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     This month has been busy for me with a half week trip to Northern Virginia to help out with childcare during eldest grandson’s spring break and the little guy was on the tail end of a bad cold that lasted his entire break, so he didn’t have much energy to do things.  We did manage one trip into the D.C. museums, but he didn’t last long.
     A week in Florida with our daughter and her family to try to help her out a bit was delightful, though her son was also sick the entire week I was there and spent much of the week in his room.  He managed school for a day and a half, so daughter and I got some of things she wanted to get done accomplished, including throwing a successful surprise birthday party for her hubby.
     The month has brought two snows, one of 7 inches that lasted less than 24 hours, gratefully, and a week of mid 80’s temps to make us think it was summer and that we missed spring entirely.  This week is more typical of the mountain spring with night time temps in the low 30’s and daytime up into the 60’s.  With two more weeks before we reach our last average frost day, this is more normal.
     The week I was in Florida, the grass turned from winter dull to emerald green and the trees started leafing out.  It is exciting to see the brown mountain sides flushing with color again, even if it meant that I had to mow the grass around the house yesterday to reduce the tick load when I walk over to the chicken coop.  I can’t believe we are already finding those disgusting critters this early.  If the chickens were a bit bigger and I knew they would go back to their coop at night, I would turn them loose to feast.
     Speaking of chickens, they seem to be multiplying and they aren’t even old enough to lay eggs yet.  Hubby says I have an addiction.  I moved them last weekend to the coop where they have much more room and roosts to perch on.  Today I was going to start giving them outdoor time, but yesterday, I acquired 6 more Silver Laced Wyandottes, a heritage breed that are the same age as the ones I already have, so they need to be cooped for another day or two, though they may follow the rest of the flock back into the coop at night.

The black ones are the Wyandottes, the darkest reds are Rhode Island Reds, the lighter reds are the Red Rock crosses, the 2 smaller white one are unknowns and you can see one of the white dinosaurs right by the waterer, at least 3 times larger than the others.  They aren’t cute little chicks anymore.  In about 9 weeks the flock of 21 will be culled down to 6 to 8 hens for eggs and our eldest son will come to be the executioner and put the rest in the freezer for meat for his family and us.  It has been an interesting experience raising them so far.  I’ve learned not to try to raise them indoors, way too dusty and smelly.  To wait until mid April to get chicks so that the weather is warmer and the brooder can go in the garage, or even pen off part of the coop and put the heat lamp out there.  I don’t know if I will ever get to the point of having brooder hens to raise the chicks, it would certainly be easier.  I am still toying with whether to double fence my garden and let them loose between the fences; risk free ranging them with the number of hawks we have, I think that is asking for predator loss; or increasing the size of their pen and keeping them contained.  The only locals that I know that keep chickens,  two free range and one pens.  Surprisingly, few of our farmer neighbors raise them or for that matter, even keep one of their pastured beeves for meat for themselves.  They raise the beeves, send them to the stock auction, then go to the local grocery to buy their meat.

     This morning, I left Florida and my week long mom-cation for our daughter.  It was a delightful week of daughter time, grandkid love and a successful surprise birthday party for our son-in-law.  Grandson was sick the entire week unfortunately, but it gave him more time at home while I was there.  Our 16 month old granddaughter took better than half a week to warm up to me, other than to make faces and laugh when I made them back, but snuggles were forthcoming later in the week.  She is adorable, with a blossoming vocabulary that seemed to expand even while I was there.  I was able to help with chores, cook some meals, and try to give our daughter a little less stress and was glad to be able to do it.
     While I was gone, our youngest son and his family, another 6 year old grandson and almost 2 year old granddaughter, arrived here and spent a few days with hubby, the pups and chicks.  The chick doubled in size and seriously out grew the 110 gallon animal watering trough that we were using as a brooder.  My return early enough this afternoon, allowed me to relocate them from the too small and very dirty brooder into their coop with clean bedding and relocated water and food source.  Tomorrow I will make a 5 gallon waterer for them and in a few days they will be allowed into their outdoor run during the days, hopefully to return to the coop at night without me having to catch each and close them in.

