April 14, 2015

March garden…

early April garden

Poking up here and there…

first nettle pickings and plenty of eggs…

His favourite…

A good neighbour who saw our pile of gravel in the sheep pasture and surprised us one day on his tractor to move it outside the fence…

I haven’t posted in awhile…life has been so very full here.  The indoor starts are exploding on three levels, we’ve built a goat stall within our sheep barn (they arrive in two weeks), egg production has amped up, a new bed has been added to the Big Garden, and there are green bits poking up above the soil.  I always seem to hold my breath until I see evidence that it all is happening, those seeds are sprouting and coming alive.  It is kind of silly, because rhythmically, year after year, I am always rewarded with those first sprouts, but nonetheless, I wait with a touch of impatience and nervousness each season.

The big changes on the farm occurred over Easter weekend with the arrival of six little piggies.  We have sort of been overtaken by their pink, squealing cuteness.  Our three kids are most often found in the new pigpen, while it is still grassy and lush, playing with the piglets.  After they leave the farm in August, I will seed this area for the sheep.  This is our third year now and it really is so much fun raising pigs.

You might count ten piggies here because we shared the trip to the pig farm with friends.

And we have begun moving our sheep to the greenest grass we can find on the farm ~ here, there and everywhere.  So much fun moving these girls and watch them leap and twist in the air on their way to spring greens.  There has been a lot of unexpected rounding up of the girls as they stray on the way to their paddock-of-the-day…forcing all five of us to re-direct their intentions with wildly waving arms and frantic herding of sorts.  It took one of the youngest to remind us that a pail of grain does the trick, every time.

Things are greening up fast around here and the farm is coming alive again!  We are busier than ever but there are always a few pauses in the day to stop and admire all that we have here…and feeling so grateful for it all.