, hands down. I take the evenings to hunt around fence lines and the edges of woods, in fields and along the dirt road in front of the farm. This time is particularly meditative for me, providing quiet time in the woods right in the middle of the busiest time of the year around here. I take my phone with me to snap pictures of sunsets and anything else of interest on the way, grab a pitcher with a little water in it to keep the stalks fresh, and hit the trails. I always keep a mesh bag with me just in case I should stumble across some Morels or Maitake mushrooms on the way. 

Often, I'll set up a meal around one item, and work my way over the property looking for other complimentary ingredients. Chives and ramps for just about any meal, the odd meal of nettles thrice boiled, eggs from the hen house to make a morel mushroom omelet breakfast the next day. With a little imagination (which deserves a good workout too) any meal can have wild elements, with just a little forethought and preparation. I've even had dinner parties that started with a wild food foray and ended with a glass of wild mulberry wine while recounting the sunset and the beautiful places we found this or that. Beautiful memories are crafted this way.

   

Seasonal forays are an incredible way to experience the world around you in an array of differing ways. Exercise, meditation, nature watching, and all the delightful tastes to be found along the way. Get your butts outside! It's SPRING!!!

(big exhale breath) The GRIT blog is finally back.  After the first couple days I had withdrawal set in.  After a couple more days it was difficult to catch my breath, and life support was emanant if something didn't happen soon.  The word came down that the blog was fixed just in time before slipping into a coma.  Now you know that I'm just kidding, but I did miss the daily blog reading from all the great GRIT bloggers.  

The weather seems to be undecided in Nebraska.  We are now preparing for Storm Walda. Here on the east side of Nebraska, storm Walda will only be rain with maybe a dusting of snow.  The temperatures are mellowing with night time lows in the upper 30s and 40s.  Last night it was practically 50 but then the high for today is not much higher then 50 degrees.  All the snow is melted and the ground has that damp spring smell to it so I would say that winter is finally over.  Rain is in the forecast for at least another couple days.

 

One sure sign of spring is when the neighborhood kids come out to play.  Those that have followed my blog know that I built this structure a couple years ago for my grandson Bradley.  It does attract adventurous boys.  The next addition will be a set of regular stairs up inside the cage to the fort and maybe a zip line down the hill.  It's all an evil plan to keep my grandson in the backyard so I know where he and all the rest of the boys in the neighborhood are.

 

Another sure sign of spring is when the Crocus flowers are in bloom.  With daffodils and tulips in bud the Crocus is always the first one to display its color.  My neighbor is a camera buff and snapped this picture.  The amazing thing about this flower is that it's a part of a whole row of Crocus flowers in the space between the sidewalk and the street in front of my house.  I call it the dead zone.  It's where all the snow from the salted streets is piled up. Still after four years in the worst of soil conditions, these Crocus flowers bloom there heart out every year.

 

As more days warm up above 50 degrees, work proceeds on the pallet to garden fence panels.  To keep the lettering uniform, a plan was devised to make crude letter stencils of sorts.  This is the what I call the Nova fence panel.  A sharpie was used to trace the lettering before the painting began.  As I have stated before, my abilities for art work are limited but with a little planning a fairly decent panel can be the result.

 

Two fence panels are complete.  One more panel with lettering "Gardens" will complete the main part of the fence visible from the street.  I have researched just how much pressure wind will put on these panels.  The Internet is a wonderful place for getting answers.  For those that are interested in the formula for finding wind pressure on panels, it's as follows:  Wind speed in MPH squared times the constant .0072. The answer is in pounds per square inch.  My panels are 8 feet by 54 inches.  Doing the calculations my panels will be enduring about 100 pounds each with a 40 MPH wind.  Wind can be as high as 60 MPH in gusts so a sturdy post structure will be used.  Therefore a post every four feet anchored in concrete will be needed. 

So hopefully we are back on track with GRIT blogs and I won't see the light at the end of tunnel for a long time.

Have a great spring day hopefully in the garden.

 

Early spring is a great time to feed our bees. We had a warm day last Sunday and we took advantage of the weather to check our hive and make sure the bees made it through the winter. We were out and about that day boiling down our maple sap into syrup and saw one or two bees foraging around the yard. We knew if they were active enough to fly away from the hive that it would be safe to open the hive without lowering the temperature too much.  

Bees keep the hive a constant temperature throughout the winter by clustering around the queen and using combined body heat to keep things warm.  

Early spring is a good time to feed our bees because their honey stores are at an all time low. And while the bees are active, flowers are in short supply this time of year. Supplementing their food is a good way to ensure that they will make it until the first blooms appear.  

There are many ways to feed bees. When we first started our hive we fed the bees a simple syrup of sugar and water fed through an inverted mason jar feeder that attaches through the front of the hive opening. We did this through their first spring and well into summer until we noticed that the jar was no longer being drained. This meant that our new colony was making enough honey to support themselves without our help.  

This type of feeding is only useful if the temperatures are above freezing.  

Some people feed their bees all winter by adding an empty box to the top of the hive and supplying simple syrup in a chick waterer. 

We chose not to do this because we would have to fill the container periodically and in our climate, this would lower the temperature of the hive each time we had to open it. Not only that, but the bees would have to work extra hard to keep the temperature of the empty box warm as well.  

Instead, we chose not to collect the honey from the harvesting super last fall because we wanted to ensure that the bees would make it through the winter. So we sacrificed our harvest to ensure the bees would have a great first year.

To feed our bees we made a candy of sorts made from granulated sugar, water and apple cider vinegar.   

 

The vinegar helps support immune system.

4 cups granulated sugar

1 cup water

1 Tbsp apple cider vinegar

 

We boiled it on the stove until the sugar dissolved and continued boiling until soft ball stage or 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. 

 

We had an extra masonite inner cover for our hive so we drilled holes in it. 

We placed a sheet of wax paper underneath so the sugar wouldn’t run everywhere.  

Then poured the hot candy over the board so some would run through the holes. The bees will eat their way through these holes to the large puddle of hardened sugar.  

Once cooled, the candy hardens and stays in place.  

To add this to our hive we suited up, lit our smoker and removed the top. We could see the bees coming and going and hear them buzzing strongly inside.

 

We added this board to the top of the hive. It was easy and quick with minimal stress to the bees.  

To learn more about our bees and other animals on our farm visit Iron Oak Farm. 

  

I swung by my plot at the community garden this morning, and hung over the fence to gaze at it for a moment.  (The gate is frozen solid into the ground, or I would have let myself in).  Everything is still encrusted with a layer of snow – which, admittedly, has greatly receded with all the sunshine we’ve been having lately, and is nothing compared to what many storm-ravaged regions have experienced this winter.     

Even though spring seems tantalizingly within reach, our community garden group won’t do its annual spring clean-up until the second week of May…really, the weather here in Calgary isn’t usually co-operative before then. Indeed, in years past, the first spring work bee has been postponed a couple of times due to heavy snowfall. Last year, however, one of my garden plot neighbours was harvesting baby spinach and some lettuce at the end of May (right around the time many of us were still SOWING our first seeds). While we all stood around drooling at the sight of the mouth-watering green leaves, she let us in on her not-so-secret secret: she had seeded some of her crops while there was still snow on the ground.  Of course, we started muttering with jealousy (“why didn’t I do that?”), but my neighbour has been growing this way in Calgary for years and she’s not the only one.  As many experienced gardeners know, cold weather doesn’t have to matter.  I am serious about charging forward on a few season-extending ideas this year.  We can garden on the seasonal periphery!    