     Also while I was gone, spring arrived, the fields are green, the trees are blooming; forsythia, maple, cherry, peaches, redbuds.  Some of the trees have squirrel ear leaves, and the weeds in the garden took off.  I am going to have to get out there promptly and take a hoe to it or I will end up on my hands and knees aggravating my arthritis and trigger finger symptoms hand weeding.  The seedlings indoors are looking healthy and should soon be able to be transplanted into the beds for summer produce and flowers.
     It was a great change of pace last week, but I am delighted to be back home and see that spring
has arrived.  About 3 more weeks to get past the last frost date and the garden will be in full swing.  We already need to mow around the house.

     Today is 60 f, clear and beautiful.  Tomorrow is supposed to be better, but I am leaving at noon for a week, leaving hubby to care for the puppies and the girls.
     Now I know, they aren’t girls, but at this point, I’m not sure about gender and the only ones we will keep will be girls.  They are 4 weeks old.  The meat birds look like dinosaurs next to the other chicks.  The red rock crosses are larger, but only marginally.  The Rhode Island Reds, Wyandottes, and the 2 mystery birds (maybe Columbian crosses) are feathering out, but so much smaller.

It seemed like a good day to introduce them to the outdoors for a while, not permanently, so I build a temporary net pen, loaded them into a doggie crate and moved them out for a romp in the grass.  I wish they had more space to play, they were funny, pecking at clover, looking for bugs, and chasing each other around, except for the two monsters, who just lay there in the grass like lumps.

     I’m off for a Mommy-cation, not for me, but for my daughter.  She is feeling the effects of being a mommy of 2 young children, full time student, homemaker, and running a small business, so I’m going to help out for a week to see if I can relieve some of her stress and let her focus on less.  It will give me some grandkids time, some daughter time, and a change of venue for me for a few days.

     April “showers” equal 6 inches of . . .

. . . but the sun is coming out and it is supposed to go up to 55 f today, so maybe it won’t last long.

     The past couple of days have been beautiful, azure skies, sun and enough warmth to need no more than a light fleece or sweater during the daylight hours.  The nights are still falling to the 28-32 degree Fahrenheit range.  Today and tomorrow are rainy and cooler expectations.
     Yesterday after having our 24 year old neighbor, who is a machinist and gunsmith, set the scope on my new rifle, I got to practice shooting on his range for a few minutes and managed to shoot 3 plastic bottles of water with only 4 shots, the first one was high.  I have never been a proponent of guns, we even had an ugly Christmas when my father-in-law presented to my husband, an old family rifle and insisted that the children and I be present when it was given.  I stormed off angry over the incident.  I haven’t fired a weapon of any sort, except a child’s bow since 1969, and I was old enough to have purchased that handgun at the insistence of my ex-husband who was going to Viet Nam for a one year tour.  It was fired at a range until he thought I could handle it and then it was placed in a locked box and spent the next 44 years being moved from house to house and finally locked in the gun locker we put in this house when my hubby and I settled here.
     We live on a farm.  Our neighbors are all farmers and hunters.  We have coyotes, groundhogs and other vermin that destruct the garden, attack calves and fawns and we need to be able to protect our livestock when the fencing is up and they are added, so that our horses and cattle aren’t attacked by the coyotes or our chickens aren’t attacked by them, the raccoons, or foxes and to keep the groundhogs from devastating our vegetable garden or digging dens and tunnels that cattle and horses can break a leg in.  The environment here was different than the city and having guns for the right reasons has never been a problem for me, so the small 22 magnum rifle was purchased and I am now learning to handle it properly.  Next question is whether I will be able to use it against something living, even if it is a nuisance.
     Sidetrack over.  The rest of yesterday was spent erecting the fence for the chicken run.  The chicks have about 1 more week indoors, then they move to the coop for a few days to a week until they know that is home.  By late April, they should be feathered enough to start spending the days outdoors and cooped at night.  Because the coop is raised on 4 X 4 legs set on a sled base, the underside had to be fenced so the chicken can not just scoot out under it.  But I wanted them to be able to escape under the coop from hawks and the heat, so the first part of the project involved stapling wire around 2 1/2 sides of the coop.  Next the 50′ roll of 4 foot garden fencing had to be staked and anchored.  I got nearly around and realized I measured wrong and didn’t have enough fencing.  Frustrated, I quit for the day and went to my ladies knit night group to unwind.

