Lovely springtime!

Birds galore on the farm with goldfinch, bluebirds, swallows, quail, pheasant, geese, owls, mourning doves, house finches, wrens, nuthatches, flickers, downy woodpeckers, and those stupid eurasian sparrows and starlings. They are deafening with their courting in the early morning.
















Last year's cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and bushbeans look really good about now, so have a look and think about whomping up a batch of chow mein. Somehow, an entire cabbage disappeared into the gopher's realm. Damn gophers. The misty sunset here is from a couple of weeks ago, where we are almost snow free. This year, it started snowing after Thanksgiving, and we had almost six feet by Christmas. Our backs were killing us from shoveling roofs over and over. Steve's arms ached from the vibration of the snow throwers. We have two, since one or the other is always in the shop.

It's spring finally. Although we had a really tough winter with tons of snow, we didn't lose any trees, buildings, or worse through it all. We saw some of our neighbors weren't so lucky. At least two pole barns collapsed under weight of snow, and a few little sheds here and there as well. Over 200 buildings collapsed in Spokane County, and even more over in Coeurd'Alene. We could see the strain on the barn from the inside--the huge 8x12 beams were sagging and doors were stuck shut. But now the the huge berms are almost gone, and the Americaunas finished molting and are laying huge weird eggs!

Steve is outside planting an apple and a cherry tree to replace ones that didn't look so good last year. The garlic has sprouted, and the strawberries are coming up. So are the tulips we planted between the raspberry bushes last fall. He planted potatoes yesterday, and decided to enlarge two areas to plant more. We went down into the pasture and started tilling and getting the rocks and sod out of a new area for corn and squash. Our soil is really nice and smells great. I splurged and bought four of the those half oak wine barrels for my kitchen garden. One for the horseradish, one for basil, rosemary, and cilantro, and two for flowers and such. A friend said these would hold up well for decades of container planting. They should, they weren't cheap!

The eggs in the incubator should pip next weekend. We'll buy some little girls to add to the brooder box with them. Steve wants to get some "meat birds" or Cornish chicks so we're not just eating skinny little cockerels like last year.