Sunday, April 21, 2013

Spring happenings

Time for a few updates!  And best to do it now on the eve of a long work stretch leading up to graduation this weekend. There won't be downtime for luxurious activities like blogging until May at the earliest...  So here is some of what has been keeping us hopping the last number of days:

Kali with her self-inflicted "sprout" - her way of solving some hair frizzles bugging her was to cut them off at the roots...
She is mighty cute with bangs.  Thanks Aunt Emily!
We had a mushroom log party - Alida "helped" inoculate logs.
We were glad for some adult helpers too!  If even a percentage of the logs we have bear fruit, we will be inundated with shiitake and oyster mushrooms - my taste buds better grow up fast!
The solar food dryer Jason made for me is up and running and I couldn't be more excited and pleased (okay, and a little obsessed).  I now want to fill it at every possible opportunity to not waste all that great solar energy.  Peppermint tea  was dried and in the jar within hours. Spearmint followed and the oregano will be ready to jar up by mid-morning tomorrow. Exciting!
Kali dried one dandelion flower (not recommended for consumption) and she and Alida have some violets drying now.  What will be next?!
Dried peppermint tea - the jar will be full before too long.
We are by no means caught up on the weeding and mulching, but Jason and I got to spend an evening (with Alida in tow) recently, weeding, edging and mulching Nora's garden.  A very good way to spend time together.

The composting chicken coop is coming along.  Today the roof trusses went up (made mostly of black walnut logs from trees on our place).

Kali's pet chicken, Buttercup, is trying out the new house.  She is one incredible chicken. We are all enjoying having her out and about with us when we are weeding, but Jason had to put her back in her house the other day when she couldn't fit another worm into her crop!

Triumphant!  But still a little ways to go so hopefully the chicks don't grow too quickly! 
Hatched and growing - little wing feathers emerging.  They are too cute lined up at the feeder. 
Potatoes coming up and onions are doing better, since our recent replanting.  Notice the purple carpet of Amaranth sprouting on the right...Jason put out amaranth seed heads for chickens to eat in fall, but I guess they missed a few seeds!
Beautiful apple blossoms. Sadly, none of my bees have come back to the little house. I hope they have found a good home somewhere and are enjoying these flowers!

I've spent a lot of time the last number of days weeding and what satisfying weeding!  Much of it has been in our expanded strawberry beds.  If all these blossoms produce strawberries it will be a very good return on my investment.
So when you still have 2012 rhubarb in your freezer and your rhubarb looks like this do you use up what is in your freezer or cut fresh?


And then of course there is the budding soccer player here after her most recent game and her cool little sister!  Despite the busyness of this time of year we enjoyed a recent hike to the lake.

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