Spring. Squeeee!

Garlic is UP!

You know, I’ve lived in a lot of different climates, from the ‘over 100 degrees for 5 months of the year’ Arizona desert to the ‘barely a 100 day growing season’ of 7,000 ft Colorado to the balmy languid growing season of Northern California. And no matter where you live, spring can not come fast enough. I’ve been pacing like a large cat in a small cage for weeks, waiting for sunshine and temperatures out of the 40’s. And it’s finally arrived. And it’s not even the middle of March!

We started this from a cutting. Hard to not love pussy willows.

Bulbs are popping up everywhere. Lilacs are breaking bud. The forsythia, which we’ve brutally pruned back, repeatedly, because they are 15 years old and in the wrong place, still bloom despite our cruel treatment.

Chicken butts in the sunshine, lol.

The chickens have cranked up egg production (finally!) and I’m now getting more than a dozen eggs a day for the first time in at least 4 months. The new Welsummer and Cuckoo Marans are starting to lay their beautiful dark brown eggs. I gave the evil hissing hold-onto-my-pant leg flap-her-wings-at-me  broody duck some eggs to sit on (it hasn’t been warm enough until lately for the eggs to be viable – they get laid at night). She sat on them for a couple of days, and then decided, “no, I think I’ll go out in the sunshine and eat some grass”. But now one of the turkeys has taken over the duck nest. Well…this should be interesting. I DO have some turkey eggs in the incubator, so perhaps if she sticks with it I’ll pull the old switcheroo, and give her some of the turkey chicks and raise the duck babies myself, should they hatch. Or maybe I’ll get really lucky and another duck will go broody and I can just trade out chicks and not have to raise them myself at all! I learned last spring that duck eggs are difficult to hatch in an incubator.

This Saturday, I’ll be attending my third Women in Ag conference. This conference is webcast all over the country, with each state hosting multiple locations (I’ll be in Prosser – also visiting a friend). Then they bring in local speakers as well. It’s a great opportunity to network and just enjoy learning what other women around the country are doing.

We’ll also be delivering sheep to Benton City that weekend. We’re reducing our herd quite a bit as we move into spring and summer. We still have two females that haven’t given birth yet. Oh, and we just checked again today, and turns out Bean is a GIRL. Sheesh. She’s done with the bottle, but still nudges you in the back of the knees hoping for one. Which makes it easy to pick her up and give her a snuggle.

Most of the way there! And only a few weird bits. These things are notorious for having missing parts and bad bad directions.

And on Sunday we hope to get the new greenhouse finished up. Which would be good, because I already have 300 onions, shallots, scallions and leeks planted in flats, and have a long way to go!

AND I’m busy making soap. I’ll be doing the Saturday market this year, and so am hoping for increased sales. Which means I need to increase inventory. Lots of fun new scents to try out, which is always the best part.

This one is going to be called “Chilax”. As in Chill and Relax.

Yup. Bean’s a girl. Beanetta?

Volunteer arugula. Wish I liked it more. I may never actually have to plant it again.

This is our Welsummer rooster. I named him Cray (short for crayola – because he reminds me of a box of crayons). He IS a pretty boy, and so far he’s a nice boy too, which is required in my poultry yard.

I call this “around the water cooler”. The speckled bird behind the brown bird is my other rooster. That’s Harley. He’s white, green and brown. Probably some mix of Speckled Sussex and Brahma. He’s a BIG boy. And I hate to admit it, but I kept him solely because of his pretty feathers.

Raspberries, leafing out.

Rossi in the sunshine.

Miles Away Farm Blog © 2014, where we’d really like to just roll around in the sunshine too, if we didn’t have so much to do. Well…maybe just for a minute. Squeeeee.