     This morning, refreshed and before the rain set in, I bundled up against the morning cold and finished the job.  The chicks now have about 160 square feet of play space.

     Today is chilly but sunny and the nursery had cabbage, kale, broccoli and lettuce mixes as seedlings.  This was enough incentive to weed the two covered beds to plant the seedlings and I was delighted to find the lavender survived the winter, the parsley coming back in one bed and in the other bed, where I cut off the cabbage heads last fall, there are small heads forming on the side of the stalk and the purple kale overwintered.  The 8 kale plants, 4 cabbages, 4 broccoli and 4 lettuce plants have joined them under the row covers to ward off light frost and cabbage worms.
     The orchard is now fenced with electric and should keep the deer and dogs out of the garden and orchard.  Tomorrow is also supposed to be another nice day, so I will erect the chicken run.  They benefitted from my efforts with a small lettuce head and a handful of bugs as a supplemental treat to their chick feed.
     It really seems like we might be edging into spring, though I needed a fleece and a hat and gloves to work outside today.  I got the basil seed and will get them started this afternoon too.
     Another season has commenced.

     Hopefully, the April showers of today will bring the May flowers.  Today is a bit cooler than yesterday, but definitely feeling more spring-like, though the Friday forecast is for a wintery mix again.  We ventured into town with a list of errands and purchased the fencing wire and posts for the chicken run, the spool of electric wire to attach to the charger and enclose the orchard, resupply of chick feed and bedding and the flats to start the garden veggies.

     Nestled on the warming mat, under the grow light are seed starts for 2 types of tomatoes, 2 types of peppers, spacemaster cucumbers, winter squash, pumpkins, chard, 4 types of flowers and a row left for the globe basil that I seemed to have failed to order with my seed order.  Guess I’ll have to pick them up next time I’m in town.  I want to plant fennel seed too, but still have to figure where it can go in the garden without killing off its companion plants.  It may be time to go to the indie grower in town and look for some kale, spinach, salad mix, and bok choy seedlings.  They should do fine under the row covers now.
     If the rain stops tomorrow, the chick pen will be established and they will get to start spending warm days in the sun looking for bugs and seeds.  It is definitely time.  I’m toying with moving them to the coop and putting their heat lamp out there with an outdoor extension cord just to get them out of the house.

     The cute little chicks are now gangly teenagers and the two big white guys on the right of the picture weigh several pounds each (that is a gallon water jug for comparison).  They are the two remaining meat birds that convert feed to meat so quickly that they can hardly stand up.  Their lifespan is measured in weeks where the leaner smaller birds live years, if we let them.  It looks like at least two of the silver laced Wyandottes, which I hoped to keep may be cockrells, so they won’t stay around.  I can’t tell on the Rhode Island Reds yet and I have decided not to keep the Red Rock crosses for eggs, so it doesn’t matter as they will fill the freezer in about 13 or 14 more weeks.  When we were in Tractor Supply, they had Buff Orphingtons which are one of the heritage birds I wanted to raise, but I am not buying any more chicks this year.  If I can get through the year with a handful of egg layers, I may consider some heritage birds next year and may even let one of the heritage varieties breed.
     It is exciting to be readying the garden and chicks for a summer of homegrown delights.  I am hopeful that the blueberries that I purchased last year and the raspberries that I divided last year all survived the winter and will start providing us with fruit soon.  The garlic and walking onions are up and looking strong.  It will be a good year.

