Burning Brushpiles

Last night conditions were ideal for burning some of the piles of brush stacked two years ago in the pasture. The beeping sound in the video is an unidentified bird that seemed to be drawn to the fires. If conditions remain good we'll try to get a few more done tonight.

Soil and Sun

After a really long snow season this year, the sun and rain have at last done the job.
Even the deep drifts of snow have finally melted and the gardens have emerged.
A few weeks of warmth is all we need to dry the land out and start farming! But it can always snow again, even until the end of May, so we can't get too excited.
From now until the end of May will determine how the season will begin. If we get a warm and dry few weeks, we can start planting cold hardy crops pretty soon (2 to 3 weeks), if it is cool and wet, we won't be getting going for 4 to 6 weeks.
The ground at this point is supersaturated with melt water as this post hole, dug last fall, indicates
Until the land drys out we can't work on it. But that doesn't mean there isn't a huge pile of work to do.
The two Major Projects we have to get done this spring, besides tilling, amending, planting and cultivating 4 acres of veggies, are:

1. Build the Deer Fence.
This 7 - 8 foot high electric fence will encompass almost the entire field (10 Acres). Thousands of feet in length, with literally miles of electric wire strung on it, this project is going to be a biggie.

2. Build the Harvest/Washing/Processing/Tool Storage/All purpose Pole Barn.
This 30 x 30 pole barn will be located inside the fence and directly adjacent to the gardens. It will consist of a work area that we can wash and pack vegetables, relatively comfortably in, as well as a cool storage room and an area to keep the tools and harvest bins in.

Time to get at it!

Winter returns, again,

Just as the gardens were emerging, once again another dump of snow. This time about 6 inches. Suffice it to say we're not expecting a early spring this year, but then again, we weren't planning on it anyway.

Swallows Return

The return of the swallows is a welcome sign of fair weather ahead. Saturday's predicted snow aside of course!

The Eagle has Landed....The Kubota too

This morning just after breakfast, I looked out and saw a sure sign of spring perched in a tree at the edge of the field.Bald Eagles like this immature one, arrive every year on their migration north to the good fishing grounds on the tens of thousands of inland lakes just a few miles north of our farm. Although the lakes are still frozen the rivers are running and the warm days are making the snow disappear fast!
Just before lunch another spring arrival,

Our new Kubota tractor! This 34 horse 4x4 tractor is just what we need to run our small farm. Thanks to the loader and PTO operated rototiller we'll save a lot of time and our backs this year when we spread amendments/compost and till the almost 4 acres of gardens.
Testing out the tractor here is our good friend Nathan, who gave his seal of approval after his test drive.
Later the tracter cleared an ice dam in the ditch of the township road that was causing some minor flooding. With the kids playing in the water farther up the ditch and I "working" a little ways down from them I realized we were both having fun doing the same thing.
Ah springtime!

April 8th

After last weeks 20" snow fall (On April Fools Day), things have warmed up a bit and the snow is starting to melt once again. Its always a little disheartening when spring gets pushed back by a few weeks, but that's life in NW Ontario. Still, the forecast is for above freezing (+5 to +7) daytime temperatures for the next week, along with strong winds, which should help the melt a bit. Still no double digit temps on the plus side yet, but we're light years ahead of last April's temperatures, so we remain optimistic about this next month.