I definitely want to direct-sow a bit earlier this year than I’ve done previously.  I’m not going to wait until just the right ”planting weather” comes around (whenever/whatever THAT is).   I’m planning to build a small hoop tunnel in a similar style as my plot neighbour. You can see a bit of his design in the foreground of the photo. It’s a tried-and-true system and many of you have probably set up something of the sort in your own gardens. Some plastic sheeting will give the plants a leg up early in the season, and then I can switch over to a row cover, which should deter the inevitable flea beetle problem. My neighbour actually further employed his row cover as a hail guard last year, and it worked surprisingly well – I expected the hailstones to punch through the fabric but his set-up withstood all of our wicked storms last summer.  I’m all for salad greens that are not pre-mulched! 

How do you extend the growing season in your garden?  Do you use mini hoop tunnels or cloches?  Do you have a greenhouse or a polytunnel or any other type of set-up?

The sun was sparkling on the icicles hanging off the covered porch this morning. The pine trees are glistening as the white snow melts and drips from the laden branches.

 

In other words...it's melting!

I like winter, really I do. But come February it starts to wear out its welcome. During this last lingering bit of cold, where Mother Nature teases us with warm looking, sunny days that seem inviting, until you step outside and she smacks you in the face. "Just kidding, it's still frigid!"

There are things that get me through the home stretch till spring. I like to take time to finish indoor projects like drawing, dying wool and spinning. I also look forward to the seed catalogs coming in the mail, planning the garden out on graph paper, and setting up the seed starter trays and grow lights. 

But one of the best late winter activities is tapping the Sugar Maples.

We’ve been tapping for 3 years now and each year we learn something new. The first year was in our other home where Sugar Maples were far and few between. We tapped some Red Maples, which you can make syrup from, but the flavor was more honey-like and not that rich maple-y flavor. That year we attended a Sugar Maple Class put on by a local park to learn how to identify a Maple Tree (in the spring without its signature leaves), how to tap and how to boil the sap to syrup. (For more reading on this visit my post Indian Springs Maple Syrup Demonstration) 

 

Last year we moved to our farm and were blessed to have some nice Sugar Maples on the property. Not a large sugar bush, (A "sugar bush" is a grove of Sugar Maples used for tapping) but we were able to collect 40 gallons of sap in recycled water jugs. We kept them on the porch which stays cold because it’s closed off from the house. We “should” have been able to make 1 gallon of syrup from this amount of sap, (it’s a 40 to 1 ratio) but we had an unusual warm day and it spoiled half our collecting. We were very upset!

This year we are using 5 gallon buckets, and plan on boiling each bucket after it fills. That way, it won’t be such a large intimidating amount to work with.

Weather 

In our area, the temperature isn’t up to where it needs to be quite yet. But the warm spells are getting warmer and it’s almost time. Temperature fluctuation is crucial to tapping. The warm days (above freezing) and the cold nights (below freezing) are what causes the sap to run up and down the tree, thus making it available to collect. This phenomenon only happens in a few places in the world including Michigan, Wisconsin, parts of the east coast and southern Canada.   

You can continue to collect sap until the weather warms consistently and then the season is over because the sap will sour quickly. You also want to stop before the buds form as the tree will send the sweetness to the new growth, thus giving the sap a bitter flavor.  

Identifying the Tree 

It can be difficult to tell the different trees in your yard without leaves. So if you can remember, in the fall be sure to mark the Sugar Maples. Sugar Maples have a wide, silky, substantial leaf with smooth points.

If you don’t mark your trees, there are still some things you can do to distinguish a maple from an oak, for example. (for a good laugh read my post Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dummer Tap Maple Trees) There is an acronym that can help in this identification process. MADHorse stands for Maples, Ash, Dogwood and Horse Chestnut. These are a select group of trees where the branches grow parallel to each other. Most other trees, the branches are staggered. If you suspect you have a maple there is another way to identify it by looking at its bark. The bark on a Sugar Maple has flat vertical panels and it usually is splitting open on one side.   

Tapping 

 

There are many different systems that people use to tap trees. We’ve used mostly a hand drill and metal drip spiles with a bucket or a pail. Some people use a smaller spile and attach aquarium tubing to the collection bucket.

It’s best to tap the tree under a main branch, or above a large root on the south side of the tree. (You can tap in other directions, but it will flow the fastest facing south.) Try to avoid lining up a drill hole with a previous year’s hole. Maples have an amazing capacity to heal themselves and the tree does not suffer from the tiny taps each year. The tree should be at least 12 inches in diameter and some really large trees can support two taps.

Drilling 

 

We use a hand held drill with a drill bit slightly smaller than the thickness of the spile.

Drill the hole at a slight angle toward the ground.

 

Tap the spile in and attach the bucket. You can cover the bucket with a piece of cloth or plastic to keep bugs and debris from falling in. You can also purchase bags designed for tapping that keep everything very sanitary.

Keep an eye on your buckets. They fill up faster than you might expect. On warm days our 1 gallon pails would be full in 4 to 6 hours.

Boiling/ Reducing 

 

Once the sap is collected, we boil it on an outdoor fire. The “Old Fashioned” term for making maple syrup in this manner is called Kettle Syrup. The ash and smoke lend it’s own flavor to the finished product, and I think it makes it even more delicious.

The fire box is constructed of cement blocks with a metal grill laid over the top. We used two shallow pans to boil the sap. The more surface area you can create with your boiling vessel, the faster the sap will reduce. As the sap reduces, pour in fresh sap. 

We boiled the sap down in this manner until 20 gallons fit in these two shallow pans. Then we brought it in the house to finish.

Finishing the Syrup  

 

To finish the syrup, we poured it through two clean, cotton towels to remove any sediment, like bits of ash etc.. Then we poured it into a large pot and continued to heat the sap on the stove.

 

It took 2 additional hours to boil down and come up to temperature. 219 degrees on a candy thermometer, or seven degrees above boiling means the sugar content is at syrup level.

We gave it a taste test and checked for tracing on the back of a large spoon. Tracing is when the syrup no longer drips like water, but holds together and runs like a sheet.

Storing 

 

Maple Syrup can easily be stored in canning jars. We simple sterilized our jars by washing them with soap and water them boiling for 10 minutes. Ladle the hot syrup into the hot jars and let them “POP” and seal. There’s no need to process them once filled.   

For more on Maple Syrup Making visit our blog at Iron Oak Farm.

Sitting at the kitchen table recently, watching the flicker of an old-fashioned oil lantern, the winter conditions outside reminded me of how wonderful it is to live out in the sticks.

Wintertime out in the country, unlike any other time of the year, brings to mind how far from the comforts of city life we really are – it feels freeing, in a sense, to sit at the table playing dominoes, no television in the picture, not dependent on any outside forces. Looking out the window, I can actually see the moonlight on the timber set 100 yards away. Man, does it look cold. I can say with some confidence that I will never live within city limits again.

 

The only frustrating thing thus far – we moved in at the beginning of October – has been too many projects for the amount of daylight with which we’ve had to work. Winter can be a difficult time for me, since Monday through Friday during the shorter days of winter I leave for work in the dark and return home in the dark. No daylight hours except for the weekends.

This old farmhouse (somewhere around 175 years old) calls to me, and I rush home at the end of every day, don a headlamp, and head out to walk the dog down through the woods, or to turn sod for next year’s garden. I’ve also worn that headlamp while making some chicken coop repairs and even dispatching an opossum that managed entry into our hen house.

Predator pressure aside, my first project is expanding our poultry-raising efforts. I’ve managed to barter lumber from a neighbor in exchange for a couple weekends worth of drywall help, so building a permanent coop with a rotational grazing model chicken yard (for our laying hens), then building a larger movable chicken tractor for 10 or so meat birds in the spring are at the top of my list. I’ve already budgeted supplies for the NathanWinters' Movable Birdcage, so once deer season ends, I’ll have my work cut out. The project is already sketched out, and war has been declared on the resident coon, opossum and coyote populations. Along those lines, be sure to check out “CopingWith Critters” on Page 13.

Recently, a reader called into question why we have so many bloggers on our site, since many of them enjoy writing about the same things. The answer, quite simply, is that there are multiple ways to skin a cat (or slaughter a pig), and to think we already know the best management practice, the wisest design for a chicken coop, the best way of doing anything, would just be foolish. The many voices in our community are constantly coming up with cool ways of doing things, and if you’d like to contribute, please don’t hesitate to email me (cregan@grit.com). Hearing from our constituents, our readers, really does make our community an incredibly effective way of sharing and gathering information. Hopefully, you’ll find something you can use in this issue of GRIT Country, whether that’s the DIY drip irrigation system for your garden or crucial advice for building a kitchen garden.

Until our paths cross again,
- CDR 

  

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas.  The hooligans enjoyed Christmas as Santa came to visit them.  They got some rawhide chews, a pull rope, and a bag of a new Purina Proplan food called Savor which they really liked.  After I handed out the rawhide chews, Blackie stood there for ten minutes trying to decide if she was going to eat it of bury it.   Decisions, decisions, she wasn’t hungry, but the risk of loosing it to one of the other Hooligans won out and she chewed on it for a while.  

  

   

With the economy in the condition it is, the pets are really suffering. The shelters are full and a lot are being dumped out in my section of the country. Coming home yesterday I noticed what looked like a basset hound bird dog mix in the middle of nowhere and covered with ticks.  I stopped and asked her what she was doing here and a little short haired starving dog comes running out of the ditch.  I could take the little guy to my house as he would have been toast.  It was five minutes before the shelter closed; I opened my door and the little brown one jumped in and made a several loops around the truck looking for water and something to eat.  The basset mix tried to get in but her legs were too short, so I got out and boosted her in the back floor board.  On the way to the shelter, the little one rolled up on the front seat and went to sleep.  I felt so bad, but three Hooligans are a handful.  I took pictures at the shelter and posted on all of my Facebook pages and also the shelters page.  Maybe they will find a home.  They both loved to ride.   With a shelter so close why do people dump their animals out in the country?  I’m not sure how strays happen to find me either.

    

    

Patches has renewed her love/hate relationship with the filly in the pasture behind my house now that they are allowed back in the pasture.  My garden area is cleaned off and tilled waiting for spring.  My mediation circle is coming along.  I’ve transplanted some daylilies to it last fall and have few of my potted plants overwintering in the piles of sawdust berm.

 This past weekend while the temperatures were cool, I decided to burn out the yellow jacket nest in the compost heap since the traps didn’t catch them.  Next time which I hope doesn’t happen; I’ll try some sort of fruit juice instead of cider vinegar.   After two days, it’s still smoldering like a bale of hay.  I hate wasting a good compost pile.  When or rather if the temperatures get cold, and it’s stopped burning, I’ll take the tractor and make sure they are gone.  Then I can tell the complete story of their attack on the Hooligans and myself and their demise.

    

Ever wonder who started this New Years resolution thing?  I’m not one who usually makes resolutions, as I can’t keep them for very long, so why bother?   For 2011 I made a resolution not to buy any more plants until I had the potted ones from 2010 in the ground. I’m not sure how many times I broke that one.   Before my November knee surgery, even up to late in the evening before surgery, I worked diligently to get potted plants into the ground and moving and dividing plants from one bed to the appropriate theme bed.  Problem was that I kept adding to the collection.  A couple of weeks after surgery, I found a close out of shrubs ninety per cent off.  I came home with a truck load of Encores, gardenia, sky pencil and rhododendrons, normally around two hundred for a little over eighteen dollars.  I put them in the greenhouse until my knee was back in digging shape.  Later when I went to water them, I noticed that several of the shrubs had limbs chewed off; field rats had gotten in the greenhouse and were eating everything they could in sight, even the half length toilet paper rolls that I use for starting seeds.  Blackie was outside digging up tunnels and leaned on the siding and a piece broke out.  That was all she needed to burst through to get after the mice.  The sun pounding on the western side has made the plastic brittle.  For now a hooligan cage and a leftover piece of clear siding being held up with a couple of concrete blocks covers the hole.   The contractor didn’t follow the greenhouse plans and it gets too hot in the summer and it’s too drafty for winter use.  I plan to turn it into a screen room and order a greenhouse kit

     

   

    

For 2012 I made the same resolution, and again worked diligently get beds divided into new beds and the rest of the potted things into the ground before cataract surgery in November.  I only have a few peonies and daylilies that didn’t make in the ground and have them hilled up in a pile of sawdust for overwintering.  Just about the time I was hunting for a plant anonymous club, my cousin sent me information on a relative Herman Gusmus who was the Head Gardener for the King of Germany.  He went around the globe collecting plants for the king’s garden and even has a plant named after him ‘Primulaeae Gusmus (Herman)’.   Alright! I wrote Pat back, it’s in the genes!  I come by it honestly.  I have a good excuse to collect plants.   If you go back and read last January’s resolutions for 2012, they would basically be the same.

1. On my try to do list again this year is not buying anymore plants until I get the rest of my potted plants into the ground.  I ordered my plants and seeds the first of December so I have that one in the bag.  However a couple of seed packets, Kiphofia hirsute traffic lights and Courgette zephyr, I have no idea what I ordered and will have to go back to the website and find out what they are.  The names are England English and don’t have the common names on the packet.   I also picked up a Shooting Star hydrangea in full bloom.  I just couldn’t resist. After moving it from a 4 inch pot into a half gallon pot, it was added to my collection overwintering in my garage.  How did I use to get two vehicles in there?

2.  Decide the location and whether I want an arbor or two pergolas.  I put up 2 poles a few years back for a pergola and then decided to do an arbor for kiwi on the other side of the garden and put 2 poles up there.  Then after thinking about it again, I thought about doing a pergola in each spot.  This year finally there will be a decision.  Note to self, this resolution is three years old.

 3. Repair the sheetrock and repaint the wall where the water pipe ruptured from moving the washer and dryer into the utility room I added on to the house.  The contactor nicked a water pipe several years back when installing the baseboard back and it eventually ruptured flooding the back entryway. I hope the three colors of paint are still good, I don’t’ have to repaint the whole room as I ragged rolled it.

4. Run a new summertime waterline along the creek to replace the one the mad tiller chopped up last summer.  I have a couple of 100-200 foot sections that I took out when I should have hee’d instead of haw’d.  While the ground is moist I’ll take a middle buster down as deep as I can so it’ll be safe from shovel or tiller.

5. Finish the stackable retaining walls around the house and garage.  I started this project a couple of years ago.  Knee and cataract surgeries have slowed this one down.

The hooligan’s resolutions haven’t changed much either:

Patches 

Stop playing with skunks.

Stop playing with skinks, especially if they run up a screen and up in a downspout.

Don’t help Blackie dig up trees chasing after mice.

When Mom walks to the barn to feed us, use dog door to get in instead of standing scratching on the walk through door.

Don’t worry Mary when the batteries get weak in our collars.  This one is a piece of cake.

Chase Noah up a tree (neighbors cat who teases the Hooligans) when our collar batteries get weak. 

Stop bumping Momma in the rear with my nose while I wait for my bowl, thinking maybe I’ll get mine first.

Stop pawing visitors for attention.  It’s okay to paw Mary even if she doesn’t like it.