     March is certainly going out like a lion. Last Sunday it snowed, Monday through  Wednesday it remained cold and flurried, last night it started raining and though it is supposed to be warmer today, it is going to rain all day with thunder storms this afternoon.
     It is time to get the pen prepared for the chicks, they are outgrowing the brooder and they aren’t pleasant to smell in the house.  The brooder is in the basement rec room and it will take me a week to clean up the dust they have kicked up and at least a week to air out their smell once they are outdoors.  We upgraded to much larger feeder and waterer and they empty the water, a gallon size at least once a day.
     It is also time to get peas and early spring greens planted in the garden, but it needs to dry out a bit to work the soil.  The tomatoes and peppers must be started indoors now and the electric fence around the garden and orchard needs to be strung to keep the deer and dogs out.  None of the outdoor work can be done in the snow and rain and my shoulder that was injured more than 35 years ago was aggravated by last week’s digging and this week’s sleeping on a pad on the floor in Northern Virginia while babysitting our oldest grandson, so outdoor work is unappealling right now anyway.
     The little guy spent his entire spring break sick with a cold and just feeling puny.  We made one short trip in to the Natural History Museum at his  request, but his energy level was so low that we only lasted a couple of hours.  Most of our time was spent snuggling and reading or playing his beanbag toss game when he was perkier.
     We are seeing signs of spring, daffodils blooming in yards on the mountain, tree buds swelling, the forsythia looking like it might bloom soon.  Perhaps April will chase the tails of winter away and we can get on with being outdoors some.

Snow and sleet that is.  We are expecting up to 6 inches today and tonight.

And a chance to wear my newly finished sweater.

The sweater is Corriedale sport weight yarn from Bovidae Farms in Mars Hill, NC.  It was purchased last fall when I went to the SAFF 2012 in Asheville.  The pattern is Anne Budd’s Top Down Raglan, made as a V-neck cardigan with wide button bands and finished with Dimensions Raku Clay fired buttons also from SAFF 2012.  Dimensions is located in Virginia Beach, where I lived before retiring to the mountains and the spring snow.

     The first folks I met in the mountains after I moved here, that weren’t neighbors or coworkers, were two young organic farmers and their very young, very shy daughter.  They are delightful people, that our eldest son had met at the farmer’s market.  I have enjoyed produce from their farm, had several lovely pot luck dinners at their house, and have been the fortunate recipient, thanks to my loving hubby, of a season of their Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) flower share of 15 beautiful bouquets of locally grown flowers during the summer.  I am looking forward to this year’s share as well.  They have expanded their farm to growing apple trees, grafting five different varieties.  This was the first year they were selling the trees and we bought five, two Daveys and three Liberty.  Our orchard had been started over the past couple of years with three peach trees, two of which began producing the first fruits.  Last year we added two Asian pears.   Two of the peaches are above the garden and compost bins and define the upper west corner of the garden area.  The third peach and the Asian Pears are to the east of the garden in an area that has been previously plowed, but not used as part of vegetable or berry plots.
     Yesterday the new apples trees were delivered and as we are under a winter storm warning and I am leaving hubby and the pups mid week to go to Northern Virginia to help with childcare for our eldest grandson, today seemed to be the only day in over a week that I could get them planted.  Unfortunately, hubby blew out his knee two weeks ago and reinjured it when we moved and leveled the chicken coop, so he couldn’t help.  Bert, farmer friend, looked over my existing trees and showed me how to prune them and suggested getting the sod away from the trunks.  First thing this morning before we went to the Farmer’s Market, I pruned the peaches.
     The plan involved using the tractor bucket to strip off 4 x 4′ chunks of sod expanding the row that has the Asian Pears and a parallel row 20 feet to the east of them.  Next involved digging by hand, 5 new holes of substantial size, using a maddock and a shovel.  The compost pile was tapped to feed the new trees and also to top dress the older trees after hand stripping the sod from around them.  After the trees were planted, a layer of weed mat weighted down with rocks and more compost was placed around each tree until we can either get tree rings or straw to mulch them.
     The chilly, gray day ended with setting the posts for the electric fence, but I ran out of the electric wire, so I need to just hope that the deer don’t discover the new trees before I can get and string more.

     As soon as our beef stew is finished and eaten, I plan a long hot soak in the bathtub.