Although mud is still the most popular flooring in the great outdoors, spring is creeping through the cracks. A couple of freezer burned hyacinths stand amidst the bones and skeletons of the front perennial garden, and the spring peepers have been screaming out their mating calls for the past several weeks.
Several sunny days have been enjoyed by the resident farm dogs, Angus the boxer and Hattie the Catahoula. Angus cracks me up the way he sits with all his legs sticking out in front of him. I’ve taken several pics of him in this position, but his “plumbing” shows too much. I was able to catch him in the pose in the flower garden outside the greenhouse. Hattie is snoozing in the background. He can sleep sitting up very well!
The warm sunny afternoons beckon me to the woods for a late afternoon stroll. It’s more fun to walk in the woods right now before the ticks, chiggers, poison ivy, and ssssssssnakes start terrorizing the woodlands. I caught Hattie posing on a bluff just above one of the garden areas:
The small greenhouse is getting full of seedlings on their way to becoming transplants, then to garden plants, then onto some lucky person’s plate!
The heart of the farm flows out of the mountain bordering one side of the property. This stream flows year round and is utilized to water the crops and happy hens that live on the farm. A resident kingfisher enjoys the bounty of minnows in the small pond and the dogs like to play in the water on hot summer days. Personally, I think it’s too darned cold to get in.
The high tunnel is still producing great fresh veggies for sale and personal consumption. This winter the tunnel has produced swiss chard, lettuce, arugula, and one harvest of spinach. For some reason the spinach just didn’t grow at all. I believe the soil got too wet early in the season and just never dried out. Next year the spinach will be elevated to new heights!
In the right hand side of the tunnel, the stubborn spinach was yanked out and snow peas planted in their place. The row covers are handy when the weather outside is frigid, but they’ve only been utilized like two times this past pseudo-winter. Early tomatoes, beets, carrots, more lettuce and spinach are going into the high tunnel over the next few weeks.
Whew, to be winter time and the “down season”, I seem to be awfully busy 🙂
Wild Things Farm 