What a odd thought that spring is to be here in 30 days.. I am taking my Elderberry and a few other things to help with how I am feeling but I have been hit with the “bug” and I have been down and out sleeping a lot. I am grateful for both my mom and hubby for covering for me and letting me get that extra rest.
Its made a difference in how hard its effected me so far, I putter, do this and that chore.. rest and repeat.. works well with the extra help.. I also got in a really loved visit with a dear friend a few hours that was wonderful.
I have my breeding pens of birds all done up for the year.. I will look forward to collecting my pure breed eggs and setting them to increase my flock size this year.. Hopefully I will get a few more nice roosters out of the girls.
I looked at my spaces and boy the house is full with my mom moving in and given her lung issues I decided that I would “farm” out my tomato and pepper starts to a local person who has a massive commercial greenhouse and save my much smaller outside seed starting area for other things.. I have ordered a total of 72 plants in a mix of all old heritage tomato’s and peppers. I hope to get side green house built onto the east facing side of the croft this year.
One of the really good things about this year is that we have had lots of deep cold which will help reduce my garden bug population in ways that be a good thing in spring, but the weather has been effecting my worms as well.. they are breeding very slow indeed where as most of the time by end of Feb, they are much more active.
I have the urge to prune, the urge to start seeds and to dig out pots and so forth but its just a touch to early for my Zone 5 area.. the weird weather has me wanting to get started but I am holding myself back.. its winter and I know it yet.
For two days we had a cold steady light rain.. nothing hard, no flooding in my area (but other parts of Ontario were not so lucky, we have had big flooding, we have had homes flooded and people being bused out and most sadly, we had a mom caught in a flood in a car that got her and her toddler out but then lost the toddler to the river.. they are searching for the wee body.. I hope for the parents and family sake that they find him)
We have had very slick roads by the farm, hubby left for work in the 4 by 4 and was not far from us when he found a person slide in the ditch and he stopped and picked him up and took him to his brother in laws to get help.. he said even our truck was slipping and sliding a bit.. he missed his first bus but caught the second. I love that we live in a area that folks stop for each other and give a hand.
For the farm at least, the rain has melted the ice on the paths but has not been enough to melt the snow pack off the gardens and such. This means that its in fact safer to move around the farm at the moment..
It also uncovered lots of manure.. I swear spring on the farm is mud, more mud and so much poo! Still no new babies to report, just fat expecting momma sheep and goats.. We have had a few rabbit litters that have been used at a young age for raw feeding.
The manure will be dealt with in three ways, some of it will be raked and spread over the pasture, some will be picked up by hand and then put into No Man’s Land where it will compost down and slowly continue to build up that area in height.. and the rest will go into creating the 2018 compost piles for future garden and food forest use.
I think I will use all my rabbit poo from this winter in the food forest this year.. going to bed down around the lines of productive hedge rows.
Are you looking at your compost piles and planning your garden? are you looking at your manure pile growing behind the barn? what you got plans for it this year? If you have rabbit, where are you planning on putting it directly onto.. your flower beds (I did that last year with great results) your climber garden (that was mine two years ago) or ??
Just another Day on the Farm 
FINALLY, a voice of reason! I am SO tired of hearing that “Spring is here!” and people getting ready to jump the gun… At least another full month to practice patience! Unless there are a whole lot more signs than what I’ve seen so far (other than it’s been consistently +4° and the bloody ticks have already started climbing out from under the melting snow):):
What do you do for ticks, FG?
Other than your awesome Bird Patrol; )
Spring is not here at least not here on the farm, we have a long way to go yet.. Ticks, they are bad.. well, I do have the pride of hunting farm cats which work hard to keep the mouse, rat and so forth population down, which helps keep the ticks on them down at least.. the sheep keep the outer pastures grazed down low which helps keep the ticks from moving across the pastures (every little thing helps) in the front yard, I do try and keep the sitting area’s mowed down for this very reason. otherwise, tick checks are required for the people, for the hounds and for the cats, heck I even do tick checks on the horse’s and other farm critters.. yes I do think that running the birds helps as well but last year was very bad for ticks and because of the very bad issue with the coy-wolves I could not run the birds or the sheep the same and I saw a increase in the ticks because of it.
Yes, they were very bad last year; but particularly as we’d never seen any here until last year… ):):
Do ever try using any essential oil combos as preventative?
Around the farm not so much and I will have to own up that I use the deet stuff if I am going into the bush or hikes, It may be bad for me but lime scares me..