Fast moving water all over.

"Tis nothing but a sprout, but well budded out . . ."
Always a line that stuck with me from Alfred Noyes poem a May Day Carol. Of course, it's not May yet, or close to it. The pear tree doesn't seem to know that though. We will see if that works out to good or ill. It also reminds me it's time to learn how to prune fruit trees since we had one survive the winter. Though it's always worth remembering, winter isn't over.

Now that it isn't frozen over necessitating going to the seep grounds, the drainage ditch has become a focus of activity for the poultry again. It's also making a pretty tinkling sound this morning. I did just enough maintenance on it last year to keep it from being a problem with even this flood level water right now. That said, I'm going to have a lot of raking to do to make sure it doesn't become a problem. I'll probably try to do at least some of that this weekend to get the grass and leaves out so the water flows faster and smoothly, without wanting to wander around. The reason for the flood like conditions is that Tuesday it snowed, and there was plenty still on the ground. Then yesterday and overnight it rained. It rained in sheets, and it rained in torrents, and it rained all through the day and night. This morning the river was roaring, the rapids were a constant cascade of bucking water, the drainage ditch was moving fast, and the driveway, well, at least the ice protected it from too much erosion. I didn't get any photos of it because I was too busy getting to the car without cracking my skull and dropping the Critter.

 So, remember that post a few days ago? The one talking about balance and the philosophy I have about martial arts and homesteading? Well, I was very glad for the skills of how to fall today carrying the Critter to the car. I didn't fall hard, but I did fall, and the Critter was entirely un hurt since I had him cradled to my chest, and fell on my back. Break falls are a good thing, though my least favorite kind of fall.

Anyhow, just figured I'd touch on that since it became relevant within a week of making that post. I'm mostly just glad that even though I fell there was no real injury for anyone.

As for where the homestead is going, I'm going to evaluate where things are going weather wise, and we'll see how we're going to treat this strange winter. I'm tempted to believe the apple tree, and just go ahead with planting as soon as the garden beds are uncovered. That said, I'm going to have things ready to cover beds over when we get random nights of deep cold. Obviously I'm going to be planting non frost sensitive plants since there will be plenty of frosts between now, and the normal last frost in late May, or early June. With things being unpredictable we're going to just fly by the seat of our pants for low risk things, and try to play it safe with the higher risk ones. To that end, rabbit hutch cleaning this weekend, and hopefully breeding.