Wait, it's Friday?

I seem to have gotten confused on days, and ended up not making a post yesterday! I apologize for my oversight. The new chickens that our friend was kind enough to de-acquisition to us have settled in for a couple weeks, and we're starting to get them used to being outside. I need to do a little more mowing and weeding before putting the electronetting up is going to be useful and successful, so right now they're only out when we are outside with them. The Critter really enjoys being outside with the flock, though they break way before him like he's a large ship with a really unfortunate bow wave! He hasn't yet trained these girls that he's safe enough to be around to be able to pet them.

Chickens, and mulched terraces.

Of all the things we got done this weekend despite the rain, mowing the lawn wasn't one of them, though the rain was why it didn't get done. The rain also made the necessity of doing it all the greater. It's amazing just how fast our grass grows. That said, while I covered most of what went on I missed a few things, and didn't get all of the photos I wanted to share for Tuesday.

Mass weeding.

One of the fun things about a sudden change from normal cool spring to super hot is the explosion of life. That also means an explosion of weeds. In this photo you can see a profusion of god knows what in with our garlic. The quantity of weeding that we had to do was a little intimidating, fortunately it wasn't just the Lady of the House and I working on it. It also led to us doing some calculations and making some new decisions about our gardens.

Quick Hit: House plants and recovery time.

Again, the whole household has been sick basically all weekend. It's a really inconvenient time to be sick, but there it is. On the up side we're going to have a 3 day weekend to work on the homestead with next weekend, so hopefully we'll be well for that. Mostly what we did when one of us wasn't experiencing the joys of gastrointestinal distress was try to get outside and do things that weren't too physically strenuous. Fortunately the Critter's all about going outside and enjoying things even when he is just getting over being sick. It turns out he's also really good at spotting wildlife, and seeing any sort of shift in his environment that would indicate something is there. For an 18 month old he's also super patient waiting for things to come out of hiding. Of course, that means about 2 minutes, but that's a long time for a toddler!

What we did get done this weekend, and by we I mean the Lady of the House, is getting some house plants set up. As we move the seedlings outside, the Lady of the House really wants to have some living plants inside for a number of reasons. One is the relatively inexpensive decor, and another is the benefits to the interior atmosphere. Here's the wiki that includes the chart from the findings from the NASA experiment. One of the plants we set up is Aloe Vera which in addition to being pleasant to look at has medicinal benefits. We're thinking about what other house plants we could have that would be pretty, have medicinal benefits, and only be minimally toxic to both toddlers and cats, since our cat REALLY likes eating plants.

Sorry for the short post, we have other things going on to talk about, so I'll have a more substantial post Thursday!

Weeds and Boris.

The good news is Boris is doing very well, he's about fully healed at this point and only occasionally stumbles. The bad news is, he's the only chicken we have left. Between sickness, fatigue, etc, etc, we didn't get the electric fence up yet, and what was probably a fox again came and took all of our laying hens leaving Boris uninjured, but panicked. The Lady of the House found him panting and hiding in the shadow of the house, he's not well enough to fight a fox again, though the fact that the fox left him indicates that most likely it's the same fox that didn't want to tangle again, and left him alone. I feel really crappy about myself because I let the fact that I've been very tired lately get in the way of setting up the electronetting, and lost 4 hens because of it. The first one, happens. The other four are entirely because I didn't do my job. We're fortunate to be in a situation where we will be able to get more laying hens that are being de-acquisitioned from a friend's flock. Before we do so though, I'm getting that fence installed and running because I don't want to do this again. On the up side though, the world is turning green.

Growing and recovering.

One of the particularly unfair parts of parenting is something called sleep regression. It's when your kid (who never really slept well) stops wanting to sleep at all. The result of this is that I've been living in a fog for a few days. That has impeded us doing much of anything because between trying to get the kid to sleep, and day to day work nothing is getting done. That said! There are things happening. For one, the asparagus is doing very well. Most of the asparagus has come up and is doing well. To fill out the asparagus patch we've been advised to take the red berries they will sprout later and plant them to thicken the bed, which I look forward to doing. There is a lot that's going on though, especially with the weather as warm as it is, though we're still getting frosts at night not infrequently.

Quick hit: Fast growing.

Yesterday was incredibly busy so I don't really have much of a post for today, and didn't get much done homesteading wise. We did go out with the Critter, and he got to look over a corn field that hasn't been plowed yet this year, and was fascinated. 

On the homestead Boris is doing a lot better. We're guessing he must have pulled  muscles or something of the like. He's limping, and struggling to stay upright as you can see from his posture. We're glad to see him recovering relatively rapidly given the degree of fight and injury he dealt with. We just keep making sure that he's in at night, and out during the day when it isn't raining.
Last but not least, the seedlings are doing very well. Perhaps a bit too well honestly on the tomato front. As you can see Below the tomato seedlings are shooting up fast, and some are almost in contact with the roof of the mini greenhouse they're in. When that happens the top will have to come off. The pepper seedlings are still very small, so we'll see. We may have to set up a second working area and transplant to larger pots soon. That's all for today, we'll be back Tuesday!

