Spring!

I have many posts in my head for you about bathrooms and spring and knitting. But, until they are actually written, here are some teasers.

The lilac leaves are new as of today. The sheep and goats are glad to be eating the grass that's just started growing in earnest as well.

Auto Photo!

Alert! Alert! There have been four posts in a row now with no pictures. This triggers an auto photo post. Please now to prepare for the photo bomb.

This is an adorable bulb garden Bill's mom sent us for Easter. Well, this is what it looked like two weeks ago. There were also crocuses and big red tulips. 

This is Sugar Pie. She always demands to be in on the photo bombs. 

Socks. 

Baby chickens, hatched this afternoon.  

Poofy and her two chicks: Poofy Jr. and Baby Barred Rock. They hatched about a month ago. 

An Araucana and Dorking pullet. They came in the mail in March. They were only just released to play outside earlier this month (they don't have a mom like Poofy to keep them warm and safe). At first, they didn't go far from their coop and they kept running away from us whenever we approached. But over the past few days they learned "human + pitcher of food = awesome." So now they follow us around a lot.

Finally - today's project: a porter in the making. 

Around the farm tonight...

A million updates in one post

This here is what we're going to call a free form post. It has no common theme, no real intro, an unsatisfying conclusion...but lots of info. It's a dashboard update. Big picture. Many updates crammed together in one place.

A few weeks ago, there was an F1 tornado in our town. It completely blew apart a barn just a few miles away. It toppled so many trees across our neighbor's driveway that it took him 5 hours to cut himself out. It sent Bill and me into our basement in the middle of the night, and it broke one of the trees in the beloved canopy that (used to) shade our house.

I took a picture, but it just looked like a tree. So, picture 1/4 of the top of a 75 year old locust tree split in half and being held just feet above our roof by another branch of the same tree.

We called some tree folks (I could not support Bill taking on this tree - it gave me panic attacks. I am not ashamed.)...and decided to take down the whole tree. The tree folks parked their truck outside my window:


...and dismantled the locust. There is an old "before" photo in the right sidebar up over there --->

Here's what it looks like today:


We're splitting and stacking the wood.


Two of our chicken hens hatched chicks. They are adorable little mutts. So far, there are 8 - though one isn't looking so good.



Bernie has decided he's sneaky and stealthy and we can't force him back inside if we can't see him because he's hiding behind the grass.


Our broody turkey is still on her nest. We didn't mark when she started incubating, but it was just after tax day. Turkey eggs take 28 days to hatch, so we're getting close!


The lilacs bloomed and smelled fantastic.


And...here is your unsatisfying conclusion. The end.

Daffodils and daft chickens

We have tons of daffodils that pop up in the center of our driveway loop. We don't take any care of them at all - they just grow in the spring and look lovely.


We think they might be pretty old. Have you ever seen ones with funny centers like this?


We also have some trouble-making chickens who have learned they can hop through the gate in our fence to access new parts of our yard...the grass always being greener and such. It wasn't so bad when they were just scratching around our compost pile, which is right near the fence, but now they are venturing over to the house.


Well within reach of the dog.


Fortunately, they know what a Ball jar full of chicken scratch looks like and we can lure them back to where they belong.

Butterfly Blogging By Bill

Willful incompetence... Do you know it? Do you use it?

I'll admit that I do. Not seriously as mentioned in the link... (I can do anything. I rock like that. You do too.) ...just playfully with Bill for things he doesn't mind doing such as cleaning toilets or cooking dinner. In return, Bill claims willful incompetence with regard to using the washing machine and uploading pictures to the interweb.

This week, he spent a while in our pasture taking photos of butterflies and then whined a little about blogging them until I promised to do it for him.


What I don't think he realized, however, is that now I get to tell the story of his butterfly blogging any way I want.

Bill is kind of a girl. He's a total softy. Remember that bunny from the spring? He totally wanted to keep it to snuggle with. He also really likes flowers. One morning as we were carpooling and, of course, running late for work, he wandered off into a brushy area following spring wildflowers, completely obvious to the time that we didn't have.

I said, "Ahem..." (I probably didn't. It's more likely I swore at him.)
He said, "But, Baby...Flowers!" As if that was all the explanation needed.

Picture Ferdinand the Bull.


But he also takes pretty awesome photos, which I'm pleased to post. More here.


Bill's turkeys are also doing well. They've got free range of the whole pasture and are finding lots of good food to eat - most recently they've learned how to wrap the tall grass with the fuzzy tops around their beaks and strip the seed heads right off. Delish.

Goldenrod, I have found your purpose

Yesterday I cut the tops off of about 15 goldenrod stems with full open flowers. They sat overnight in a pot of water and this evening, I boiled the flower stew for about 30 minutes. The result was a very bright, vivid dye bath.

The used flowers:

I simmered alum-mordanted yarn in the strained dye bath for about 15 minutes and got this beautiful color. The yarn really is this golden and I love it!

Signs of Spring

Perhaps the inevitable madness that comes in March (Go Orange!) is perfectly timed to coincide with the spring fever that makes any outside job, no matter how tedious, seem fun and desirable. We are preparing for a few days off at the end of the month, which means a trip to Tractor Supply in the new truck!!

We'll be preparing the garden, including much needed fencing. Last week Sugar flushed and then chased a small pack of deer and one very frightened squirrel out of our woodlot. Then last night, Bill and Sugar were snorted and stomped at by an aggressive buck who may have been jealous of their charm and good looks.

We're also planning to build a chicken coop and start on winter firewood.

Some proof that spring is arriving: Bill pressure washing in a t-shirt and some crocuses!

Nature abhors a vacuum...

...and I abhor a monoculture lawn.

We have a small front lawn. It is worthless, we do not use it. It is heavily shaded, bordered on the South by jack pines, the West by black locusts, the East by quaking aspen, and the North by the house. It is approximately square, about 2000 sq ft. We want to put garden in there, or perhaps something else. Whatever it is needs to be shade tolerant.

One option is to kill the grass and re-seed it with a shade tolerant prairie mix (we are planning to put prairie out into the field as well...)

Or, we can design some sort of ordered garden. What say you, readers? Good suggestions for plants/gardens for the front yard? See the pic of the house in the sidebar of the blog to see what the yard looks like...