Snowing!

Well, in the last posting I was complaining about the warming weather. Today It's snowing. We have about 2 inches. I don't expect it to last too long, but at least it's still trying to be winter out there.

My biggest concern is of course that my fruit trees will bloom too early and I'll lose the blossoms to frost, which will inturn ruin the entire crop. Well mybe the snow will keep that from happening. That and the fact that the ground has been freezing each night should help.

-dale

OMG! Spring already?

Well the daffodils think it's spring.

We have a large maple tree in our front yard, and under it's massive crown the daffodils thrive. Every year they come up (sometimes through the snow) in early spring and let us know that winter is almost over. It's only Febuary 17th. Winter can't be over yet.

This winter has been kinda strange tho' so maybe it's over. Or maybe there is something to that whole global warming thing after all. All I know is that if the daffodils are coming up then the trees will start budding soon. And if there is another few frosty days ahead I might lose my fruit harvest this year. I expect that's what happened to our plum tree last year.

-dale

Ground prep

It was pretty sunny and nice out yesterday so I spent most of the day outside puttering around.

I did take some time to cover part of the ground that will be used for this years feed crops. Last year we had 50 cornish cross chickens that we butchered, they lived for 4 weeks in a chicken tractor that is basicly an open bottomed cage 20 feet long by 10 feet wide and we moved it 10 feet every wee or so. Now there is an area about 20 feet by 40 feet that is well fertilized. This is the area that I am covering for the feed crops.

I get the large tarps that are used for wraping lumber while in storage from the local home improvement store. They are rather thin but pretty durable and last for a few years if you take the time to fold them up and store them propely after you use them. Most of them are white on one side and black on the other. When I lay them out I put the black side up so they will absorbe a lot of heat, and block most of the light. My hope it that when it is time to start preping the soil for planting the ground under the tarps will be mostly bare instead of covered with lush green grass. Wish me luck.

-dale

Eggs Eggs and more Eggs

So for the month of January we got 276 eggs from our chickens. That is 23 dozen. And that doesn't count the eggs we couldn't find. Our birds like to make hidden nests sometimes. But All in All that is a really good number for January.

-dale