Energized!

Oh how we love these sunny winter days!  Monday's clouds passed and the sun returned with such clear, blue skies.  Everyone is energized on days such as these! 

The chickens came running yesterday afternoon when we took the kitchen scraps out for them to snack upon.  They made short work of some eggshells, the tail end of a loaf of sourdough, cooked kale stalks (used in a vegetable broth), and pineapple rinds.  A feast, by any chicken's standard!  Not much of anything goes to waste around here.

At first glance, you might think that our vegetable garden is sleeping.. all nestled cozy and warm beneath a thick layer of compost.  A closer look, however, reveals that all sorts of life is happening here, even now in the midst of winter.

Last autumn, in two separate plantings, I filled this garden box with organic garlic cloves.  

The first group emerged quickly during the warmer days of autumn.

The second group, stayed nestled beneath the ground, until this week.  Little green tips have emerged from the soil with a clear message.  "There will be lots of garlic to harvest this summer!"

Elsewhere, there is chamomile that germinated in the autumn from the un-picked chamomile blossoms, leftover from Summer's harvest.  Almost the entire garden box is filled with small plants that have successfully (so far) overwintered.  I am very hopeful that these will give me a jump start on this coming summer's chamomile.  After all, these plants have survived a couple weeks of very frigid weather, as well as a few snows.  I am always awestruck at the resilience of some plants - and how all it takes is a couple days of sunshine for them to grow like crazy!

Amazingly, I still have some viable parsley in the herb box,

as well as new leaves on last summer's kale plants.  I have successfully overwintered kale in the past until about the beginning of January.  This year, with milder temperatures for much of the winter, it continues to grow.  And we continue to use it!  Amazing.

While I investigate the garden, Forrest finds one of his toys - left behind on a previous visit.

His favorite game is "keep-away".  As soon as I say "gimme that!", he takes off running, tail (and butt) wiggling.  The chase is on!  (I rarely win this game.)

Of all the dogs we have ever had, Forrest loves toys the most.  He is in the habit of sneaking them outside with him, and then leaving them here and there around the farm.  We never head out to the barn without finding one or two (or more) along the way.

This boy loves to play!  There are times, though, when his "play" turns to mayhem.  Yesterday morning was one such time.  I had opened the stall door to allow Moonie his solitary walk up to the pasture, like every morning.

He takes his good ole time... munching the greener grass that he finds growing alongside the garden fence, before eventually making his way up to the pasture.  Some mornings, after I have haltered the little horses, I pass him and he follows us up to graze.

Yesterday, Forrest wanted Moonie to run with him (he loves that game), so he barked at him. 

 

 Moonie took off with Forrest in tow.  Unfortunately, Moonie took a sharp left before heading into the pasture and instead ran up between the four pastures to the field where the ponies were grazing. 

 Seeing the ponies, Moonie about lost his mind, running back and forth.  Now, everyone was running like crazy.  Me?  Well, a flew expletives were shouted, a feed bucket gathered, and I headed up to corral my horse while Jack locked Forrest in the chicken yard.   Luckily, Moonie had run into the second (empty) upper pasture next to the ponies' pasture, so I closed the gate and got his attention with the feed bucket.  Halter and lead rope on, we walked back down to the appropriate pasture.

 where the little horses were waiting... wondering what the heck had just happened! 

What a morning!  Thank you, Mr. Forrest... you certainly add a whole lot of excitement to the morning.