Spring and our new CSA room!

The sheep are def­i­nite­ly hap­pi­er, they’ve start­ed ignor­ing their hay in favor of the green shoots that are sprout­ing up through­out their pas­ture. I’ve been watch­ing them close­ly to see if their bel­lies are round­ing out with lit­tle lambs, and I believe that they are. They also seem to be laz­ing through­out the pas­ture more, but that might just be because they’re hap­py for warmth and sun to lay in.

Lambs aren’t the only babies that we’re get­ting ready for. I just placed an order for 75 free­dom ranger chicks, which were our favorite broil­er chicks from last year, so those should be arriv­ing mid-April. Also, arriv­ing mid-April is our new sow who we’re going to pick up from Sug­ar Moun­tain Farm in Ver­mont. She will already have been bred, and should have piglets with­in a cou­ple weeks of arriv­ing. We also recent­ly decid­ed to start two bee­hives by the gar­den, which is very excit­ing. We’ve only learned a lit­tle bit about bees, but we can already tell that they’re going to be fas­ci­nat­ing to raise, not to men­tion how excit­ing it’s going to be to have our own hon­ey or how help­ful they’re going to be in the gar­den. They should arrive in ear­ly May, around the same time as the lambs.

After weeks of wad­ing through spread­sheets we final­ly have a full plant­i­ng sched­ule for the sea­son, just in time to start plant­i­ng! With tem­per­a­tures in the 80s this week, keep­ing these lit­tle guys at the right tem­per­a­ture has been dif­fi­cult. The green­house has been sky­rock­et­ing past 100 degrees dai­ly so we’ve had to keep the flats out­side. Although it’s hard to com­plain about beau­ti­ful days and sun, this unsea­son­able weath­er makes us, as new farm­ers, pret­ty ner­vous. What’s next? Snow­storms in June?

Now that the paint­ing is done, we can start orga­niz­ing! Hap­py Spring every­one! It’s time to get back to work!