Signs of Spring

I’d thought I’d check in here with some signs of spring.

I heard the first spring peepers on the evening of March 10. That’s always my best indicator that spring is almost here.

crocus

lenten rose

chokeberry

forsythia

weeping willow

lungwort

It has been nice having some dry sunny days. Unfortunately, we keep getting occasional and sometimes heavy rains which we do not need. If it continues, it will be bad news for our farmers and ultimately us. Farmers can’t plant in soggy fields. Our vegetable beds drain well so we are lucky. We did some garden prep in the kitchen garden last week and I even planted some lettuce and sugar snap peas. We hope to get some onions in soon. My plan for the barn garden is to just plant corn. I went to a corn nixtamalization (google it) event at my neighbors (Nancy and Eli) yesterday. Nancy and hOUR Economy leader, Meghan, showed us how to go from dried corn kernel to tamale. We each brought food to fill the tamales and had a delicious feast. I went away with a bag of Pungo Creek corn kernels to plant.

Chinquapin Cemetery

Our church owns a small cemetery up the road from us. We said we’d help clear a path as the place is very overgrown. Dave and I went up there Sunday to get a start.

Yucca dominates which apparently isn’t unusual for an overgrown cemetery. It was a popular plant for cemeteries in the 19th century.

Found some little hollies, too.

Catching Up In the Garden

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We opened up the barn garden to the chickens and ducks.

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We had a couple of people here from The Natural Garden in Harrisonburg. They were very impressed with our meadow.

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Marigolds next to the compost.

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The garden spider greeted us for several weeks as we opened and closed the gate to the barn garden.

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Dave walks by our volunteer cherry tomato plant growing on the compost fence.

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Freda inspects the boneset. I harvested it for my herbalist. She said it is good for fevers.

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Pretty, too.

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It was great to have some young people here helping us through the alternative economy – hOUR Economy. They worked and we fed them and they camped out on our property. We really enjoyed their company and I think they had a good time, too.

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Two of the guys helped Dave install gutters on the back of the barn for a water catchment system.

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Dan, Kurt, Meghan, Tim and Savhannah.

They helped out others over a four day period and biked form place to place. We’re talking 15-25 miles between work sites. To have that energy!

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Our bushel basket gourds didn’t get bushel size – more like quart size.

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As I was walking to the barn one afternoon about a half dozen bluebirds flew off the pasture fence into our big, old oak tree.

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I can see two bluebirds in each of the above photos.

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Just some of the butternut we harvested.

11-11 update – finally estimated how much butternut we harvested this year. I counted 85 at approximately 2 lbs. each. So that’s about 170 lbs.! I think butternut is about $2 a lb. in the store so about $340 worth!

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Just after we opened the kitchen garden to the ducks.

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And finally, here is the water catchment.

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We got a lot of rain late September to early October. We were amazed at how the water accumulated so quickly. Dave has already used it to water our brussel sprouts and an artimesia (wormwood) we transplanted to the barnyard. It helps prevent worms in chickens.