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Despite some recent crazy weather, including sleet/hail, Spring is definitely in the air!

Baby chickens are growing fast- now about 6 weeks old

and Yellow Chig is keeping a close eye on them

She’s such a sweet old gal. Yesterday I dug back in my photos to figure out how old she is- I was thinking she was probably about 6 or so, but it turns out she’s 8 years old! And still laying the occasional egg. She loves to hang out in the hoophouse and dust bathe in the warm surface soil, and I like to watch her enjoying her retirement. 🙂

In the hoophouse, the seedlings are coming on strong

And on the pasture side, I’ve gotten one sheep sheared. This year, first haircut honors go to Fiona

I even got it all in one go- except for her belly, which will need to be cleaned up later.

And I’m striving to wash as I go, so I don’t have a lot of raw fleece hanging around-

It’s a lovely creamy taupe color. Will be so fun to work with. Had some issues with felting along the mid-back, but those bits, with their curly tips, will make excellent toupees for future sock monkeys!

Not sure who will be next in the beauty salon, but there is a lot of fleece out there on the hoof right now. Check out Esther’s current style-

She’s a walking wool festival!

Have a good week everyone-

Look what I got in the mail the other day!

If you’ve not seen anything quite like it before, it is a “SpeedWeve” type darning loom. With this little guy, you can weave a patch in place right over a hole or a tear in fabric.

So yesterday I dove in gave it a try. Here is the basic procedure:

And there you go! How cool is that?

Love this tiny loom. Such a clever design 🙂

Oh- and since it’s Easter, I thought I’d share some beautiful (naturally) colored eggs

I especially love the rosy brown of the eggs the new little Amberlink girls are laying. So pretty. Happy Spring everyone! 🙂

Hey hey hey! Seed starting is underway! 🙂

3/23 I planted tomatoes (3 varieties) , cukes, broccoli, melons(!), okra, bell peppers, oregano, basil, anise hyssop, and coleus.

They are on heating mats in the hoophouse, and I’ve been covering them with an additional sheet of light plastic overnight. Most of the seed packages indicated germination times of at least 7 days, so I didn’t expect to see any activity this soon, but check it out-

That has me really excited. I’ve decided that I’ll be growing my two types of indeterminate tomatoes (Brad’s Atomic Grape, and HoneyComb hybrid) vertically, using these cool clips that I learned about on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBDqskBk3lQ method demo starts at 7:37)

I’ve got one determinate variety (Principe Borghese, a roma type) and those will probably go in cages, but not sure yet. (Kind of nervous about having wire tomato cages in proximity to hoophouse plastic…..)

The Man got me a big ole bag of clips, so I think I’m going to try the same method with cucumbers and melons (with nylon slings to support melon fruits). In this way, I’ll be able to make the most of the square footage of the soil space in the hoophouse, and hopefully underplant the trellised things with herbs and flowers.

And here are those feed bags I mentioned last week, newly planted with French fingerling and Yukon Gold potatoes.

Feels good to see the plan coming together.

It may be cold and rainy day outside,

But it is a bit spring-y-er in the hoophouse 🙂

Starting to get it all outfitted- moved in my potting bench-

And The Man has fashioned a couple of other work tables out of reclaimed lumber. Really mice and solid.

Hoping to start with the seed sowing by next weekend

And am also putting a plan together for how I’m going to us the planting space inside. Thinking of trellising tomatoes, cukes, and melons to make best use of the square footage.

Also hit upon a neat idea for growing potatoes just the other day- using chicken food bags as grow bags https://the-chicken-chick.com/tater-totes-feed-bag-potato-patch/ So I think we’re going to give that a go this year.

On other fronts, baby chickens are just over three weeks old and entering their “scruffy-looking” stage

And my mountain of Felix rolags has finally completed its transition to about 500 yards of fairly fine two-ply yarn

Will be setting aside this batch for dyeing later on this year- building up my color palette for fairisle projects.

Can hardly wait for good dyeing weather!