Happy Spring!

Oh, Equinox, how I love thee! I am sooooo happy it is officially spring. Not that I don't appreciate winter; I do. But I do love Spring. Fresh greens, more daylight, the sense of renewal and invigoration. It's awesome!

I pulled broom for a few hours on Sunday. It was beautiful and sunny (and a little bit chilly) and my son drove the tractor around the field, removing fence posts and piling them neatly in a corner (so we don't knock them over when we plow), and moving the piles of broom I'd pulled out into two big bonfire piles. He also helped me pull out three extra-large broom plants that I just couldn't pull out by hand myself. I've now removed about half the broom in four afternoons, so another 4 or 5 and I should have it cleared (edges notwithstanding). Another day for those. I am hoping, at the pace I am going, to have it done by the May long weekend. At which point we will hopefully plow and till within a month of that and then seed a cover crop for summer. YAY for progress!

At the farm, I transplanted spinach last week, probably 300 plants inside one of the greenhouses. The weather has been sketchy today (too much hail) so I'm hoping there's more work to do inside the greenhouses this week. Not too keen on spending an afternoon on my knees weeding and cutting back strawberries outside.

Around here the rainbarrel is working fantastically. I need to set up an overflow barrel next to it, it fills up so quickly. *SO* happy it's finally working. I use that water to wash out and refill the hen's five water buckets daily (yes, I really ought to set up an automatic top-up thing on the hen's water as it's something I have to check every day right now.)

The covered garden here is doing well. I spent a day in it last week and transplanted raspberries, which are adjusting to their new raised beds. Also reinforced the edge of the raised beds with lumber; previously I didn't have anything holding the edge of the bed back from the path. Looks much tidier with a proper wood edging. Haven't planted anything in the one empty bed yet, although I am planning on getting lettuce and peas in pretty quick. Would like to put a little remay over them to keep them from freezing. Picked up some cedar lath today to fix the poly 'walls' which are flapping everywhere in the wind.

A nice quiet spring week here; hopefully the weather warms up soon and the sun comes out so we can get outside and enjoy it more! :)

Namaste