Spring! Spring! Spring has Sprung!

Horray!  The long winter is over...well mostly (it's going to get cold later this week "they" say)  but it was a gloriously warm Resurrection Sunday yesterday and I'm hopeful!

You know it's spring when there are buds on the trees, you need to do the taxes (ug), can't stay off Craigslist looking at fencing (and animals, and...and...) Your boots start sticking in the mud again....There are baby chicks in the pump house, and baby pepper plants in the homeschool room.  So many things to look forward to! 

Ok. Not a great picture

Spring is a wonderful time to reevaluate hopes and goals.  I love making lists and setting goals and making charts...the follow up I'm not as great with.  I have some new folks that have been checking out the blog (waving to A) and it reminds me that I need to do better at posting all the stuff going on here.  My "everyday" tends to be quite a bit different than most peoples, so...

In anticipation of spring, here are some of the upcoming goals, plans

We did a month-of-nothin in January, that went pretty well for a few weeks and then we had some "stuff" happen that derailed the effort. So trying that again in April!

Fencing.  This is a priority in my mind right now as we have calves coming in May and we want to add pigs in the next month so keeping them actually on the farm is important.

Updating the herdshare paperwork.  With the new calves, we will have new shares coming available and I need to get the information updated and sent out.

Hershey needs to be tested very soon to confirm that she is indeed pregnant.  She is not as big as I would think (but then again, last time there were twins in there!)  If she isn't we can just keep milking her until the twins calve, but if she is, then we need to stop milking pretty quick here. 

I've had at least 4 requests to restart the CSA for this year.  After talking it over with Man, I think I am going to do it again as well as the U-Pick Fall Pumpkin patch (more info on that soon).  We have decided that we will do the big market garden, but also utilize some of our other local growers (the Amish) around us to supplement the baskets when we have a low week.  Last year was a very odd growing season, so I'm hoping by reaching out to others that also have market gardens, we wont have the stress of feeling like we are shortchanging anyone!

You may know that before we started farming, we came very (VERY) close to realizing my dream of opening a scrapbooking bed & breakfast.  I thought that I had squashed that dream, but not really.  I may not be to the point to make that dream a reality, BUT I can start offering classes and crops again on a small scale. Especially faithbooking classes.  So I'm going to wiggle a few of those in (at least once a month) with the "farmy" classes. 

Oh, and BLOGGING!  That needs to be more of a priority.  So more pictures and more writing.

Help keep me accountable!!

Love, Rea