Friday in March

I don't have much time to write, I have a lesson with Oakley in just over an hour.

A few updates:

The sap from our silver maple was finally flowing, but we think we missed the main run, so we'll be lucky to get much syrup out of what we collected.

The bees are flying all over the farm looking for water and pollen.  They are even trying to gather dust from chicken feed because apparently they think these types of things look like pollen.  So the advice I read was at this time of year do NOT do any work on pressure treated wood, because the sawdust would be toxic to the hive if the bees brought it back thinking it was pollen.

G did some work int he main veggie garden last weekend when it got up to 19 C.  I spent the day cleaning animal enclosures. Typical. I can't believe all of the perrenials that are already coming back.

Zane had to go back to the vet and continue on medications that make him less itchy. His hair is growing back slowly and he's looking handsome and more like a collie.  I'm watching a little spot on his nose to see if he has anything that resembles lupus. Crossing fingers.

Our pond thawed and G put the aerator on.  The stench that came off of it was rather like sewage.  I was thinking that would happen... I hadn't removed all of the dying vegetation after the weather turned cold, so I figured that now we'd have really poor water quality.  What I wasn't expecting was all of the dead decomposing frogs.  I'm thinking that the pond just wasn't deep enough, and it probably froze all the way through, and the frogs didn't get deep enough into the mud. 

I've been trying to grow wheat fodder for the chickens. Still working on a few problems. One of my three first flats went moldy.  Hopefully I will get it all sorted out.

We grew tabasco peppers last year. G dried them. After that he stored them in a jar of vinegar in the fridge.  A few weeks ago I got up on a lovely Saturday morning and heard him coughing and choking.  He'd been blending them in the food processor to make tabasco sauce.  Essentially he pepper sprayed himself, and as soon as I approached a 6 foot perimeter of the kitchen, I started hacking and coughing too. I opened as many windows and doors as I could because I was pretty worried about our indoor birds. So let that be a lesson to you.  When blending or grinding peppers, consider wearing goggles and a mask!

I might have to check the long term forecast and move up our sheep shearing date. With full heavy fleece I don't think they will be very comfortable if we constantly get temperatures in the teens. Problem is, it's still getting to below freezing at night.  

Henry:

Well that's it for now. I have a very hairy horse to get ready.  The shedding has begun.