Just a quick follow-up to my last post…
All of those April showers finally brought me some May flowers! The tulips are in their full glory now and I absolutely adore them. What a beautiful way to kick off the gardening season.
Wherever you live, I hope your spring days are brimming with color too!
–Lynell
Despite the continuing cold temperatures, spring has sprung around here and my tulips are ready to delight me with color. It is just the start of the spring flower show and I could not be more ready.
I just snapped this picture with my iPhone 5s as I was strolling around the yard this evening, all bundled up. Temperatures were only in the high 40’s today. Things are looking up for the weekend though.
I hope you are enjoying some spring color in your neck of the woods!
–Lynell
This weekend was not exactly balmy, but it was warm enough to continue melting the snow. What a difference a week makes during spring in Minnesota! It was only 9 days ago when we were dumped on and school was canceled because of all the snow. (See my last post). Besides a few random piles here and there, all the snow is now gone. Hooray! (It is Minnesota though and more snow over the next month is a definite possibility).
Last weekend our vegetable garden had a foot of snow covering it. Today? No snow in sight and the rhubarb is even peeking out of the soggy soil.
The chickens were finally able to escape the coop and do some free-ranging after a long winter. They headed for a dirt pile that we have and got busy scratching and doing whatever it is that chickens do.
The warmer temps allowed us to get outside and start working on all those spring chores. I spent a lot of time walking around with my garden shears and cutting back various plants, like the Annabelle Hydrangea along the pole shed…
…And the ornamental grass, Sedum, coneflower, and miniature Joe Pye weed along the granary.
Jesse helped me clean up our raised beds with strawberries and blueberries. We raked out the dead leaves, pulled some random weeds, and raked up some pine needles to freshen up the mulch. This will be our third season with the blueberry plants and we are hoping that some of the big bushes finally produce a good amount of fruit.
We also found time to prepare for our baby chicks that are due to arrive some time at the end of next week. They will be inside the house in this box for the first five days so that we can keep an eye on them and make sure to keep them warm and drinking water.
Jesse also cleaned out the brood boxes for his beehives and they are all ready for the new bees. We are not exactly sure when to expect them, but likely at the end of April.
Spring is definitely rolling along here in Minnesota and we could not be happier. 🙂
–Lynell
Our progress towards spring suffered a setback last night, as we awoke to around 8-9 inches of fresh snow. School was canceled and we once again face the task of clearing and piling snow. Ugh! 
As discouraging as it is to see, with temperatures forecasted to reach into the 50’s and 60’s next week, we know this scene is only temporary.
I decided to step out on to the porch this afternoon to capture a few pictures of the white stuff. One of the things I enjoy about blogging, and one of the primary reasons I do it, is that it allows me to document events like this from year to year. I always find it interesting to look back at pictures from earlier years to see evidence of late snowfalls and later proof that spring and summer eventually do arrive. Last year, we received a big snow fall on April 18th. A week later I posted and shared pictures of the dramatic changes that can occur in Minnesota during the spring time over a short period. (See the post here).
Below is a shot from our porch towards the river. Grudgingly, I must admit that it is a pretty sight today.
Nonetheless, I am hoping that it looks very different by next week. I am SO ready for winter to move along so that I can get outside and into my gardens. Spring cannot come soon enough!
I hope spring has arrived in your neck of the woods!
–Lynell
Filed under Miscellaneous, Outbuildings
We are loving spring around the farm. We are getting in the gardens, raking the leaves out and tilling up the soil. My Star Magnolia tree is bursting with its showy blooms.
It is such a beautiful sight. I love this magnolia tree.
-Lynell
Filed under Daily life, Flower, Gardens
Last Friday we received about a foot of heavy wet snow. It was depressing and everyone was complaining and crabby, including me. It felt like spring would never arrive. April has been a strange and very snowy month.
One week later and it looks like this…
Yes, I think spring has finally arrived. The last two days we have enjoyed temperatures in the low 70’s. It is not expected to last all week, but it sure has helped to melt the snow and get spring kicked into gear.
Last weekend, when it was still cold, we hosted a smoking party at our house. Jesse was going to fire up the smokehouse while the temperatures were still cool with the snow on the ground, so he invited friends to bring over anything they wanted to smoke. We had a real assortment of good stuff: almonds, peanuts, cheese, cheese curds, leg of lamb, pork chops, pork roasts, ribs, and chickens. Once the smokehouse was loaded up, we enjoyed chatting and having some beverages while we waited for the smokehouse to work its cold-smoking magic.
We also started cooking sap to make maple syrup the same day. The sap ran very late this year due to the crazy spring. We were not sure if it would run at all, but the trees finally started dripping and actually produced a lot of sap.
Jesse found this stainless steel pan at a restaurant equipment store and it works great on our outdoor stove to cook the sap. It has a lot of surface area to help with evaporation and to cook the sap down faster. The sap looks just like water when you first collect it from the tree to start cooking.
As it cooks longer, it starts to brown up and begins to have a sweet caramel-like aroma. We cooked down enough sap last weekend to make one gallon of syrup.
This past Thursday evening Jesse fired up the stove once again and cooked down the rest of the sap overnight. In total, we ended up with two gallons of syrup. Yum!
Yes, spring is here. The birds have been singing, the geese are honking, and the frogs have awoken and are singing their lovely spring song.
