Digging in the Dirt Once More

Temperatures any day here in February can be variable, a wild understatement. This week in 1979, the low was minus 21 degrees. I was milking goats in in the barn in that bitter cold, so I was inordinately grateful for 63 degrees a couple of days ago. The tiny blue wildflowers are blooming!

Some of the weeds in the flower beds were in loose soil, so I spent the day pulling them. The chickens got lots of greens.

It was time to cut old stems on the hostas and peonies. Some red shoots were starting up in the peonies, a good sign that they will be shaking off winter with a new wardrobe any day now.

The garden was too wet to disturb, but I couldn't resist digging up some of the over-wintered parsnips. I don't know why some of them were a little on the scrawny or leggy side. I was careful to not cultivate around them, gave them plenty of room and talked to them nicely. These are Gladiator hybrids from Stokes. The bigger ones were delicious. All American Parsnips are my favorite, but I can't find the seed anywhere. So much for hybrids being a big improvement.

If I wasn't already getting all excited about spring, I heard the first Robins and Meadowlarks. I couldn't be happier if I had good sense.

At Last, Eggs

Right on schedule, six months after I got the day-old chicks, I have fresh eggs. I don't know why it should have been such a surprise; it is a miracle nonetheless. They are small at first, as the hens' egg-laying interior production line gets up and running.

They have beautiful orange yolks. Best of all, no more of the store eggs with what my daughter Lissa calls "egg-like" flavor. Yummy.

Turn Off the Wind Machine

It dawned on me that the compost cage was too open to the prevailing winds. I found some old lath in one of the outbuildings and wired it up to the curved part of the cage. There wasn't enough to go around. Foregoing cute for cheap, I wired an old tarp to the fence.

This should help until I can cut some other boards, abundant here, to use on the front of the cage. It's not pretty but it will work to keep the breeze from drying the compost. Let the wind go around and work on the firewood and leave my garbage to rot properly.

The beauty of living out in the country is there are no neighbors to complain that things are unsightly or not to local regulations. I couldn't live like that. Here, I can be as tacky as I want. Someone else's eyesore is my whimsical.