Thursday? Chickens doing work.

I'm sorry about yesterday, with schedule wonkyness I ended up forgetting that yesterday was Thursday until the evening. Lately the weather has been lovely, and this weekend is going to be thoroughly spring like, and that'll be nice. We may be able to get some good work done around the homestead. Now, of course, 70 degree temperatures during the day doesn't mean we aren't to planting season yet, patience is going to be the best thing for us. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't be getting seeds started inside, and prepping beds outside.

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.

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.

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.

Turkey fuzz, and air flow.

There are a few things going on around the house as our weather vacillates wildly between warm and bitter cold. The biggest upside of this is that the driveway is relatively clear, and the shoveling I did completely paid off. There's still plenty of ice of course, and lots of snow still on the ground, but as you can see there are areas of ground peeking through.

Unpredictable weather extremes.

Shoveling snow while rain is pouring down, and the snow sublimates due to the temperature is one of the more surreal experiences I've had recently. Especially after multiple days of below zer temperatures.

Unfortunately with the snowblower out of commission, and out for repair right now it was a purely shovel job. With a few inches of snow, almost an inch of ice, and rain it was heavy work. This is definitely an example of me not injury managing well enough, because I actually wasn't able to complete shoveling the whole driveway.  As you can see on the Right since I figured out I wasn't going to be able to do the whole thing, I shoveled down as far as I could to the snow/ice mix that wasn't going to move. I got tire tracks, and then did a ladder pattern with a "cross bar" every 10 - 15 feet or so. I figured that gets things down as the melt happens. Now, the ladder pattern is sheets of black ice, and the parts in between are thick sheets of heavy ice with a bit of crunch to it. Wintery mix after serious snow is one of the worst types of weather in the world, but it can be pretty.

Bracing for cold amid snow.

It's continued snowing on and off for the past few days. The kid and the dog love it, the rest of us, not so thrilled. The up side about the snow is that if it's snowing it's not bitter cold. That's going to be changing shortly. We're expecting temperatures to drop into single digits over the weekend. Fortunately we're going to be home, but I'm concerned about the animals that are outside with highs in the singles, and lows in the negative double digits.

Mother Nature reminds us it is winter for some time still.

So one of the problems with talking about how mild the winter has been in late January is, there's a lot of winter yet. She heard us, and has delivered the missing winter. We'll see how long it stays, but She seems to be aimed to drop enough snow for us to remember right quick. On the up side, the Critter still loves every moment of snow.

Poultry petting as the grass shows.

Yes, this is a picture from this week. In fact, it's even less winter like today than it was when these photos were taken by the Lady of the House. Of course, there is prediction that there will be snow tomorrow, and Tuesday so we'll see how that actually goes. If we actually get snow that'll be fine, if not I expect the last of the snow on the front slope garden beds to be gone entirely by next week. Either way the poultry are enjoying the green, and chances to make their way around and eat anything they can find.

Spring thinking, and sick critter

Most of what we've been focused on over the past week or so has been inside the house more than outside, and we'll get to that in a moment below the cut. Right now though we're watching the rapidly melting snow covering the last areas of the growing areas, and thinking about the strangeness of the weather. We have predicted snow in 7 days, but instead of waiting for Memorial day for anything the way we normally would, we are considering planting early plants such as radishes, lettuce, mustard greens, and cold hearty beans. Given that the weather has been so strange all winter, and we have a bit of a glut of a few varieties of seeds it seems like a situation we can either get something good, or just have to re plant later.

There are better uses of a day, and worse.

Today has turned out a bit frustrating, but not a total waste of time. It mostly just pointed out some of the differences in how we have come to see the world from others. We were schedule to get a stove delivered today. Now to us the driveway is totally doable. Especially with the extra sanding I did to prepare it for the delivery truck. To them, with this amount of sand, and getting through to the gravel beneath for much of it, it wasn't something they would even consider. They'll try again in a week, and if they can't deliver it then, I'll tie it to a hand cart, and haul it up myself. For all that I'm frustrated though, there are other things going on, and while I hate "wasting" time off from work, other things have been done, including rest my sore back.

Poultry on ice.

It's still very cold out there, and our poultry are for the most part doing well. The black tom is another story that I'll get to in a moment. The liquid water that we have around the property even when it's in single digits whether due to the seeplands North of the house, or the drainage ditch, or even the french drains under the parking area are important congregation spots for the poultry worth even dealing with braving the way up the icy slope, or the enthusiasm of the dog.