Springing to life

 Sunday March 20th will mark the official start of spring.  I spent most of the day Friday cleaning up around the farm.  I gathered up all of the electric fence from winter.  This little hen decided to come closer for a look.

 The next project was cleaning up the hop yard.  With all of the warm weather lately, they are up and off to an awesome start.  I'll get the strings up next week and do some pruning, maybe even try some pickled hop sprouts.  They are supposed to taste like asparagus.

 The laying hens had to investigate my work on the hop yard.  They were excited to get some of the smaller shoots as well as the worms that came out with the roots on the weeds.

Coloring some eggs was the next order of business.  These are our brown eggs and they turn out with some beautiful, rich, pastel colors.  Only $3.00 per dozen!

 

Daniel found this cocoon and it was all I could do to keep him from cutting it open!

I finished the day reading about the Rose Hive Method.  It's a unique way of raising bees that bucks current trends.  I'm planning on giving it a try and simply raising the bees for their own sake, at least for the first year or two.  It's a fascinating approach that works more naturally with the bees rather than manipulating them for gain, honey or other wise.

Other works on the farm include building a egg-mobile, getting our pastured poultry started for 2016, and planning out the garden.  I also have a pretty lofty goal of developing a clone Chartreuse using homegrown herbs.  Of course pictures will follow - here.