Spring Finally Arrived!

This week has finally yielded temperatures reaching 50 degrees.  Snow is melting, the ground is slowly thawing, and some bulbs are finally pushing perfect green shoots out of the soil.  And in good time, too.  The blower on our outdoor wood boiler gave up the ghost and I threw in the last piece of firewood.

The crocuses are ready to bloom!

I find it amazing that horseradish and chives are resilient enough to push through the ice.  They just don't care!  Yes that horseradish (top picture) is literally growing through an inch and a half to two inches of ice!

I started clearing off the pad for the barn.  There was a shed there a couple years ago, but the snow and ice load collapsed it.  We tore it down, turned it in for scrap, but kept the wooden floor.  The last couple of years, it built up a layer of fallen leaves, pine needles, branches and hickory nuts.  Once that is cleared and as dry as we can expect for this time of year, we can start getting our barn up.

Soon, I'll be able to start working in the garden, particularly starting raised beds of early spring greens and peas....anything that'll withstand a sudden, temporary return of winter.

Otherwise, this time of year is PERFECT for clearing out hedgerows and cutting back anything overgrown.  Everything is either dead or hibernating still, so it is easy to get in and get it cleaned up!  I'm going to have to prioritize, though.  I don't think I can tackle our entire property boundary for prettying up this Spring.

We have to dig our ditches out, channel some drainage, and hopefully get a couple of trees down.  There's also the pens to build for our animals, the garage and shed to clean out, and the hoses to hook back up to their water sources.