A New Season

Spring is here!  There is still snow on the wood trails and on the south side of the clearing here but everything is stirring and coming out of hiding.  The pasture has many spiders scurrying here and there.  I have seen a few butterflies or moths out sunning themselves.

I am anxious to hear the Boreal Chorus Frog and the Wood Frog start their mating calls.  Our amphibian book tells me they start in April some time.  I imagine they are not in too much of a rush since there is still a lot of ice in the marsh.  Dan & I noticed a couple of Canada Geese a few weeks ago standing on a frozen marsh and I imagined one irritated saying to the other “I told you it was too early to leave!”  A couple swans let out loud honks as they flew overhead; I have seen & heard a few Robins and the Dark Eyed Junco’s are here in large numbers.

I am also watching to see when the red tailed hawk comes back to nest just north of our house; I have heard a hawk but have not seen it yet.  There should be a lot of food available for them as the field to the east of its nesting site still has standing canola and I imagine a great micro habitat for fat happy mice.  The local farmer has driven his combine to a local canola field and made a few passes to test harvest feasibility.  May be too - wet not sure what the verdict was since the combine is parked at the edge of the field.

It will be a while before we get out in our field - hopefully by the end of April.

I am anxious to get out into the field with the disc we purchased last year and had modified this winter to fit the 3 point hitch on our tractor.  I still have to read the tractor hitch manual and look at a few You Tube videos about discing. The rest of my learning curve will happen when I actually get out in the field.  

I have planted some flats with onions, tomatoes, peppers and herbs.  The tomatoes need to be transplanted already. I am not in too much of a rush to plant flats since we transfer these flats out of the house to cold frames during the day and back in at night.  The end of this week I am scheduled to plant 30 flats so everything will have to stay outside with heaters and thermal row cover during the night.  It will be a blessing to have our permanent greenhouse built this summer.

This growing season we are planting a full acre of vegetables.  We will be doing tailgate sales in Grimshaw and Manning once a week.  We will be in Peace River every Saturday doing tailgate sales one week and the farmers market the next week.  It will be a very busy season and we are still looking for a summer assistant to help us with the workload.  Having an extra set of hands will also help us complete the greenhouse and get the orchard fence and trees planted this year. 

I have ordered heritage chickens from the University of Alberta again this year, hopefully we do not get as many roosters as we did last year.  We have decided to overwinter laying hens this year so we will have a constant supply of fresh eggs.