When playing with sticks don’t poke Mary in the leg.

Don’t fling around my tire toy and hit Mary in the knee

Continue to play keep away when Mary reaches for something I have.

Stop playing with skunks

Blackie 

Stop playing with skunks.

Stop playing with skinks.

Don’t help Patches dig up trees chasing after mice.

When Mom walks to the barn to feed us, use dog door to get in instead of standing scratching on the walk through door.

Don’t worry Mary when the batteries get weak in our collars. 

Chase Noah up a tree when our collar batteries get weak

Try not going through walls after mice, Mary seems to get upset.

When Mary opens the garage doors stop, say hi first instead of running past her looking for mice.

Stop playing with skunks

Levi 

Start playing with skunks.

Start playing with skinks.

Start chasing mice.

When Mom walks to the barn to feed us, use dog door to get in instead of standing scratching on the walk through door.

We have a battery in our collars?  Why do I need a battery in my collar?

Don’t moan while rubbing on Mary especially when wet, as she doesn’t seem to like my singing.

What the hooligans and I wish for you in the New Year:  We wish you health for those sick, prosperity for those with out a job. Take time to enjoy the beauty that has been given around us.  Stop long enough to watch a sunset and take time to smell the flowers.   I ask that if you suddenly think of a friend or family member and think to yourself you need to call them later, please do it at that time.  That friend may not be here tomorrow.

Oh my oh my, I just got in garden catalogs from two of my favorite companies. Maybe it won’t be a piece of cake.

I’m ready for spring and the return of hummingbirds. 

     

It looks like we are in for another crazy year.  I've been gone for a week visiting family in Las Vegas.  The average temperatures there hovered around 60 degrees while back in Nebraska the thermometer soared above 90 degrees two days in a row.   While visiting family (oldest daughter and family), we made a trip to California to go to Universal Studios. The weather was worse there.  It was about 55 degrees with wind and misty rain.  We still had a great time but not very typical weather anywhere this year.  What's up with that?  

 

  

Here's the big guy on the midway leading into Universal Studios.  The tram ride which was not near this display brought us into a tunnel.  The 4D 360 degree visual stimulation was awesome.  King Kong fought with a dinosaur and as he leaped from one side of the tram to the other he walked down the top of the tram.  The tram rocked and bounced as he leaped off and tangled with the dinosaur.  Of course the big guy won the match.  Many other similar experiences happened during the day.  It was a great day even though the weather wasn't so nice.  The best part was just spending time with my daughter, her husband, and two granddaughters.

One day was spent fishing on the big lake (Lake Mead) at Las Vegas but it was a bust.  We didn't even get a nibble and eventually had to leave because of the wind factor.  The rest of the week was spent with my sister catching up with life stories.  It was a great week of vacation but it's always good to be home.  Don't you think?

I returned home to a yard that needed mowing and a garden that hadn't sprouted yet.  I planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, and swiss chard before leaving.  The tomato and green pepper seeds are now planted in the plugs and the heat mat is on.  In about 10 days we will see if things are progressing as expected. 

In the mean time the fence building continues and the daylilies are growing.  This is actually a picture from before I left on vacation.  The fence is now complete and the daylilies are much bigger.  Cindy I know you like Milkweed but I weed whacked them all down around the perimeter of the garden along with the nettle weeds.  Probably the smart thing for me to do would be to start a nettle tea business and let the nettles grow themselves but the farmer in me just won't let that happen.  I can already see that the wild grape vines are not going to give up easily.  They are sprouting up every where.  I'm hoping to mulch them to death with deep hay mulch.  I've been watch three huge bales of hay by the road that have been broken and sitting there for three years.  I am trying to get in touch with the owner of the property to see if I can haul them away.  That would really help to keep the weeds down.

Old Bobcat Larry continues to visit almost every day I'm at the garden.  He came over one day and helped me carve out a road into the property with his machine as he calls it.  Now I have a designated parking area for my truck.  Eventually, I will expand it to allow several parking spaces.  Yesterday was the first day at the garden since returning from vacation.  I found three T posts leaning against my garden gate to help with the actual garden fence construction.  I have an idea who left them but I don't know for sure.  Another neighbor has indicated she would be willing to trade chicken eggs for garden produce.  It's really great to see how he neighbors are responding to a crazy old coot who starting gardening in the most unsual place.

Most the neighbors stop and talk awhile when I'm there and have indicated they watch the property to keep unwanted people off.  I have devised a plan to let them know when I'm not there if the person has permission to be there.  I mounted a flag holder to the garden gate and fly the flag when I'm there.  If I'm not there and some one is there that is helping with the garden and I'm not with them I'll give them the flag to fly that way the neighborhood with know it's OK for them to be there. 

 

Here's an over all picture of Terra Nova Gardens as it looks at the end of March.  It's all coming together but has a long way to go yet. 

I'll have more soon but that's all for now.  I hope everyone is enjoying the spring weather.  Well, I hope it's nice where you are.

P.S. - Lori, I made three batches of the laundry soap.  I was just a little skeptical about only 1/8 cup of soap because, well, that's really not much for a load of wash.  I have a top loader and there's a lot of clothes for only 1/8 cup.  I washed a load of grays but, aaaah, couldn't really tell much because their gray.  The next load was whites which was the real test.  I always let them soak for a few hours and then run them through the complete wash cycle.  I don't think I've ever seen my whites this white before.  You have made a believer out of me.  However, while I was gone for a week, my daughter went through two batches of soap.  I know she washes a lot of clothes but I kind of think she's using just a little more than 1/8 cup.  I suppose there's a learning curve on using this soap.  She thought I was just a little off my rocker when I made soap.  She didn't say anything but I could see it in her eyes.  At 27 years of age her thought process is "that's what stores are for. To buy soap."  Thanks for the recipe.

GRIT  blogs have been alive with spring posts lately.  Stories of inspiration, poems, beautiful photos of beautiful plants, and lots of springtime projects.  It is spring, after-all! 

But to tell the truth, I haven’t been in much of a springtime mood.  I’ve never been an aficionado of spring, particularly early in the season.  Why is it twenty degrees and two feet of snow in December always feels warmer than forty degrees and rain in April?  It just takes me a while to warm up to spring … and this year, spring has taken its sweet old time coming.  Day after day of nonstop rain, and temperatures in the 30s and 40s prolonged my agony.  I knew things were happening out there – buds on the trees beginning to swell, the grass changing from tan to green, and perennials springing back to life – but I couldn’t bring myself to get out in the yard.  After coming home from work at the nursery cold, wet, and dirty, the last thing I wanted to do was remain cold, wet, and dirty working in my own gardens. 

 

The chionadoxa, one of the earliest bulbs to bloom, was in full swing mid-April.  ‘Glory of the Snow,’ it’s called, and it seemed aptly named this year.  Soon after I noticed it flowering, I woke up one morning to this:  

 

Though it melted quickly, it seemed spring would never arrive.  A few days later, driving down a country road, I saw a most welcomed sight after all this wintry weather.  In a spectacular display designed by Mother Nature, the entire understory of a swampy woods was lit by lemon-yellow flowers of American Spicebush (Lindera benzoin).  Beneath them, the ground was covered with darker yellow marsh marigolds.  There is nothing like nature to give inspiration.  The scene made me feel compelled to dive into working in the yard again … a nice batch of marsh marigolds had just arrived at the nursery, some of which I was sure would look lovely at home.  In the least, nature’s display prompted me to get out and see what’s going on in my gardens.    

Down in our ravine, my American spicebushes were getting ready to open.  I’ll have to remember to cut some branches soon to make spicebush tea. 

