The weather has just been crazy - 70 degrees one week and in the 20s and 30s the next with snow! Those warm balmy days had us outside working away. We built a new compost corral to start utilizing all our resources to create some “black gold” for our garden and flowerbeds. Four fence posts, some rough-cut lumber and old tin from the barn roof and we were ready. We made it wide enough we could get our skid-steer loader inside it to stir and load.

 

Our first ingredient was 30 garbage bags of chopped leaves. I saw piles of garbage bags piled up on a street curb in town a few months ago and stopped to ask the owner of the home if the bags were full of leaves. To my delight they were! They had mowed and bagged them for the city to collect and they were happy for me to take them instead. Since we have a barn and corral filled with cow manure, that was our second ingredient for the compost bin. We’ll add coffee grounds, produce scraps, grass clippings and whatever else I can scrounge up to throw in it for it to start “cooking.”

 

I went to an estate sale with my cousins and found seven shepherd hook garden stakes for $1 each and an oval tin tub full of iris for $8! I’ve scattered the garden stakes around the yard to hang plants, hummingbird feeders (next month) and windchimes. The bluebirds love the stakes, perching on them to watch for worms on the ground. I added the iris to an iris bed I had started along the edge of the pond and can’t wait to see what color they are.

 

Our little “peeps” have arrived and they’re so cute! It’s kind of crazy having 15 little chicks peeping around in the henhouse in their barricaded area. They’re going to be everywhere before long! It will be this fall before they should start laying.

 

I have fond memories of my Grandfather Davis, “Pepa”, bringing home morel mushrooms from his farm and “Mema” cooking them up. This was always a special treat when we were there visiting - I think maybe we showed up for dinner when we knew he’d had a good mushroom haul!

 

Anyway, I’ve been reading up on morels and with 400 acres to scout, I’ve been doing my research on where to find these tasty little treats. I’ve gleaned that dead elms are a favorite growing spot, along with Sycamore trees, and many other possibilities. I also wondered if you picked them all, how would they come back? You’re supposed to collect them in a mesh-type bag (I’m going to use our scuba diving mesh goody bags) so that the spores can drop off the mushrooms as you walk through the woods, thus re-populating them. Some people said to give them a good shake where you find them to deposit spores before collecting them. Walking sticks and tick spray were also high on the list. They usually start popping up the last week of March through April so I’m armed and ready! I’ll let you know what I find. There’s several good websites dedicated to this annual spring “sport” called “land fishing.”

 

Help our little bluebirds by putting up bluebird houses for them this month. If we could just keep those nasty bull sparrows from building in them! Our population is growing and I just love watching them.

 

We had decided to convert one of our small hay fields and to plant clover for our honeybees. We caught one day following a rain when there was no wind in sight so we called in for our burn permit and within hours had the field burned off. We had disced around the edges and had equipment ready in case it tried to get away. We got our clover sowed and dragged in and it has rained all week since so it should start growing. The bees are already out busy on the first blooming trees and flowers.

 

That’s all for now! Check back in a few weeks to see what’s new on the farm.

 

Jamie