Spring Has Sprung...Kind Of

For the last couple of weeks, it appeared that Punxsutawney Phil was right this year when he predicted an early spring. Temps have been slowly rising here over the last few weeks, and we are starting to see some green peaking through on some of the trees. Even the crocus have begun popping up. The snow completely melted for a while, which did not occur until April last year. But then Mother Nature decided to get one last laugh in and erratically bounce between 50-degree, sunny weather and temps in the teens with snow. The temp swings were big even in a 24-hour period, leading to a constant wet, semi-melted state where snow was present in the morning and would be totally melted by the afternoon and start the cycle again two days later.

While this was slightly frustrating (Spring is not my favorite season for this exact reason), we did not let it stop our forward motion. We were still able to get the garden plots going. Our main vegetable area is fully set up, and we are in the process of moving in our raised beds. This year, we have been repurposing as much as possible from around the farm. When we bought the property, we were lucky to be left with large quantities of old farming supplies, antiques, and, sure, some junk, but the fun of going through everything and learning as much as we can about the history of this property has made us feel even more connected to this land and house. To honor the legacy, we have decided to repurpose several old troughs and an old broken trailer into garden planters this year. There will be an additional post on the complete garden with pictures of all of these items in their new employment so check back for that.

In addition to getting everything ready for the vegetables, we were able to seed one of the old corn fields that we hope to return to lush pasture.

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for a video of that.

The three main fields on our property have been mono-cropped with corn for five years. No cover crops were used in between and the soil is significantly depleted. This year is focused mostly on soil regeneration with the added benefit of extra food for the goats at the end of the growing season. This is the beginning of a multi-year plan to fully regenerate the soils and pasture. I am excited to watch the transformation and I hope you are as well.

Here are some pictures of the crocus and other greens slowly peeking through into Spring and, of course, the goats enjoying the warming weather.