Volunteer sprouts.

Looks like I missed picking some garlic last year! Not a big deal, I'll just let it mature and pull it up as I would have if I'd actually planted garlic last year. It's definitely the answer to the question I had of whether I could get away with planting garlic as winter slowly wandered in last year. Turns out, if I'd put it in at the normal time the garlic probably would have been just fine. I am a big fan of hearty varieties for just that reason. Learning curve for the future, make sure that you get those over winter plants in the ground!

Windy Spring

High winds aren't new to our area, in fact they're fairly common up in the hills. What is new to us is how much they're affecting us. I know our sample size is only 5 years, but in that time usually the pine forest around us has made a big difference in protecting us from bad winds. Lately the winds have been causing a lot of problems, and today illustrated some of them very well. The Lady of the House woke up last night wondering what the noise was, and eventually I made sure it really was just the wind, not a fire. This morning first thing that greeted me was the results of that wind storm, as you can see above.

Setting priorities.

Apologies for the missing post yesterday, I just flat out forgot to get things ready for the post yesterday! Either way, here we are today. We've got a lot that's going to be coming up so I'm going to talk about how I handle prioritization. This is going to be especially important given that a lot of decisions are going to have to be made in a short period of time coming up without enough resources to get everything done. That sort of environment leads to decision fatigue, thus, prioritization.

Posting tomorrow

Well, I just flat out forgot the post for today, and didn't bring the image files to recreate it, so . . . I'll post tomorrow!

The scale of life.

This weekend we went for a walk together in the woods on a lovely warm Friday. Of course, we turned back relatively quickly when out of the nice clear warm sky hail started, but that's New England for you. Either way, I wanted to share the really lovely photo the Lady of the House got to give some scale to our woods that is often missing from a lot of the photos that I post here. Obviously a lot of the trees around us are young, and most of the oldest trees are no more than 50 - 100 years old just due to the realities of how thoroughly the area had been cleared. Even so, everything around us towers over us and the house which can be really wonderful.

Outside of our environment being impressive, the weather is very . . . March in New England is probably the best way to put it. Snow overnight and in the morning, 50s mid day. This is honestly exactly the kind of weather I expect day to day at this time of year, I just usually expect there to be snow cover on the ground rather than grass and leaf cover.

Foggy days, and plenty to do.

Yesterday and today are firmly in fog season, not just rain, but thick fog. It's not an uncommon thing where we live, but it's definitely a normal spring sign. Of course, we're expecting Snow Sunday into Monday, so winter isn't quite done yet. We'll see just how snowy it actually gets, I'm not expecting much effect, but it would certainly not be good for anything that had sprouted. The only thing I'm really concerned about on that front is the apple tree, but we'll see how that turns out!

Wandering animals, and ethics vs feelings.

It's another rainy day with no great photos to share, and fortunately I've been thinking about ethics again. Before I get there though, we have a couple things going on around the homestead. First the turkey is missing this morning, and there's no exploded poof of feathers. I suspect she's going looking for a tom that will give her what she wants since I'm clearly not doing it for her. I hope she comes home soon, and we'll keep you updated. The second thing is, somehow in the weather changes the hutch with Dawn and her daughter ended up open. On the big up side, when I walked up and picked dawn's daughter up, she didn't run anywhere but back to the hutch and let me put her back in. The benefits of having well socialized rabbits. I guess being outside in the rain wasn't as much fun as she thought. Below the cut, let's get on to some thinking.

Turkey thoughts.changing coops.

Today the turkey has a lot of our attention. Not because she's doing poorly, quite the contrary, she's doing very well. We're very happy to have her around as well, as I think she has a lot to do with our poultry being unmolested. Just after dawn, and before full dark she hangs out on top of the chicken coop to insure the chickens are safe. As folks have mentioned, a lot of predators go off the height rule. Turkeys in addition to being powerful birds, show up as "big" to foxes and probably are very discouraging to them. It's a very nice thing to have.

A rejuvenating visit.

As we come towards real spring we visited Crabapple Farm for the first time in a while, and it was very much a recharging of my homesteading batteries which have been running a bit low lately. It's a bit strange how low my emotional batteries are given how much better this winter has been for us, and how much nicer it is this year than it was last year. Either way, it was as I said very much a needed re-inspiration which has gotten me going.

Ice, more ice, and more learning.

There are times I envy the poultry for their firm footing. While they are having a good time out in the grass, and have no problems with the reality of most of the property which is still, sheet ice everywhere. Those of us on two feet for the most part are having a much harder time of it.

Unexpected help, and learning from the sun.

Well, to say it was a bit windy last night would be an understatement. The Lady of the House described it as sounding like a hurricane in terms of wind. The tarps over the wood piles blew off, and some pieces of wood were 30 + feet away where they'd been catapulted off the tarps. That said, this tree at the mouth of the driveway isn't the one I'd expected to go down. As you can see, it covered the entire base of the driveway. I started off by clearing the chunks of wood, and branches

off the driveway. As I was set to deal with the trunk, one of the folks who lives in town stopped and helped out. I guess he saw me working to clear the debris, and backed up to stop at the base of the driveway. He grabbed his chainsaw, cut the trunk into pieces and helped me clear it out of the driveway. It was amazingly helpful, and definitely reminded me of the really good things about living where I do. I probably could have gotten the tree cleared out of the way, but it would have taken a long time, or I'd have hurt myself in the process. Dean stopping to help out made all the difference in the day, and took him about 3 minutes because he had the right tools for the job.