As soon as the snow was gone (mostly) Will got out Old Yeller, our trusty John Deere 1010 crawler, and started in grading the site for our new 38×48-foot barn. Luckily, with the foot of early snow last fall that stayed all winter, there was very little frost in the ground and Will could get right to work. We want to grade the site not only level, but also so that the snow melt and rain is directed away from the barn and pens. With huge piles of logs stacked up for the hayloft floor and upright poles, we’re getting excited. But it’ll be a huge job. After a week, the site is looking very good, indeed.

In the meantime, I helped Will split three truckloads of firewood and am stacking it in the woodshed. That’s a lot of wood! And we still have cords more to do, too. What a good feeling to have all that great, dry, split wood already in the shed for next winter. And the spring snow is barely gone. I’ve also started tilling in the garden for the 50 asparagus roots we have coming. And I’ve got two of the raised beds in the house garden spaded up and ready to plant a few salad fixings in pretty soon. Onions go in tomorrow, just in the raised bed, so far. All the pepper plants and tomato plants are transplanted and are growing like weeds. I’ve moved the light above them twice, so far, since transplanting them! Wow, and no aphids! For the last two years, we had an aphid plague, but so far, so good. They are very hard to get rid of! The best way we found was to squish them and rinse them off in the bathtub by tipping the pots on their sides and flushing the plants off under the faucet. But with about 250 plants, it was time consuming when we had to do it every three days!

Spring is so nice. Our goats are due to kid now, the geese, killdeer, and red-winged blackbirds are back and mating. My crocuses are starting to bloom and the daffodils are not far behind. The grass is starting to grow and our fruit trees are budding strongly. We’re extremely excited about our coming year. Getting married in June is pretty nice, too! — Jackie

7 COMMENTS

  1. Sneaky!!! A June wedding will be lovely! I had forgotten all about the falling off the barn episode. It is good you have folks looking out for you guys :)

  4. That is a sneaky way to tell us when you plan to get married. I agree with the “stay off the roof” plan. Don’t want you going down the aisle with a cast on your arm or on crutches.

  5. A June wedding will be so wonderful! Great to see Will’s progress on the barn site. Your excitement is understandable! Agree with Ruth Ann… if it would ever stop raining here we could get the garden going. May have to do it in the rain though. Take care!

  6. So it’s June, how wonderful!! Things will be blooming all around you…..

    That just looks like a huge area, I mean a huge barn….quite the undertaking !

    Ditto what Ruth Ann said, stay off the roof this year and let someone else be the daredevils……

    Your pepper plants look ready to run out to the garden all on their own, LOL……

  7. Jackie: Congratulations on your upcoming wedding. You are so blessed to have a good man to share your life with. I hope you are careful this year and stay off the roof when building this barn. Let someone else climb up there. I live in zone 5 and it has been cold and rainy here in lower Michigan and all I have planted is peas. Need to get some cold weather seeds planted but it needs to quit raining first.
    Blessings Ruth Ann Martin

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