  

Oh, that’s where Quetta left her Frisbee!  Since she lost it, she’s resorted to chasing sticks and squirrels….

  

….and not doing a very good job with the squirrels.  It wasn’t enough they gnawed off every last one of the crocuses.  Oh, no, no, no…now they’ve moved on to the daffodils.  I’m sure the one bud remaining on this clump was left just to torment me.   

  

Nearby, heads are bowed in respect to their fallen comrades. 

I just love the way water collects on the leaves of Lady’s Mantle.  Even on newly emerged, tiny leaves, the rain droplets look like sparkling gems.

 

Tiny, purple violets bloomed.
 

  

Most people consider these a pesky weed, but I let them grow in the gardens, and even in the lawn.  They’re hard to control once they take firm hold, but in this area under the river birch, little else will grow in the heavy, compacted clay.  The violets moving in on their own are nature’s perfect solution.  Over a century ago, these little “weeds” were big business, ranking only behind roses and carnations in popularity at florist shops.

Along with violets, another weed has a place in my gardens.

 

These common mulleins are in their second year and will bloom this summer.  Mulleins are biennials, forming a rosette the first year, and flowering the second.  In July and August, a 3-5 foot stalk with bright yellow flowers will shoot up from each rosette.  Mulleins in the garden always remind me of Old Herbaceous, a novel by Reginald Arkell (great book if you like gardening and British humor).  It’s a story of the head gardener at an English Manor.  One summer, on a whim, “Old Herbaceous” let this weed in grow in his Lady’s garden for the structural interest it provided.  To his horror, the Lady of the manor scheduled a garden tour for members of high society.  Here he was, a respected head gardener with common mullein – a weed – growing on the grounds!  It turned out to be the hit of the tour; guests praised his ingenuity.  I doubt I’ll receive such praise from my neighbors, but the bees and gold finches are always quite pleased with my decision to let it grow.

The mayapples are emerging.  Don’t they look like tiny closed umbrellas?  On childhood walks through the woods with my Dad, he showed us how to find the flowers and fruit by peeking under the “umbrellas” once they unfurl.  Other woodland “Dad plants” in the garden are wintergreen and low-bush blueberries – all of them planted out of nostalgia.  Dad is gone, but memories of our walks together remain alive in my gardens.  

  

In the vegetable garden, the asparagus starting to sprout.  The lettuce seeds didn’t get washed away by the torrential rains and is starting to grow.  Or is it the spinach?  Maybe arugula?  I didn’t mark the rows and forgot where I planted what.  It also looks like I didn’t get my rows as straight as I thought.        

In all of these spring photos, you’ll notice leaf litter among the plants.  With five 60 to 80 foot maples in the yard, there is an abundance of fallen leaves in autumn.  Though the leaves get raked off the lawn, they stay where they fall in the ornamental gardens and get piled into the vegetable garden.  There, they’ll do what fallen leaves are intended to do:  decompose and enrich the soil.  A draw-back to this though, are maple seedlings.

 

There are tens of thousands; hundreds of thousands; maybe even a million of them - I don’t know; I haven’t counted.  Most are from just one Norway maple, and is one of the reasons why Norway maples are considered an invasive species in some areas.  The native sugar and silver maples in the yard aren’t nearly as prolific.  Pulling the seedlings is kind of addictive, actually, especially when one grab nets a dozen or so.  Ten to fifteen minutes a day of pulling, and I’ll probably be done sometime around … uhm, mid-August, I’d guess.  I’d better get busy …

Keith has already been busy outside this spring, taking down the rickety, rusty metal shed.  The old slab is now ready for the new building.  It’ll be something between the utility shed he wanted and the beautiful potting shed I’ve dreamed of having.  We comprised.

Speaking of compromises ... what about the weather?  I wasn’t asking for much; something in the 60s with a little sun would be fine with me.

I got my wish the last weekend of April; we had actual spring weather for May Day!  A lot has changed since these photos were taken two weeks ago.  The chionadoxa are done blooming, and the mid-season daffodils have filled the color-void they left behind.  The squirrels have left these later-blooming varieties alone (so far), but I noticed one of the mayapple “umbrellas,” was bitten off just as it was staring to unfurl, and left conspicuously laying on the ground.  Hopefully, it left such a bitter taste in the guilty party’s mouth that he won’t “taste-test” anything else for a while.

I bought a few pots of marsh marigolds for the bed with American spicebushes ... although I haven’t planted them yet.  They’ll have to remain in a tub of water until the ravine dries out a bit; right now it’s a swamp down there and me without waders.

  

I have pulled buckets and buckets of maple seedlings.

I finally got my potatoes planted and the asparagus stalks shot up like rocket-ships seemingly overnight.  My “is it lettuce, spinach, or arugula?” question has been answered; the plants are up far enough now to figure out it’s arugula.

Up too is the shed (although it didn’t go up as fast as a rocket-ship or the asparagus). But it’s got windows!  Just one of the compromises Keith made.

The warmer weather didn't last long.  It's turned colder again, with highs in the lower fifties and only intermittent sun.  I’ll take it!  At least it’s not 40 degrees and raining! It seems spring as finally arrived.

It is definitely an early spring at Cowlick Cottage Farm. This morning, I harvested the shallots that I planted last fall … a full month early. Those beautiful, pink orbs are taking a sunbath right now, drying out a bit.  Harvesting them is fun. Just take a trusty trowel and insert it deep under the entire shallot bunch. Then pop them out. Be careful not to damage the beautiful shallots! I’m going to make a shallot and lemon thyme vinaigrette to celebrate the harvest tonight. I love shallots, and the homegrown ones are ever so much more flavorful than what is available at the market (if you can even find them). 

 
A spectacular shallot harvest! 

Before the shallot harvest, I took my customary morning stroll through the garden, camera and coffee in hand. Everything is coming up roses!  Take a look at some of my buds.

  
Baby Sungold Nectarine 

This is our one-and-only nectarine from our brand new tree. I treasure it and check on it every day. We planted lots of fruit trees this year – a whole little grove, including Sungold nectarine, Satsuma, Ponderosa lemon, Meyer lemon, Key lime, and Pummelo. We already have Shinseiki pear, Alma and Celeste figs, and Flordahome peach trees in their second year. I am not expecting too much fruit from them this year. They are an investment in the future.  As the saying goes, the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The next best time is today!

The first tomato! 

We have planted several varieties of tomatoes, mostly heirlooms. This is a little hybrid tomato called Totem. It is already loaded with fruit and will definitely be the first of the tomato harvest this year. I’ll probably dress it simply with Balsamic vinegar, olive oil, and sea salt. And a bit of fresh goat cheese and herbs. Can’t wait! We are also growing Black Cherry, Purple Cherokee, San Marzano, Homestead, and a few others. Tomatoes are like shoes…you cannot have too many!

Squash blossom 

We also planted many varieties of squash…more than ever this year. There is butternut squash from our own saved seed, several varieties of heirloom pattypans, old-fashioned sugar pumpkins, and an heirloom lemon squash. We love them all.

Baby Huey and Ginger 

Our chickens, the Spice Girls, are always nosy and curious about what we are doing. We get beautiful eggs from them every day, and we reciprocate with fresh treats from the garden. They devour everything from cabbage to strawberries and herbs. 

 
Spice Girl Eggs - Fresh Daily! 

We had an abundance of eggs this week, so I used the gorgeous, rich yolks to make vanilla custard ice cream. With real vanilla bean and organic cream. Topped with barely whipped, rum-scented heavy cream. Because I’m just a little naughty!

