Winter chores are nothing new. While on the way home from town Friday, I noticed that the 36″ culverts that carry the canal through my property were sort of getting overgrown and close to getting clogged up….
It’s way easier to clean out a culvert BEFORE it gets clogged with everything that culverts get clogged up with. After chainsawing for about 30 minutes and piling everything up in between the culverts, I was able to get a small fire started to burn the debris….
Once the fire went out I had a small bucket of glass bottles, a tractor bucket load of firewood, 2 clean culverts and a good workout!
I checked the beehive and was so happy to see that it was FULL of bees and they were BUSY!
After planting 6 flats of assorted greens; lettuce, kale, mustard, and braising mix in the large high tunnel, I threw several bags of leaves into the chicken pen to keep the girls out of the mud. They love scratching in the leaves and will spread a pile of them in no time.
THEN I had promised the girls I would clean out their coop and put fresh leaves in there. It’s amazing how much quicker their coops get pooped out in the winter when they are stuck inside during cold weather.
I used hay last time for their bedding. I won’t do that again. It turns into a solid mat that has to be chopped apart AND I had to put it in a separate compost area because I know how many weeds can germinate from hay–BUT it was all I could get at the time. I refloored their coop with fresh dry leaves from my stash. It smells wonderful.
Today was a gorgeous day so Hattie (the dog), Bandit (the girl kitty) and I decided to take a late afternoon wildflower walk. There really are wild things to look at this time of year, and some are even starting to grow (I’m so excited!) Here’s a visual of our afternoon journey.
This is a very cool bluff right behind the house. The stream you see is it….it comes out from under the rocks where I was standing and goes back in where the black area is in the top of the picture. Very cool spot.
The rocks are leaking….look closely… maybe you can see.
Beautiful moss garden–it loves this weather!
Columbine starting to show some life…
Heuchera showing its winter colors…
Native pachysandra should be sending up white flowers before long.
Sedum
and Walking Fern are still attractive through the winter.
The pond is full to overflowing with the recent rains.
Days like today give one that boost of sunshine desperately needed this time of year!
Wild Things Farm 