Long weekend

It's been a busy weekend. I don't know where else to start. Today it's humid and about 70-80 degrees Fahrenheit.  Last night we had the wood stove on because it was cold in here! The sudden warm temperature has brought out a lot of flowers today.

Friday on his way home from his sleep tests in New York State, Kevin picked my niece up at the bus station. She came up from Toronto for the weekend to visit the farm. She is 15. I think she had a lot of fun, we did a lot of riding around in the ATV, I tried to show her what I could. She mucked stalls and milked goats, and even saw how cheese was made. We saw a lot of animals on our drives, including a male Partridge impressing a female (NO CAMERA!) and a bunch of Porcupines. She also saw deer, beavers, lots of birds, The Great Blue Herons, etc.

climbing up from the creek

 
Kate and I at the creek

 
One of the Beavers at the lake who swam by us

 
Flowers!

 
The only mushrooms I've found, and I have no idea what it is.

The kids have been spending a lot of time outside and everyone has been enjoying the improving weather in the barnyard. The pastures have all been sealed off and are growing nicely. These pictures were from the kids first day outside, last week.

 
Max and Flav couldn't believe all the kids they had to watch over!

 

The Groundhog made herself known while we were working outside on the weekend. Actually we discovered we have FIVE of them around the house and garden. It should be an interesting spring. 

 

Late last week before the buds broke we cut our Ironwood for our mushroom planting. Normally you use Oak logs but we found out you can also use Ironwood, which we have a ton of, so we thought we'd give it a try. All the logs are cut and ready to be picked up when the mushroom plugs come in May. We have about 20-25 of them. It's a good thing we cut them when we did because the buds have all broken in the past three days.

 

We also got the chicken coop floor finished, and on the weekend my niece helped me move the girls to their new coop. 

A week from today we pick up our first batch of chicks, 10 chickens, 10 turkey's, and four ducklings.

On Monday morning while Kevin and I were having our morning coffee, a bird hit the window under our back porch, which was unusual because we've never had it happen before. We both jumped up to check on the bird and were surprised when we saw him sitting on the deck post - at first we thought "Woodpecker" then we realized he had a red throat.

It was a Yellow-bellied Sap-Sucker! 

It was really neat to see him and thankfully he was fine after sitting there for a couple minutes and he flew away. We saw him later in a tree through our bedroom window. 

We also have two Flickers who have been hanging around the house for two days now.

The soft Maple are budded out and a beautiful sight....

 Monday evening it was nice enough to go and have a beer in the barnyard. I love being able to sit in the evening and have a glass of wine, or a beer, before evening chores, and just sit with the animals and watch them playing. Of course, mostly they jump all over me, climb all over me, kiss me, want to see what I have. And much to my complete surprise, the mosquitoes were out which is not good.

Sammy

Bulrush, Bucket, and Brie (Bulrush is Buckets first kid, three years old) he's a wether now

The best picture I could get of Buckwheat since he was standing right over top of me!

Bean and her buckling

the one and only, Bo!

Guess who? Bulrush

Sammy says "where did all these kids come from?"

The two little girls

Beatrice and Bean

Max & Izzie

Brie looking at Buckwheat

who said that?

Bucket and Butternut

Butternut's little buckling, well big, he's the youngest kid and the biggest of all of them

Even though both Kevin and I are fighting bronchitis right now (he never got rid of it, but started antibiotics yesterday, and I just got it) we took a ride to see if the warmer weather had made the morels pop. It poured rain last night, but it wasn't warm. It's near perfect weather right now, if it rains tonight. This afternoon there were no morels to be found, and actually, no mushrooms period. So it's not time yet.

We did however find some more flowers....

And we managed to bother the geese in our pond in front of the house when we got too close on our walk... 

 

This little guy ran from me and then decided to come back and have a better look... 

 

I had a great recipe to try tonight but I am exhausted. I was surprised at how much the bronchitis knocked Kevin out but now I know why, it's difficult to breath and get air properly. Mine is not as bad as his, so I'm hoping if I'm careful I'll knock it out. We never get sick in the spring, so we are both shocked this is round two for both of us!
 

It's wonderful to see the forest alive again with animals, and new flowers everyday. I look forward to walking everyday to see what else has shown up.

For now I'm going to rest with the dogs for a bit. By the looks of it, Norman is already waiting.