Yolks for Vanilla Custard Ice Cream 

And if that is not decadent enough for you, I am also harvesting strawberries, and it’s been a fantastic season for them. Deep red, large, and juicy, they are Jacob’s favorite. I’m preserving some today by making old-fashioned strawberry sauce…to crown the homemade ice cream. Ta-da! 

Camarosa Strawberries 

On the ornamental side of things, the roses are amazing this year. Their color is incredibly vibrant. In my almost-wild side border, heaven-scented honeysuckle is clambering through the pink roses. Their sultry scents are heady and intoxicating. 

Rose and Honeysuckle 

Coral geraniums are planted in our huge patio pots, along with sweet potato vine and ornamental red grasses. They should be gorgeous in a month or two!

Coral Geranium 

  And a big pot of petunias with sweet potato vine and euphorbia greets family and friends at the back door.

 

Petunia and Euphorbia 

Gardening is rewarding in so many ways. It feeds our senses, reconnects us to nature, and makes our spirits sing!  Gardens give us hope. Are you experiencing an early spring this year? What do you dream of growing?

What's better than sweet ruby red strawberries in the summertime? WILD STRAWBERRIES!

Here in the Flint Hills of Kansas, wild strawberries thrive amongst the native grasses. We happen to have some inordinately large patches of these sweet berry producing plants on our property. Wild strawberries are much smaller than the domesticated species we are familiar with today. But, they are 100 percent organic (without trying!), super sweet, and require zero effort to cultivate!

We spent about 20 minutes in one patch and were rewarded with approximately 2 pints of the fragrant berries. Might have been more, but it's hard not to eat as many as you pick!

Our 2-year-old daughter, Kate, just sat down and picked strawberries as fast as she could eat them ... and only moved once! She was so proud of what she picked in her little pail!

I brought all the strawberries in the house, rinsed them in cold water and hulled them (removed the stems).

Kate helped place them in pretty dessert dishes. With a dollop of whipped cream, they made a wonderful summer evening dessert!

We have lots more to pick. I hope to make a wild strawberry pie, and maybe even some wild strawberry wine! Yum!

Hello from Homeland Farm. This week brings a change in pace for us. Cliff is going to fly to Nevada for a few days to visit his son, daughter-in-law and their baby girl, so I will be head honcho here for the rest of the week. I look around and see a lot that needs to be done this spring.

The horses have stepped on a lot of wire to push it down so they can lean over it more conveniently, they like their comfort don’t ya know! We have 4 horses now – two Spotted Saddle Horse mares, and two Thoroughbred race horses we saved from an unpleasant future. We recently had a tremendous loss: We had to put down our old Belgian draft horse "Bill" to sleep after 5 years. We bought him from people that hadn't fed him in weeks ... skin and bones. They said he was 15 – turned out to be 35ish – but he was a great fella. I will put some videos of him on at a later date. We will miss him.

We also have 65 layers, and two guinea hens: Mr. and Mrs. Guinea. They are hot tickets and keep us amused with their travels. We have Rhode Island Reds, Araucanas, Buff Orpingtons, New Hampshire Reds and Barred Rocks, and one 5-year-old Araucana rooster, Mr. Rooster Cogburn.

We also have 2 dogs, Lacey the cheesedoodle poodle and Duchess a Golden Retriever, and we have 4 cats, Muffinhead, Stewbeef, Stink E Lewis, and Slippery Sue. We are going to be getting some turkey poults in June, for a very tasty Thanksgiving. We have plans to get our garden under way once Cliff gets back from Nevada, and of course lots of haying coming up this summer.

We have a big "thing" happening in July. This old house has had 5 generations of our family born here, living their lives here and also dying here. We have a family cemetery in the back hayfield and have come to realize over the years that we have some friendly "folks" that still hang out at the farm even though they have passed away. We are being featured on an upcoming series My Ghost Story which premiers in July. We had a Hollywood producer come visit and take footage and everything. It is very exciting and very big happenings for this small town and certainly this family. More about that in the future. Thanks for stopping by! I hope to hear from some of you in the future!

The barn swallows are back! Every year they arrive here on or around my birthday (April 24th). I was in the yard, thinking about all my birthday surprises. When I glanced skyward, a pair swooped through the open door of the barn.

I get an "all's right with the world" feeling when I see them. What a blessing – animals that come home without me calling, that I don't have to feed, that take care of their babies without my help. They are the cherry on the sundae of my spring! A being that, like my daughter-in-law says, appears just for extra happiness! Aristotle insisted that one swallow (or one happy thing) does not make a spring (or a person happy). Oh, go suck a lemon. As long as there have been happy things, someone has been around to deflate the moment.

This group of barn swallows have, I imagine, been coming to my barn since around 1790. I actually researched this as best I could on the Internet, so I wasn't building idle daydreams on wishes. Something I have been trying lately, as a point of evolution – not rejecting facts because they collide with any convenient theory that I might come up with. And yes, people who care about these things assert that barn swallows have, forever, been following humans around and nesting in their buildings, tolerated for their attractiveness and their voracious appetite for flying insects. Meaning, like camp followers, they migrated with the European settlers from the coasts of the Northeast going from cabin to barn as settlement spread inland. Maybe that first woman who lived here, the one that left her hair pins in the rafters over the fireplace in the basement, watched the barn swallows follow her man's plowing, like I watched them swoop and swirl after Charles as he mowed the field.

I found out this morning as I read up on them a little, that DNA studies show that barn swallows from here colonized the Baikal area of Siberia. This is not a direction that is expected in bird migration circles, but the idea pleases me. You only have to watch them (not count them, analyze them, or catch them and dissect them) to see how errant they are, how they have a wonderful independence that defies gravity and sense to realize that sense and science are only going to explain so much about them, and the rest is left to that plan greater than us.

A barn swallow's life is not all being a happy harbinger of spring. Like all things that eat, a barn swallow is prey to larger species, like the American kestrel, which nests here, too. I'm not the boss here, I don't make all the rules so acceptance of the checks and balances of life is part of my tenancy. I have watched kestrels pluck barn swallows out of the air, but I have also seen the same kestrel fly smack into the barn while chasing a twirling barn swallow aerialist as it flew effortlessly into a tiny crack in the barn siding. Mrs. Kestrel hovered over him in the air, screaming what sounded like the bird version of the Honey Brook Cursing Dance until he picked himself up off the ground and took flight again. Hey, they were just trying to feed their kids.

I wish the kestrels would eat the bluebirds. Oh, stop! I know those are like the Golden Child of bird people, but honestly if you compare that demanding, picky species with all their requirements for special housing and fickle parenting with the barn swallow, WHO is exactly more useful? The barn swallow prefers to rebuild old nests. The babies that are born first in the spring stick around all summer and feed their younger siblings. Your flock begins in the spring with three couples and at the end of the summer you have forty or fifty Cirque De Barn performers doing a show with no matinees. Hours and hours of entertainment, right on the lawn, a useful search for food (bugs) turned ballet. I read they eat TONS of bugs. Those bugs are somebody's baby, too. It's just what happens.

What DOESN'T happen here is messing with nests. One kid, never invited back, decided that the mud nests were hornet's nests and attacked them with a stick. His mother and I don't speak. A horse boarder hung fly strips (completely unnecessary) that snared swallows out of the air and meant I had to drown three in the trough, to put them out of their misery. I put myself out of misery by sending her and her horse packing.

