Spring is Busting at the Seams

Hindsight being what it is, I now see that I could have easily put my garden in over a month ago. We've had such an amazing spring so far, and had a very mild winter. Yes, I definitely should have planted things weeks ago. But alas, caution kept me sticking to the "last freeze date", which we passed a few days ago.

Thankfully, I did start some things in the greenhouse, so at least I have a few

things to transplant into the garden.

I have 56 tomato plants ready to transplant into the garden!

A view of the outside of the greenhouse. Our chicken pen is in the foreground of the picture. The blue tarp you see is part of the rabbit operation, housing three bucks.  

Some delicious Black Seeded Simpson leaf lettuce.

I started a few cucumbers in the greenhouse, but will direct sow a lot more in the garden.

A Killdeer nest in the middle of our garden. I guess we won't be using that section for awhile! :)

We fenced off the garden area so that the horses can go back into the rest of the pasture.

This is the 8 year old's section of the garden. He's a good little gardener!

Here he is with the oldest boy, planting his seedlings.

A Bedroom Repainted

We repainted one of the upstairs bedrooms after our oldest daughter moved out. We left the beautiful ceiling color that was original to the house, as well as two walls that were a nice blue, and just repainted the floor and two walls (including the closet).

 

April Showers... of Bunnies!

After apparently several secret rendezvous between the girls and boys, we were surprised with FOUR litters of babies! I honestly didn't expect any pregnancies since the girls were still so young, but I guess I was wrong...


Say hello to our 25 new additions!

"Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here All simply in the springing of the year."

-Robert Frost, A Prayer in Spring



Repurposed Roof for Horsebarn!

This was a major project that's been on the top of our priority list for a long time. The old shingle roof was so bad and even the underlying plywood, that the entire roof had to be ripped off.

"Before"

Measuring all of our used metal we got off the milkbarn (greenhouse) roof.

Removing the old roof.

It looked so different without a roof!

Handy Husband, goofing off. :)

Half way done!

The new fascia boards look great!

We had saved all the metal we'd taken off the old milkbarn (now the Greenhouse), and only had to buy a few extra pieces to have enough metal for the whole roof. It turned out great! It's such a relief to not have to worry about that anymore!

March Farm Update

Since I didn't post much (if at all?) in March, I thought I'd give a rundown of some of the farm activities. It was certainly a busy month, and it seems as if we had no spare time at all... which is understandable considering the season. So much to do in spring...

Chickens and quail alike have started laying really well.

We bought the first purebred chicks we've had in years:

Lavender Orpington and Black Copper Marans.

We did a major cleanup around the farm. And I mean MAJOR.

Started lots and lots of veggies from seeds in my wonderful greenhouse.

Tested our brand new incubator (more on that coming up in a future post).

Started preparing our garden plot. It'll be the biggest garden we've ever had- a quarter acre!

More eggs.

We planted some grape vines, raspberries, blueberries and strawberries.

Worked on replacing the horse barn roof (more on that in a future post).

Repainted one of the upstairs, kids' rooms.

Did I mention lots of eggs????

Snakes are coming out!



And last but not least, we are incubating more eggs. :)