Late Spring Rains

 
Goodness gracious, we've had tons (a slight exaggeration) of rain the past 2 weeks! It's slowed up final stages of the infamous bridge re-construction, but sure does make plants grow beautifully.

Here is a pic of our hugelkultur beds. We didn't get nearly as many built and planted as we wanted, but this fall we will. In the meantime we're sort of experimenting.   ;)  The pic above shows the potatoes in one loving life! That was taken 2 weeks ago, they are twice that size now.

Yum, taters!

Harbingers

Aside from the spring equinox, spring has really sprung in our neck of the woods. Ask residents of Ferry County what the typical harbingers of spring are here and you’ll hear answers like: seeing robins, bluebird sightings (a personal favorite), or spotting the first little sunny buttercups. 

In the past week we’ve seen all three, including twitterpated robins. Groups of juncos hop around everywhere giving our house cat some entertainment. The chickens keep escaping their yard to scratch around in the soil, much to the chagrin of our young dog who feels they should stay out of his yard.

And then our Shetland lambs have begun their arrival! The hens are providing 8-16 eggs per day. The warm sunshine and breeze feel glorious, and the soft rains are welcome! 

Spring Ahead!

  Officially it is Spring now! And the clocks have been re-set ahead one hour (at least folks living in the states that practice maddening daylight savings time [I wish ours didn't] ). The trees and shrubs in western Washington are in bud and bloom, even the native species. Yes, we're having a bit of an early spring this year after a very mild winter. It won't be long before the lilacs are in bloom once again, scenting the air with their heavenly perfume!

  What lay directly ahead this Spring of 2011 is moving to our land! May seems to be sort of a special month for us - we were both born in May, we met in May, we bought our first house in May, we first visited our future home-town of Republic in May, we found our land in May. And now we are beginning our move in May! Although the house has not sold as of yet, and the market is very slow, we have our heritage cattle to bring home. So myself, Krystal, along with the two dogs and cat will make the move in May to live in a travel trailer and watch over our small herd of six. In the meantime, Tom will remain at the house trying to sell it. If it doesn't sell in a couple months, we will rent or lease it out. Tom will visit us often!

  This was not our "plan" but, like the river analogy I use over and again to illustrate this journey we're on, our raft came upon a snag of debris from spring run-off and we're going around it as best we can!!