Some experts insist that they mate for life, but apparently that is when the experts are watching. We have the same drama in the barn, eight feet above the ground where their nests are, that we have in the chicken house. Males defend their mate and territory unless they are busy trying to invade some other male's territory and mate with their female. The females have kind of a (press hand back to forehead and appear overcome) boys will be boys attitude about it. I wonder how much T.S. Eliot knew about this, when he wrote "Quando fiam uti chelidon [ut tacere desinam]?" ("When will I be like the swallow, so that I can stop being silent?") in "The Waste Land"? And why did he write it in Latin?

If I ever get another tattoo, it will be a barn swallow. Sailors used to get one after returning home safe after a journey of 5,000 miles and another, if they ever returned after another. Sailors with two swallows were rare. Things happen.

I feel like I am on that second trip.

Hey folks! Glad you could come back and sit a spell. I always enjoy seeing you. I've been busy this last week with spring projects. Things are starting to bloom around the Urban Ranch. I planted tulip, daffodil, and crocus last fall and they certainly have not disappointed me. I'm not sure what the official name for these tulips are but I call them "Tulips of fire." They are absolutely the best tulips that I have ever had on the ranch.

The daffodils certainly were in competition with the tulips. I had a double row of about 60 or 70 of these guys. Their bloom cycle is winding down and I actually dead headed their little shriveled blooms today. They did put on quite the display for the neighborhood for a couple weeks. I want to interplant day lilies in this flower bed to keep the area alive as the daffodils die down in early summer.

Hey how did that picture get in there? Oh well that's just my grandson jamming on the mandolin. He doesn't know how to do much other than make noise now, but who knows maybe someday. He sure got the hang of holding and strumming the strings quick.

Here's one of those summer projects that I am working on. I finally got ambitious this week and got started. It's a 1200 gallon horse tank that I want to use as a gravity feed watering system for my raised garden beds. It seems that I'm gone a lot for a week or ten days at a time and to keep the garden alive I need to have a watering system in place.

The first thing that has to happen is of course the foundation to set the tank on. When digging in any urban ranch backyard one never knows what can be unearthed. Here you see a big chunk of concrete that apparently was used for something at one time or another and just buried in the backyard to get rid of it. Nice!!

There's another hazard when digging in the urban backyard. One must be careful to clearly determine what exactly has been found before chopping it out. Buried utilities run through yards without a whole lot of logic. One day while working on another project last year I chopped through what I thought was root and suddenly my cable TV didn't work any more. So now I'm very cautious about digging in the yard. Anyway this is clearly a tree root, and I got the axe and made short order of the pesky thing.

The next thing after the digging the trench is to pack the dirt as solid as possible. I use an 8-inch square tamper that weighs about 8 or 10 pounds.

Next comes what I call setting the anchor block. Every thing has to be straight and level off the anchor block. This is the most important block of the foundation.

The block has to be level both on the length of the block and on the width of the block. This first level of the foundation is the most time consuming of the entire project. If this level is not done right the whole project will turn out wrong. Especially since water will be in the tank and we all know that water will seek out a level surface.

There's the first four blocks of what I think will be three high. This process took about three hours with the root chopping and clearing the buried treasures that I found and about three aspirin. There was even a golf ball about a foot and a half down in the dirt. You got me how it got there. I don't even golf. It's a pretty good start for the first day.

I just rolled the tank up on the blocks to see how it was coming along. Only the front four blocks are finished. I still have to circle the entire rim of the tank with a block base. The center part will be filled with packed down dirt to support the tons of water in the tank.

Well that's about it for this week. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week. Oh wait one last thing.

I finished my PCV pipe and trash bag hot cap. It turned out pretty good. I know there are way more inexpensive ways to hot cap tomatoes, but when I get an idea in my head I just got to try it out. Of course there's always time to take a break and drink coffee and think about the next project for the living poor man's patio. Well it's not quite so living right now, but it will be.

See ya next time and leave a comment. I do love to hear about what you think.

Well, where to start.

All is well. Febe kidded last Thursday. She gave birth to identical twin boys! Not so happy. But the Lord gives us what the Lord gives us. We’ve decided that we are going to keep one and breed it to Cindi Lou Who and Esme. Maybe even Whisper.

We had the problem of trying to name the bucklings. Dave wanted to name them “This One” and “That One.” I found it cute but I really didn’t want to name them that. At work we have two older guys working with us. They are always pulling pranks and acting foolish. Sooooooo ... I want you to meet ... “This one Arthur” and “That one Mike.” Their official names will have Spring Peeper in front of their names.

I’m kinda worried for them. I don’t find that they are eating much. But they are looking healthy. They are getting bigger and playing and frolicking. It’s just that Febe’s udder is humunga bunga! I had to milk her yesterday, and I milked over 2 litres! And I wasn’t even done. But they must be finding milk somewhere.

I got home from an party a few hours ago and I noticed that the neighbour had a chimney fire going. The fire dept is still there. The strange thing was that she had no fire in the furnace. She just had the oil furnace going. Not good. I’ll have to ask Dave what went on. He’s in the fire dept.

April 14

Well I had to milk Febe again tonight. They are favouring one side. I got 2 litres on just one side. The poor girl was in misery. I called my goat lady and she said that I should milk her morning and night to keep her even and they’ll have enough throughout the day and night.

Cindi Lou went to school Monday. She did well and the kids loved her. They even got to feed her. She was so tired when I left that she fell asleep in my arms on the way to the car. But she’s becoming a little minx. She’s jumping on the milking stand now, while we aren’t there, then grabbing things off the upper shelves. She is growing like a weed. She’s eating some grain now, but she won’t drink out of the bucket so she’s still on the bottle. I had to put a bale of hay on the milking stand to stop her from jumping up.

Tonight (April 15) I milked Febe, and she hardly had any on both sides, so they must be keeping her even. That’s good. But she’s got a sore on her head. I think she goes under the feeder to clean up after them and she rubs her head. I hope that’s all it is. I’m telling ya, these goats are going to drive me to drink. And I don’t drink! This morning I had so much on my mind, I got to work and I thought, “Oh Crud!! I left Febe on the milking stand!” So I call our neighbour in a panic and he went to check. No, I hadn’t left her on the stand. I need to get back in the groove of things. Is there ever a groove?

Monday we treated ourselves to lobster. It was good! We had enough for 2 meals. At $4.75 a pound, that’s pretty good. It was actually cheaper than eating in a restaurant.

The chicks have been moved to a larger place. I think they doubled in size overnight. Otis the calf is doing well. His fur stopped coming out. He’s off the bottle (that sounds strange) and drinking water. Soon he’ll be going to the big pasture up the road.

This coming Saturday is pig day! Everyone is coming to get their piggies. That’ll be nice. We are keeping 2 for ourselves for meat this fall.

Ok, that’s enough. I have to publish this post. It’s been sitting around long enough.

Have a blessed day!

“If you don’t like the weather, wait a minute and it will change.” That’s a famous saying in Vermont and March 25th was no exception. The morning started out blustery and cold and then snow started to fall. Not a big blizzard, but just enough flakes to make Khrysta look as though she had dandruff.

I grabbed a cup of tea and headed to sit by the wood stove and listen to the wind howl and rattle our windows. But sure enough, late afternoon came, and the wind ceased, and a weak sun made an appearance.

I grabbed my camera and headed up the pasture where Khrysta and I surveyed the mountains.

And, as I admired the light, so quintessentially Vermont in it’s ever changing hues

Three deer appeared.

They were so close. I was sure they would flee but they didn’t.

Their tails were so white and fluffy and long.

And they are still so very young.

But already best friends.

I stayed for a while in no hurry to break the spell. And despite the wind that whipped around my face, I could feel spring all around me; Khrysta rooting for new blades of tender grass and the deer, once again down from their winter home in the woods on the top of Red Pine Mountain.