All varieties of wildlife are on the move. During the day yesterday, I was working at home and as I glanced up from the file I was reading, I noticed these turkeys come walking past the back of the barn and headed towards the river. I grabbed my camera and snapped a few shots.
We joke sometimes about living in a nature preserve. I guess we have the river to thank for the wide array of wildlife we get to see and/or hear (the owls hooting at night are my favorite) on a daily basis.
Along with the melting snow comes spring flooding. The water has risen rapidly in the last two days and the river is overflowing.
We spent yesterday evening and today outside enjoying the warm temperatures by starting our spring cleanup. I cut down any perennials that stood through the winter and raked all the leaves out of the gardens.
Tired of the chickens coming up by the house and digging in the dirt of my perennial garden, we decided to lock them in the vegetable garden fence today to enjoy the sunshine. Ironically, we built this very fence in part, to keep the chickens out of the vegetable garden. They loved kicking around the bit of straw, pecking at the grass, and digging in the dirt all day.
Underneath the piles of leaves I discovered some flowers eager to get growing. These tulips had obviously decided that spring was here, despite the foot of snow we received just a week ago.
Likewise, the peonies are bursting out of the ground. I love peonies so much. They remind me of my grandma.
Our old girl was out soaking up the sunshine today too. I love her an awful lot too.
The beehives are sitting empty across the field awaiting their new residents. We ordered two nucs of bees that should arrive in about 10 days. The nucs contain some frames of brood and a queen, so they are already somewhat established. Since we are starting over again after a year of bee-keeping drama (swarming, robbing, etc.), it will be nice to have the hives get up and running quickly.
So, after a very long winter, it seems as though spring has arrived. Finally.
There may likely be a few more bumps along the way, but we are definitely headed in the right direction.
–Lynell
Filed under Daily life, Food, Maple Syrup, Miscellaneous
Spring is slow to arrive this year. We finally got outside yesterday afternoon to work in the yard a bit and to roast some hot dogs in our fire pit.
My mini-greenhouses are waiting patiently for some warmer temps to get the seeds going. I peeked in them and saw that the kale seeds have already sprouted!
The chickens enjoyed their first day outside free-ranging.
Our vegetable garden is a sad sight. Last year we were already in the garden tilling by mid-March.
The frost has not gone out of the ground yet, so in addition to the remaining snow, standing water is scattered all over the grounds.
Everything is brown and drab.
Wildlife is on the move though. We noticed hundreds of robins out in our hayfield and in the trees over the weekend. Geese were honking down by the river and a few flew right through the yard headed in that direction.
We also noticed some strange-looking birds down by the river. I didn’t have my telephoto lens on the camera, so I snapped a few photos and zoomed in on the images once I uploaded them to the computer. It took me some time searching through images to identify these crazy looking birds, but I finally did…Hooded Merganser. We have never seen them around here, or at least we have never noticed them before.
The bird identification site had this to say about the Hooded Merganser:
“Hooded” is something of an understatement for this extravagantly crested little duck. Adult males are a sight to behold, with sharp black-and-white patterns set off by chestnut flanks. Females get their own distinctive elegance from their cinnamon crest. Hooded Mergansers are fairly common on small ponds and rivers, where they dive for fish, crayfish, and other food, seizing it in their thin, serrated bills. They nest in tree cavities; the ducklings depart with a bold leap to the forest floor when only one day old.
Filed under Daily life, Miscellaneous
March has been unseasonably warm so far this year (although it sounds as though temperatures are expected to return to normal by the weekend). With temperatures sneaking into the 60’s several days already, the snow has completely melted and signs of spring are everywhere. Generally speaking, I welcome the signs of spring. It means that soon I will be back in my flower and vegetable gardens.
Over the weekend I found this little gem in the flower garden in front of the house. It was such a sweet surprise and reminder of spring. This lone violet was the first sign of life in my perennial garden.
The last few warm days have brought other perennials out from their winter sleep. Seedum and Ajuga intertwine here.
A volunteer Lamium plant also has greened up under the shrubs by the house.
Even the vegetable garden is showing signs of life. The rhubarb plants broke through the ground in the last few days. I think their appearance is premature and I’m a little worried about how they will fare when the cold weather returns this weekend. They are tough plants though and will likely recover quickly from any setbacks.
Along with the lovely perennial plants and vegetables, some unwelcome signs of spring have also appeared. DANDELIONS are already popping up all over. This Stella de’Oro daylilly is fighting for space with this huge dandelion.
Dandelions and grass have also showed up among my peonies. I am not opposed to using herbicides on these rogue weeds and hope to eliminate them before the flower plants get much bigger. It is time to get out the Roundup and blast these pesky weeds. I need to wait for a calm day, however, so I don’t kill my flowers.
And this weed…it is all over in my bed of peonies and I’m not sure what it is. It used to grow in abundance in the cow pastures when I was growing up, but I don’t know the technical name. Any ideas? It also needs to go.
Spring time also brings a reminder that we have a dog. Our dear Sofie, that we enjoy in so many ways, definitely manages to leave her mark from her quick trips outside the house during the cold winter months.
In contrast to the healthy green lawn that she graces above, is the spotted lawn that appears every spring. This spring is no different, and we will need to re-seed these areas.
The weeds popping up all over and the dead spots in the lawn are the frustrating signs of spring. But my excitement over the perennial flowers and vegetables that are appearing easily outweighs these irritations. I am ready to get in the dirt and start gardening. Unfortunately, it is only March!
Filed under Daily life, Gardens
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