What a beautiful day here on the farm. The sun is shinging, the birds are singing, and the chickens are rooting among the bluebells. This is absolutely one of my favorite times of year. But this year, it has also felt a bit stressful. Lately things have been so busy, and with the weather being so unncooperative, I have found myself falling further and further behind. But I refuse to let it get me down.
I finally got the nesting boxes put in the hen house, and made a few more improvements to the coop. I planted a beautiful white clematis to climb along the chain linking so as to make the run look a little more charming, and not so ghetto. I'm looking for a style more in line of "Country Charm", not "Grapes of Wrath"....lol
The first of the raised beds has been built, thanks to Xander, my junior farmer in training. I told him since he helped to build it, he could pick what he wanted to plant in it, and he said apples. I encouraged him to think about some carrots, or zucchini instead, but he didn't seem too impressed. I promised him an apple tree at a later date, and even told him he could help pick it out. That seemed to satisfy him for the time being. In the meantime, I did manage to get more cilantro, chives, and peppermint planted.
But the best news of all is that the mess from the fallen barn is almost cleaned up. It's been really time consuming and alot of hard work. Most of the rotten lumber has been hauled off, and now it's down to more detailed cleaning.
We've also done something I thought we would never do. We finally made the move and hired a local lawn and garden service to help get the funny farm back into shape. Over the past few years, certain parts of our suburbian acreage has fallen into neglect and disrepair. The once beautiful beds and landscaping that we had worked so hard on, have become shabby and overgrown with weeds. Things started falling apart during the summer of 2009 when Brad was diagnosed with stomach cancer. At that same time, we had also adopted our first little guy, who was 2 years old at the time, and things were a bit chaotic and disorganized. Well, Brad recovered, but the gardens did not, and little by little with the arrival of the other two little guys, and both of us working full time, the yard and gardens took a back seat and got out of hand. So rather than break our backs, and let it stress us out, we decided to hire someone to help us get it back under control, so we can get back to caring for it ourselves eventually.
And I've never been happier. What a relief and feeling of ease to be able to catch up on my baking and house cleaning, all the while looking out the windows to see my beautiful gardens coming back to life. I refuse to feel guilty about it. How wonderful to be able to play with my boys outside in the sunshine without looking around and feeling that I should be edging or mowing, weeding or pruning. Instead I can spend my free time playing with the boys, chasing chickens with them, and teaching them how to plant a garden. I can sit in the shade and watch them play, and of course, get up and pull the occasional weed. Yes things are looking up.... and life is good on the funny farm.
Until next time, Happy Farming.
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