Little pink daisies with morning dew

I've been celebrating spring's emergence since the first buds pushed their way free of the soil. Winter scoffed, rain poured, and the changing of seasons began fitfully. More than a month later, the farm is riotous with blossoms and new growth. Spring is in full swing.

The nettles that I harvested for soup are now taller than waist-height, and the blackberries have fully woken from their slumber. The grass grows in earnest, interspersed with dandelions, little pink daisies, and curling fronds of vicia hirsuta (tiny vetch).

Bartlett pear flowers

Grape hyacinths have been blossoming for almost a month, and the salmonberry blooms have long-since suggested the spawning of salmon. Tulips, daffodils and cherries have long-since opened their petals to the sun, while the cherry plum blossoms have scattered. The forsythia's yellow blossoms are fading as the Frost Peaches and Bartlett Pears come jubilantly into bloom.

In the alder bog, skunk cabbage's throne is being usurped — or at least contested — by the hasty ascendance of bracken fern and horsetails. The bog is becoming nigh-impossible to traverse without pushing through the underbrush.

A ladybug celebrates the coming of spring

As splendor erupts all around, we continue our preparations. More cherry trees have been planted — their green leaves before planting scold us for our tardiness, but they seem undaunted and vigorous. My Dad paid us a visit and planted a bed of rhubarb (our future holds many delicious pies). Bulbs for irises, lilies, and gladiolas have been buried to prolong spring's magic, while vegetable seeds and tubers for the coming seasons have been sown and buried.

Blackberry leaf after rainfall

Tonight when we went to feed the horses, one of the horses didn't come eagerly trotting to his stall. In fact, our beloved "old man" pony was nowhere to be seen. We became worried, and prepared for a search party. He could have been injured, or sick, or escaped.

Fortunately, my headlamp caught his eyes glinting maybe a hundred meters away, on the outskirts of a large bramble. I plodded up the hill to where he stood, thinking at first that he was hoping for breakfast in bed. Nope! He'd been snared by my perennial nemesis, the Himalaya blackberry. A cane had looped itself around his leg, and he found himself unable to get free. He kept remarkably calm — many horses would have been having a fit — and allowed me to lift his leg to free him. Then he took off at a run for the meal he was worried he'd miss.

Even though this story has a happy ending, the moral remains: The only good blackberry is a dead blackberry. Or a blackberry that you happen to be eating. Those are especially good.

Golden Wyandotte Pullet

We've been raising a covey of chickens since early February. They're nearly two months old now, and getting ready to join the fully-grown hens in the coop. Our rough guideline for their graduation is "When they stop making cute little bird noises and start sounding like chickens." Some of them are sounding like proper chickens now, and they'll start laying within the next few months — including beautiful blue and green eggs from the Araucanas. I can't wait!

As you can see, we took some chicken mug shots. Click on the picture above to see the gallery, or any of the images below for a larger version. Or just click here for the gallery.