I think I smelled Spring!

Oh man, Vicky and I went for a walk today and as we were walking up the road I told her I thought I smelled Spring.  What a wonderful aroma that is.  An earthy fragrance, that if it could be duplicated, could make an incredible room freshener.  It seems so good to have the weather slowly getting warmer.  I don't remember a winter like this ever and we STILL have snow on the ground in a lot of the garden areas.  I was hoping to get a few early veggies in the ground soon under our row covers, but I may have to shovel snow to get them in!  Up on the hill, where the blueberries are it's much better, drier and most of the snow is gone from the south facing slope.  The strawberries?  Still covered with snow.  Happy to say that all three bee hives survived the winter.  Now is a very important time to feed them some sugar water just to make sure they have enough to eat as the queen is starting to lay eggs and all the new brood will be hatching soon.  The bees really need to be looked after this time of year. A lot of times you think you got them through the winter, but now is the time they will start eating the honey reserves in the hive more then during the colder months as they begin to come to life and start getting ready for Spring and if they eat up all the reserve and you aren't feeding them anything and there is certainly nothing blooming right now for them..it's bye bye bees.

We have such a great variety of veggies we're planting this year, we can't wait.  Many heirloom varieties of vegetables will be grown.  We have become a country that is so force-fed by the industrial food complex, that we have almost forgotten what a real tomato or carrot tastes like.  If you haven't experienced trying some of the multitude of heirloom or different varieties, instead of the one or two you find in the supermarket, you're in for a treat when you do!

We have ordered our first batch of meat chickens.  We'll start with 100 on April 7.  They should be ready for the table by the first or second week of June.  When they're done we'll start another 100. Hopefully we'll have plenty for sale from June through the end of the year.

Vicky's got many of our early vegetables already growing inside.  I'm excited to get stuff in the ground!!

Steve