I love when spring comes early. This year we had a nice long spring season that started in January with daffodils pushing up all over the place. Now, that it’s late May the trees and other plants have progressed from their delicate shades of green into their mature summer colors.
Springtime is one of the best times for porch sitting. Each morning I enjoy my bugless teatime and the subsequent parade of animals looking for affection. Maybelle is usually the first – mostly because she wants to drink my tea.
Fortunately, the one and only frost we had didn’t inhibit the budding fruits on my plum and wild mulberry trees and my fledgling blueberry bush is producing its very first fruit. I’ve been nurturing my blueberry bush (that started as a stick) for a year so I’m pretty stoked about my first blueberries. Yum yum!
Last year was the first time my plum tree started producing. The fruit was sparse on it’s first production year but this year it’s got a crazy amount of young fruit. And to think, I had no idea it was a fruit tree and almost cut it down the past several years! Thank goodness I didn’t. I was astonished last spring when I discovered fruit on it. The lessons from my first year on a farm still ring true – never remove any plant until you know what it is. That’s how I lost my large, old blueberry bush – by stupidly cutting it out during the winter months where everything looks dead. It was a rookie move I still regret. Ugh.
The chickens began laying they day after winter solstice – as usual. By March I was getting over twenty gorgeous eggs a day. Collecting and admiring eggs never seems to get old. By April the schools starting calling for eggs to hatch and my older hens simultaneously decided they wanted to be moms…so now I’m inundated with about 60 chicks of varying breeds. I have seven broody hens so far. Having broody hens is like being with a group of women with major PMS. I get bitched at…a lot. At least the chicks are super cute. My baby talking ways are off the charts during baby season.
Sooo many chicks:
One of the things I’m most excited about is my new addition of an old fashioned clothesline. I’ve wanted one forever. It will make drying my vintage tablecloths much much easier. Some of my favorite additions each year are the small things that make farm life easier or more enjoyable. The past years I added a picnic table, screen door and tree swing – all of which get used daily. I can’t wait to get this clothesline finished and put into use!
Another new addition I should mention, is the first turkey poult (baby turkey) hatched on my farm since my beloved Rupert was killed two years ago. I’m so proud of my hen for hatching this baby – there was only one to hatch and she’s currently living in the house with me. I had to correct her gimp leg or I would have let her stay with her mom. I’ll write about her story and post pics in the next blog. I just love this baby face: