Springtime at Tangly Woods

9 p.m. Another Sunday evening has come around. Tala and Kali are playing Rook in the front room (I hear the occasional eruption of laughter). Jason and Alida are enjoying some fireside time together down at the fire ring (Alida is likely burning leaves and bits of paper and enjoying chatting uninterrupted with her daddy). And I'm laying here in Terah's bed with her as she falls asleep. This gals goes hard until she is ready to crash, and will ask to go to bed. It wasn't an hour ago that she was doing her silly laugh by the fire. She's a bundle of energy and sweetness, with lots of it to share with those around her!

Since I last wrote, it feels like spring has really come to our little corner of the world (despite having two hard freezes at night this week - time will tell if there are any peaches this year). Tangly Woods feels a bit more complete again with us welcoming three young American Guinea Hogs this week. I didn't realize quite how much I was missing that familiar oinking sound. This trio is 8 or so months old, but it's a slow growing breed so they are still small. They truly are like very round sausages with legs. They are very good natured and seem to be acclimating just fine to life on Fruit Farm Lane. We are glad they have joined us for the year. They have started making their way through the nut grove doing what pigs do best. And as the spring weeding rounds start, it's fun to have a place to go with weeds. Right now we are feeding them so much slop that they are a bit more choosy on what weeds they will eat. Still, it is really fun to see them tearing into a favorite, like dandelion!

We continue to hatch new chicks out every two weeks. After brooding the first hatch indoors, the second batch went right under a mama hen. They are now at home in the arch coop and doing great. For the most recent hatch, we didn't have a broody hen ready for them, so we are once again enjoying chicks in the kiddie pool in the common room. The other morning when I found my mom and Tala in their kitchen, Tala had a bit of a guilty or secretive look on her face. I wasn't sure why until I heard peeping and she had smuggled a chick in with her to make coffee in her sweatshirt pocket. :) Now just a few days old, they are starting to get their little wing feathers already. Before we know it, they will be working to fly up onto the sides of the pool to see what's on the other side. It never gets old for Tangly Woodsers of all ages to watch them as they grow and develop and explore their world!

But chick watching is in little pockets here and there. Much of the time, the gardens beckon - everything is starting to pop and the green growth around us is so welcome. We had carefully protected yesterday for family spring gardening and the weather was perfect for it! It was chilly in the morning but by the afternoon I was comfy in just a long sleeve sunshirt. It really was probably my favorite outdoor working temperature! But even better than the weather were our daughter's moods - which may have been related phenomena. Whatever the factors, it was probably one of the best whole-family gardening days we have had in a long time. Everyone just seemed so glad to be outside, to be together, to be doing meaningful work, and to be sharing in the satisfaction of putting seeds in soil and tending plants by weeding around them and applying compost. 

We are quite a team now! Jason has spent many a day in the gardens mostly alone. I know he can enjoy that too, and sometimes having a lot of "help" has been overwhelming. But I think yesterday it felt like we actually had a crew of gardeners that all could be genuinely helpful. Even Terah stuck with some of the jobs for quite some time before wandering off to climb a tree or play with water in Nora's garden. Let's put it this way: all our kids were either helpful or neutral. We seem to have mostly moved beyond the stage where kiddos are naturally an impediment to making much progress. It was so much fun to observe how much they have learned by just being around the growing of food and how now, when they feel ready, they are quite capable of jumping in and helping. 

I was so grateful to feel a bit better yesterday, with slightly more energy than I have had most days. I made the most of it (and felt it more today!). It's been a rough week and I'm often not sure in any given hour if what I'm experiencing is the Lyme disease, side effects of doxycycline or my anxiety of either/both of those things. But it felt like my mind and emotions got a bit of a reprieve yesterday as I soaked up being outside with the girls, Jason and Tala. Together we planted hull peas, sugar snap peas, lettuce, beets, parsley, cilantro and radishes. 

And then the biggest job: weeding the spinach and applying humanure compost. Here's a before/after comparison photo. The beds on the left still need to be weeded and the ones on the right were done (thanks to Tala!). As we finished up the other seeding/planting, more and more of us joined the weeding ranks until we were all working on that job together. 

It's definitely the kind of work ideally shared. It was tedious and honestly a tad depressing. There were lots more weeds than spinach. This is spinach that we have been breeding for a number of years and it seems the "harsh conditions" we have bred it in has led to some pretty great spinach seed - at least in other people's gardens. We even had one person track us down via Facebook to ask if they could get some of our spinach seed mailed to them (the one year it was sold in a small seed catalog they had gotten it and loved it). And then, more recently, a dear friend texted us a picture of some amazing spinach they were growing from the seed. So I know it has potential, but our patch is sparse and many of the plants are really tiny. We aren't sure all the factors, but I did grow a bit more suspicious, as I collapsed vole tunnel after vole tunnel, that maybe a critter was to blame for at least some of the damage. I'm so glad that when the spinach doesn't do well, there are so many other greens that are bound to thrive (The winter cress is coming on strong, as well as the nettles and chick weed! And we can always count on lambsquarter and amaranth greens for stocking the freezer!). And, while we would be happy for MANY more plants, the spinach patch did look pretty amazing when it was all weeded and had compost applied. The spinach is hopefully feeling well nourished and ready to put on a growth spurt. Some of the rest of us were feeling muscles today that clearly hadn't been adequately exercised over the winter months!

It was lovely to have a Sabbath day following yesterday's big gardening push. We enjoyed a slower start to the day and gathered all together mid-morning for an Easter brunch. We had some pretty fancy Easter egg coffee nests, thanks to the many kinds of sprinkles Alida was gifted for her birthday from Tala for use in all her baking experiments. 

While Jason and I took midday naps, the girls decorated some Easter eggs with my mom. 

Then this afternoon, we took a little outing with Emily, Jonas and Ivy and walked around Lake Shenandoah. It was our first experience of geocaching. We were warm in t-shirts!! I thought I had successfully adjusted to wearing a face mask over the last number of months, but today reminded me of how I had mostly gotten better at it as the weather cooled. 

While we enjoyed a little excursion, our wonderful Easter bunny (Alida loaned Tala her bunny ears) hid over 100 Easter eggs, with the help of my parents. Soon after we returned home, the hunt began. And, as it usually does, it will continue over the next few weeks/months. There is still a handful out there that the 8 of us could not find! We searched until we had all run out of ideas of places to look. Terah was especially thrilled to find both a little and big egg in her new chicken coop nest box. The chickens didn't eat those! There are some adjustment issues in that coop with Brick, the rooster, seeming afraid to come down to the grassy area. That means he tries to mate with the hens up in the upper area causing quite a ruckus. We think that is what led to breaking some eggs, which the chickens then eat. And now we are tad worried they have gotten a taste for their own eggs as there often will be an egg or two in the nest box earlier in the day and not later. Sigh!

Following the egg hunt and some initial snacking on the goodies found inside (I have to admit that I was not disappointed when Terah did not like the garlic and herb cashews!), we enjoyed sitting by an outdoor fire as the sun went down. We made s'mores and got chilly!

And now Terah is sacked out and I'm ready to call it a day. The fire is put out, but I think the Rook tournament is still going strong in the front room!!