A Weekend of This And That

We are enjoying the most beautiful spring that I can remember.   Temperatures have remained cooler - especially at night - making farm activities so much more enjoyable.  

Aside from a couple of bike rides and a Sunday afternoon soccer game, we had a fairly quiet weekend here on the farm.

Saturday morning,  we took an early hike through the woods with Annie and Forrest.  Chester had decided to go back home and skip this walk.  (Who knows why... Chester is just Chester.) 

 With our morning cups of tea in hand, we walked into the woods, serenaded by the sweet, trilling song of a field sparrow. 

 To me, it's like walking into a magnificent cathedral - tall trees standing arched over the pathway below.   There's a peace and a sacredness to the woods... it's air cool, damp, and silent except for occasional birdsong - soft, and angelic.

The woods are in transition right now.  Gone are the many tall hemlock trees that used to prevent the penetration of sunlight to the forrest floor beneath.

  A consequence of this is the proliferation of ferns on the forrest floor.  The deer do not eat ferns - but rather prefer, instead, to snack on seedlings.  In spite of this, some saplings are replacing the fallen hemlocks in this transition from conifer to deciduous forrest.

This rapid spreading of ferns has made mushroom hunting a bit more challenging this year.  Right now, Reishi are the most common species found along with an occasional, common, brown toadstool.  It's still early in the season - so we will continue to keep our eyes peeled for more signs of fungi activity.  No doubt warmer weather will encourage other species to erupt in the weeks to come.

We walked into the Field of Dreams - a meadow that lies in the center of our woods.  I had noticed a large mound of raspberry vines popping up in this area earlier this year.

Sure enough, like all of the raspberry vines around the farm, these, too, are loaded with fruit ready to ripen after a few hot, sunny days.

We've been heading out for morning chores quite early these days... giving the horses ample pasture time before the flies become active and annoying.

Grooming tasks are done frequently, as my smaller equids need a little help with spring shedding.  Red looks so beautiful when he is brushed and groomed, but rarely stays this way for more than a few minutes!

Much of their daylight hours are spent lounging in a stall, where fans blow to keep the flies away.

The birds still remain on lockdown... allowed access to their yards, but not to free-ranging for the time being.  A fox attack three weeks ago was the reason for this situation.

  Now, it's nearing time to allow them back outside to roam freely - except there has been a bald eagle hanging around these past few days.  Eventually he will move on to a different area for hunting.  At that point, the birds will be free again.

I am sure that the runner ducks will be happy to no longer have a crazy flock of guineas roosting above their heads at night!

I am so enjoying having access to fresh flowers once again.  This is the garden that I had mulched last autumn, hoping to save last year's dahlias beneath a thick carpet of mulch.  The guineas apparently had other ideas - kicking the mulch to the side, repeatedly.  Needless to say... these are new dahlias planted this year.  Gardening with fowl doesn't always go as planned!!

I was happy to see how loaded our blueberry bushes are this year.  Amazingly, they are already beginning to ripen.  Everything is ahead of itself this year.  Normally, we pick blueberries at the end of June, beginning of July.  This year I believe we will be much earlier than that.

Every morning, after barn chores, I take a walk through the garden - pulling any new weeds and picking what has ripened.  We're getting sugar peas daily, now.

I've tried something new (for me) with my tomatoes this year.  I placed a long  piece of bamboo across the tomato stakes and tied it in place securely.  Instead of staking the tomatoes to the stakes, I am tying them vertically up to the bamboo.  Hopefully this, along with pruning, will help to keep my tomatoes from becoming a jungle!

I'm quite happy with how the garden is looking right now!  Hopefully, it only gets better from here.