If you’d like to read more about Red Pine Mountain, my new web page is up and running. I share daily life around our farm, pictures, readers stories and more. I hope you’ll join us at Red Pine Mountain.

Spring is here, and as the seasons go, it doesn’t get much better than this. This particular season has been very exciting for my fiancé and me, as we have a couple of new spring projects that have commanded our attention on top of trying to plan a December wedding.

First and foremost – at least in prioritizing our obligation and energy – we’ll be getting chickens here in a week or two. It’ll be the first time we’ve kept chickens together, and after some painless and even fun convincing, my future wife is onboard with the project.

The key was getting our little coop and run set up; after she saw the nifty GardenEggs.com Little Egg Chicken Tractor, she was excited about the prospect of keeping chickens, and even wanted to raise them from day-old chicks so that we wouldn’t miss out on that part of the process. I think I picked a good one.

Once the basic construction was finished – a perfect 2-hour Saturday project, I might add, for me and a buddy with the grill going and a cold beverage – it was time to paint the coop for waterproofing reasons.

The Little Egg really is a thing of beauty. I had friends come over – they all thought I was crazy talking about raising chickens, one even asking, “Where does it stop, Caleb? Pigs are filthy creatures. I don’t want to live by pigs.” Just keep your dirty mitts off my eggs, Ryan. – who suddenly realized it wasn't so crazy, and this thing is perfect for an urban backyard. Enter for free and win one, as part of our May/June 2010 issue’s GRIT Gear Sweepstakes. Or you can buy the plans for $16 to make one yourself at GardenEggs.com.

I knew right away as we entered the hardware store after construction that she had elaborate plans well beyond my idea of a couple of coats of basic blue/grey paint. We’d talked a little about it. As I was picking out good paint for said coats, she wandered over to the isle where all the small brushes and bottles of red, blue, yellow, and green bottles of paint were.

Heading home, her knowing how to get my goat a little bit, she started talking of flowers and peace signs adorning our coop. Nothing against flowers and peace signs, they have their place and it’s all well and good, but that place is not on my chicken coop or any other piece of property for that matter; it’s just not my taste.

The feathers she drew around the bottom of the coop, and the mother hen and chicks walking along one side, amusingly brighten the coop (I'll provide a photo of the mother hen and chicks asap). I adore it.

Now, all that’s left is to come up with something clever to write on the door that shuts the coop off from the run. I suggested, “Girls Only,” “Beware of Dog,” and a couple others, but I don’t think my suggestions had that “that’s it” ring to them. We’ll see.

The other project was putting in our first garden. I’ve gardened for most of my life, but this was the first time I’ve started one from scratch, digging up the sod by hand and working the soil into what I thought was good enough shape to plant into; it’s the first time I could say any garden was truly mine. Hopefully, this will be the final year my lady and I rent, so next time I install a garden I hope it's permanent, and out where the pavement ends.

I did it all by hand, not for any reason other than I didn’t want to spend the $40 to rent a tiller for 2 hours just to till up such a small area (about 10 feet by 5 feet). As I worked the soil and the sweat accumulated in my hat, I couldn’t help but think of my great-grandfather doing this on a much larger scale by hand. A mule and plow may have been used for the big fields, but on some homesteads, a husband and wife surely worked a little garden into shape just to feed a few hungry mouths. Cool to think about and relate to, and I think I’ll probably take more pride out of what does come up – if anything – just knowing the work that went into it.

I went pretty small with the garden only because I’m not positively sure how much room I’ll need for our two laying hens to scratch around the yard. Giving a good quality of life to the animals, obviously, takes priority.

It took me a few hours, but after digging the sod out and hoeing up the soil to where it was fairly fine, I planted corn, tomatoes, onions, and one row of lettuce, with room for another in succession after a couple weeks. We'll also grow some basil and possibly a couple of other things in containers.

Both projects are a learning experience. I know I’ll have to make adjustments, and there’s still more work to be done – predators are my current big worry – but I’ll figure it out. If something happens, I’ll have to deal with it, make adjustments, and roll on. We’ll learn, and that’s always exciting. Also exciting is the thought of catching a mess of fish this summer, coming home and filleting them, and frying them with our own sweet corn and lettuce to go with it. Or making an omelet with ingredients entirely out of our garden; our first fully self-provided meal.

So my question to all of you – what is a clever line for the outside of the coop door? Any one-liner comedians out there much more clever than I?

I fall for it every year. We get a series of days in the upper 50s, and I start daydreaming of spring. I imagine the smell of the rain-soaked earth and the feel of moist soil on my jeans as I kneel down to prepare the garden beds that will provide so much abundance. The veggie seeds are in their packets just waiting to be planted.

I know, I know, it’s inevitable that we’ll have ice or snow again before the gardening season begins, but it’s still nice to dream. Along with dreaming comes the creation of the annual “Spring To-Do List.” Do you have a list? What types of things are on it? Here’s mine:

• Rake up the leaves/yard debris leftover from fall
• Take the mulch off the Strawberry and Asparagus beds and add to the compost bin
• Top-dress the garden beds with a layer of compost
• Start tomato plants to plant early using the wall-o-waters
• Jay to build a Chicken Tractor (this is MUCH anticipated)
• Dig new flower bed for chicken coop

• Create walkway to chicken coop
• Power wash and paint the house
• Build flower boxes for barn, shop and chicken coop
• Install gutters on chicken coop and barn for rain barrel collection
• “Spring clean” the chicken coop – change the litter and wipe everything down
• Clean the bird feeders and prepare the hummingbird feeder
• Put up the clothesline
• Pull out the raised salad greens beds and fill with soil
• Finish installing the new kitchen lighting (before the summer sun heats up the attic)

I’m sure I’ll think of plenty additional projects to add before spring arrives. By the way, regarding the photos of the sunflowers above, the third photo was the last day of enjoyment I had with them. When I came home from work the next day some little critter left nothing but stems. Hope they were delightful!

I was sincerely hoping that by this time of year I would have several posts up about the transformation of brown, dead, winter-laden grass transitioning into wonderful blades of summertime glory. I was hoping that I would have several sets of Flickr pics showing our gardens decorated with little sprouts as if the dirt were little chocolate cupcakes adorned with tasty sprinkles. But alas, I cannot.

Winter hit hard this year and it isn’t done yet from what I hear. In fact, the weather channel is talking of snow flurries as late as tomorrow afternoon. Now I don’t believe in wives tales, per se, or even signs of spring but didn’t that groundhog see his shadow or something halfway constructive?

This you must know though. I am hard headed. When I awoke Saturday morning to no ice in the chicken waterer and no crunch under my feet as I navigated my way out to the yard I promised the day would not disappear in vain. I would make something of it yet.

Two days prior Pan and I had purchased some onion bulbs at the feed and seed in a mad attempt at making spring come. We had no plans other than to have them ready at the first peak of 50 degree weather. I knew what bed they would find a home in, and I even had some compost and soil ready to be laid. So when that mercury jumped to 53, I must have looked like a pasty college student headed to the waves of Panama City, Florida, on Spring Break. NOTHING could slow me down.

By afternoon we had turned the compost and laid it in. We had added some sprinklings of chicken manure for good measure. We had pressed the sweet onion bulbs into their earthen home. We gently watered the entire plot and carefully covered it all with hearty straw. What a great feeling! Spring had sprung if only for 2 or 3 hours.

As the afternoon sun fell from overhead and the wind started to bring in the night air we sat on the porch looking out at our first bed of the season. What a sight! I gathered up our tools and headed to the barn to put everything away. I took one last look though – anticipating an early summer harvest – and said under my breath, “Take that Phil! Take that!”