The beige time of year: It's not boring.

This beige time of year can be a little dreary visually, except that migration is in full swing and it's exciting to hear new birds returning every day, multiple times a day. It's so loud in the mornings due to bird song it reminds us of the tropics, and when the sandhill cranes ly overhead with their deafening contact calls, it's easy to imagine we are living in Jurassic Park.

The weekend went too quickly as usual, but G got a few important tasks accomplished.

He moved the hops from the chicken palace area to the west side of the pole barn.  He will have to put up cables for them when they start to put on some growth, otherwise they might just reach out and grab our sheep while they sleep...Hops are one of those crazy plants that could take over the world, I'm sure of it.

We had a major rain event this week, and I just managed to get some sheep and horse pastures overseeded before the rain came down too hard and I was covered in seed and it was time to quit. Hopefully the rain helped drive the seed in rather than just washing it all away. Time will tell.

Since we knew a rain system was coming our way he made sure the pond outflow channel was clear, and redesigned it a bit based on our observations (some catastrophic failures) from last year. 

The pond rose about two feet overnight!

Dabbling in outflow

Poplars in outflow swale--all from cuttings, only planted last year and they got huge!

Middle Field pond is full too. 

G dug a new swale out by the chicken palace between the pocket pond and an uphill swale, both were already planted with seaberry last year, and he planted willows in the new one.

After just one rain event it's full, there is another swale uphill from this, and the pocket pond filled downhill from this too.

Beside the horse paddock where we used to have the manure compost area he and a few helper hens transplanted some raspberries from the veggie garden.  They take up too much space there.  In this spot they will be much easier to harvest as well.

The silver maple was buzzing with thousands of our bees the other day.  The pale yellow-green pollen is some of the first of the year, and the bees are desperate for it.

You can see the one bee with the pollen on her legs. This is a winter patty, not a pollen patty.

Glenn has taken grape and willow cuttings to start in our kitchen window, and I planted 12 elderberry cuttings in pots, hopefully to plant on the east side of the chicken palace.  In the hot summer the chooks won't range out very far if they don't have proper shade and raptor cover.  Elderberry are the perfect plants!  I planted a few of them in that spot last year but they didn't take off as fast as I'd hoped, mostly because I forgot to keep watering them. One of these days we will put a cistern and gutters on the chook palace so we always have water there and I won't have to carry it from the barn or run 100' of hose or more. 

Glenn is starting lotus seeds to plant in the pond. We will have to do some pretty fancy duck exclusion to keep them from being eaten.

So after a few weeks of warm (and hot) temperatures that started the horses shedding like crazy, we have had several blizzards in the last few days.  March is never predictable.  Don't put away your parka, and don't take your snow tires off. 

Animal updates:

Starburst's tail finally fell off! (she had nerve damage on the distal 3-4 inches so it needed to be banded)   I did a quick search for it but couldn't find it. Gross. 

Oakley had a squishy mass on his belly the other day, and it felt like no other mass I've felt, like memory foam.  So since I wanted his lungs checked anyway I called the vet and he came out the next day.  I'm glad he did, because we ended up chatting about some of the physical and behavioural changes I've noticed in the last few months.  We took a blood sample to run a general panel for some more recent baseline values.  What came back was a bit confusing.  Low liver values, and low globulins. Makes no sense. If he has Cushing's disease (a common disease in some breeds especially, that usually presents between 15-23 years of age) his liver values should be elevated.  So yesterday the vet came by again and took another blood sample to check for Cushing's.  I won't know the results for another three days. I'll try not to think about it....

Next time I post there won't be so many beige photos.