A little of this, a little of that...

Yeah, I'm still here.  Blogger did the switch on me.  I'm finding the page layout very harsh on the eyes now.  I'll have to fiddle with the monitor settings I guess.  Otherwise, I it's not too bad.


The weather has been up and down.    Last snowfall was April 17th, though there's still some in the forecast.  Some days have been very sunny and warm, while others have been cold and wet.  Almost spring like weather I guess.  Still, very odd for these parts.  Heavy frost every night, and still no sap running in the birch trees.  But also, no bugs!

I've been moving a little bit of wood from the crap firewood pile to the flowerbed, as things I recognize start to make their appearance.

Daffodils on the way!

The greenhouses are running around 75°F on the sunnier days.  The wind is whipping through like crazy.  Daily repairs to the plastic, it seems.  I hung some old snow fence in greenhouse #2, for the cucumbers to climb.

The woodshed has been tidied up somewhat.  We split all of the big logs and tossed them in the basement.  It's pretty empty right now.  :(

Between the big logs and the "stick ups", we have two full rows in the basement already.   (10.5' X 8' X 20")  A little over two bush chords.

"Stick ups" are what we call the trees that lose their tops through the winter.  The poplars get really tall, and then snap in half in the wind, leaving a tall pole stuck up.




Proof of Life:

At least one of our apple trees survived the winter!  Two of the others look promising as well.  The fourth looks dead.







 And I have come to the conclusion that the little red hen just might be crazy.

 She didn't sit on the plastic eggs at all.  No fooling her, I guess.  But she did build herself a little nest in the corner of the brooder and sat there for about a week without ever seeming to move.  I snuck in, in the dark, lifted her up, and tucked eight eggs underneath her.  She sat on them off and on for about three days.  Then she went on a rampage, digging through all the bedding and burying those eggs.  Now she has one egg that she sits BESIDE all the time.

I'm not sure what to do with her at this point.  She's not laying any eggs of her own.  The rampage was right after a couple of very cold nights, so maybe that has something to do with it?  For now I'm going to leave her be, and maybe try another batch of real eggs in a couple of weeks.

We lost our last tom.  We now have one lonely turkey hen.  No hatching turkeys this year.  We're really not sure what happened to him.  Just laying in the shed dead one morning.  No signs of wildlife, no mess of feathers, plenty of food and water.  My best guess is that he was fighting with the drakes.

In other news...    #2 has a girlfriend!  Boomer's girl!  Lol.  It's very cute!  They ride their horses back and forth to each other's houses (about 5 miles), so they can go riding together.  Our horses have never worked so hard in their lives!  lol.  And my farrier bills will probably be next to nothing for the summer.  They're wearing their hooves down rather nicely!

Busy doing firewood, yard clean up, painting the bathroom, cleaning the basement, starting seedlings...  Spring!