Pigs

Oh, and I forgot to talk about the pigs! Ever since the bulk of the snow melted, they were out THE VERY NEXT DAY rooting around again. It was like they had been waiting for a personal invitation, and have been gung-ho ever since. Orrin had been feeding them organic cracked corn twice a day up until then, and is now only feeding them once a day. They seemed a bit annoyed the first day, but it hasn't fazed them since then. Pretty cool. They are turning our garden soil over a bit more every day, clearing big roots out. It'll be in great shape by the time we are ready to make the beds and start planting.

March on the Farm

We are now eating greens daily out of the greenhouse – kale we pick every few days for our green smoothies, and asian greens and arugula we pick for salad every other day or so. The greens have exploded in the last few days; I hope we can keep up with picking them before the leaves get too big and bitter (particularly the mustard greens). We are very happy to not have to buy grocery store salad anymore. This afternoon we just prepped another bed for planting. We pulled out a bunch of old arugula from last fall that had gone to seed, and will plant a bunch of seeds tomorrow.

The strapping is finished on the ceiling of the other house now. Orrin is also halfway through constructing the baffles along the inside of the roof. He and Jake have also spent 3 or 4 days logging trees up on the ridge, and dragging them down to the house. They think they have a day or two left to have enough logs for siding the other house. We hope Jake's dad will come in the next month or two to mill them.

We hired an electrician to do the wiring, which was done about a week and a half ago, and then the wiring inspector came a few days ago and approved the electrician's work. Next up – plumbing and re-papering the outside of the house.

This morning, Orrin, his dad and I were clearing wood out of what will be the main garden area. Orrin had felled a couple trees in the fall, and today he was using the chainsaw to cut the branches off and cut the trees into rounds. We pulled the branches out of the garden area and piled them in the woods where they will break down, and piled the rounds up for firewood.

It's been an interesting spring. The bulk of the snow melted about 2 weeks ago, along with the ice on the pond melting, and we had quite a few days of warm-ish weather. The last few days we've had a bit more snow (an inch stuck one day then mostly melted the next day), and pretty chilly days. The pond has been freezing at night and then thawing during the day. There were two ducks on the pond for a few days that have disappeared now. I hope they (or another couple) return and have ducklings here. I think that would be really fun for Oliver (not to mention me!) to have a duck family around.

We've seen a bit of wildlife in the last couple of weeks – an owl in a tree one morning after we woke up. It's pretty neat how far they can turn their necks around. Then another day we had two hawks circling overhead. They make such an eerie sound! With spring other birds have appeared, as well – robins, chickadees, and woodpeckers. At least, those are the ones I recognize!