Thursday, May 3, 2012

April blur or April blaahh!!!...

Time really seems to fly by when you are having fun.... or just too busy to notice the days rolling over.  The other day I was in the library and got asked "how my weekend was?' I have to say my response was stolen from an episode of Downton Abby "What's a weekend?"  As Michael always says one day just rolls into the next here at the farm.

As another farmer said to me this week we had April's weather in March and March's weather in April. 
Greenhouse fleeced
The greenhouse held it's own during this cold snap. In the evenings we placed extra layers of fleece over the seedlings to keep as much heat in as possible.
The greenhouse is officially about to burst at the seams with plants.  

Everything is looking fantastic and the hot beds have been amazing at creating that additional heat we needed at night for some of the more cold sensitive plants and also seeds that needed greater heat to germinate. We are already thinking about next year and how to redesign the layout of the hotbeds to give us more room for seed trays.  We also learnt that you have to run fly tape under the plastic sheeting as manure does generate a lot of flies!

I think we can officially say that Elly Belly is just all belly! Her due date has been and gone and still nothing.  We will try again in November but it might mean having a buck here at the farm rather than a drive by quicky! 
We have had several births already at the farm though, not sure how excited we can get over this but the red wigglers are multiplying.
Chicks have already started to arrive, our first batch of meat chickens are nestled very happily in the brood house and they will be out on pasture in a couple of weeks.  We will also see the arrival of our day old egg layers.  This year we are going to be raising Wyndottes.  Turkeys arrive in June and along with the garden I think we can officially say the madness has started at the farm!

Michael has been busy marking out new beds, constructing our new wash stand and base, digging trenches at the east end of the greenhouse and placing insulation into the ground against the base to prevent the frost and drafts going into the greenhouse to help with winter growing, we will eventually do all sides. Our solar pump is now installed and Michael has been dealing with cracked water lines and running new lines as well.  New bee hives have been built and painted and the new pig house is being constructed.  The pigs will be moving to their summer home shortly, to allow us to rest and sow their winter paddock.