We are doing well in the fields.

Wow! I am loving this spring. I don't even know where to start. Andy fashioned a rack that Shiela (aka mom) and I can mount on our Gator and now one person can easily install the drip tape. It used to take two people and much grumbling. Now we only have to park our Gator at the end of the bed to be planted, grab the ends of the two or three tapes, walk the 200 feet length of each bed, and secure the tapes with staples. In about one third the time as before we are all hooked into the irrigation system and can begin to "plug" our plants into the field. We are having so much fun planting your stuff this year! I can't wait to show you the results...

Shiela planted all of our cabbages today. The broccoli and lettuce are in the field and looking quite good. Ethan had taken some photos of the crops last night, but the ran the batteries of juice. I expect to post the photos here tomorrow.

Things live in our greenhouse...

Mom has transplanted our tomatoes out of their seedling trays and into cells with room for good root growth. They are living in our greenhouse! Finally I don't have a basement filled with tender sprouts that our cat loves to dig up. Today mom and I were checking out the greenhouse climate. It was almost 80 degrees in there. Not bad for a passive solar greenhouse. We looked out the window and outside snow was blowing sideways! Crazy stuff.

The peas have sprouted. Yahoo. This weekend we might be able to get some fencing on them. They need to be far enough out of the ground for us to be able to see the entire row. We will see.

Last weekend Andy taught me how to drive our "new" skidloader. I am not quite sure that it won't fall apart when I try to use it, but Andy assures me that I can't really hurt it. I might fall apart, but he can fix it - probably. I did manage to pick up a pretty big rock and relocate it to a place that might help to define our traffic areas. I will work on this more in the next few weeks. I will keep you updated on that endeavor.

Field work already?

Yesterday was such a perfect day the I couldn't resist the call of the great outdoors. Mom has a cold and has been staying home to try to get over it faster, so Ethan and I headed to the greenhouse. We hooked up hoses to begin watering our plants more efficiently than we can over the winter. Our well set up freezes during cold spells, so in the fall we filled a black plastic barrel with water and put it in the greenhouse. We dipped out of that with watering cans through the cold days. Now we can use a hose with a nice water breaker that plants seems to love almost as much as rain. I have missed that piece of equipment.

While we were poking around our shed we watched a Mourning Cloak butterfly warm itself in the sun and get a drink from a wet area on the ground. I tried to take some photographs, bt Ethan got really excited and scared it away. On our way up to lunch, we dicovered about six Pine Siskins hanging upside down in our pine trees. I just love the diversity of early spring.

I checked on the peas to see if they had sprouted yet. No. They need a few more days. I peeked on the garlic that Shiela planted last fall, and found a few spring weeds. Thirty minutes and one cranky preschooler later, the weeds were chased away.