Enjoying Sunday in the Woods

We had a sunny, cool Sunday today. My grape hyaciths are all a-bloom.

My dh helped Aaron hang his bird feeder that he made in woodworking class this year.

The children and I took a walk in the woods this afternoon. Of course, the boys had to bring along sticks which were guns. They were defending the woods against spies I think.

One of the reasons for the walk, besides enjoying the beautiful day and looking for new wildflowers, was to collect violets. I'm going to try to make violet jelly from a recipe a friend gave to me last year. We collected 2 cups of violets. That took us quite a while. I poured boiling water over the violets and they will steep for a couple of days in the refrigerator.

I got a good picture of our Marsh Marigolds. They only bloom for about a week or so and then they are gone.

One of our many fiddlehead ferns coming up.

Back on the homestead, our cherry trees are in full bloom. We saw a bunch of bees swarming over them so we are hopeful of a good cherry harvest.

Today I made a pork stirfry with our asparagus and some carrots. It looked so pretty that I took a picture of our leftovers.

My dh was able to get out his tractor and mow today. So the homestead looks very good right now.

Peas and Potatoes

My dh was able to use the field cultivator that has sat for many a year on his concrete shed pad. He's using it to break up the clods on the south part of the garden. Last year was the first year for this part of the garden and since he didn't have a tractor at that time, we couldn't cultivate it. But this year, we do! We are going to be using this area for vine plants again so we'll till it just before we plant.

We did plant potatoes this afternoon. So now we have the makings for peas and potatoes. In about 7-8 weeks. After lots of weeding and watering. But it is worth it.

We try not to do gardening work on Sundays but up north, you have to take advantage of every warm day of the growing season. You don't get the chance to make up a week of warm weather up here in the tundra.

The warm weather made my daffodils come out in all their glory today.

The chickens enjoyed the day as well. Here two of them are taking a dust bath.

They use their claws to scratch and I finally caught one on film scratching. This is Bearded Lady again. Inside the fence today.

This is a picture of Blackie, Nathan's favorite.

Aaron and Deborah enjoyed Sunday afternoon inside playing with Playdough and making each other laugh.

Come Ski with Me

Last Friday, my dh decided to groom the trails so that I could cross country ski better. And since we had about 12-15 inches of snow on the ground, it was well worth it. This is what it looked like before we started out.

He plowed and groomed while I skied behind him. At first he only had to use the backblade.

But once he got into the woods, he found that he had to plow snow with the plow and use the backblade.

Since the going was a little slower than usual, I was able to take some good winter pictures.


And here is what the trail looked liked when the grooming was complete.

A Snow Day

We got a lot of snow last night. Here's the view out the back window well.

But despite all the snow, it is still a school day for us. Especially since yesterday we took an official sick day and relaxed. Both Nathan and I were sick and/or had no energy. But today we're on the mend.

My dh plowed us out before leaving for work.


I'm trying something new here. This is a video of my dh plowing with his beloved John Deere.

And the two (flocks) shall be as one

This past Thursday, we combined the new flock with the old flock. These Dominiques must be pretty mellow birds because we hardly had any pecking at all and no blood drawn. They seemed to take to their new coop pretty well once we actually got them in it. This new flock hadn't been outside the coop yet and as such, did not want to leave their coop to enter in the old coop. But with much flapping and yelling, we got them where they were to go. And then they wouldn't leave their new coop through the chicken back door. It took a couple of days before some of them were brave enough to go out in the chicken yard. We still haven't seen them go into the woods part of their yard, but I imagine that it will be a matter of time.

So Saturday we cleaned out the south coop. Once again, the tractor proved most valuable.

Here is one of the Araconas that we have. She was brave enough to go outside. We're down to 4 Araconas due to one of them dying this past Friday. We also lost a Dominique. We're not quite sure what they died off. They just stopped eating and didn't want to do anything but stand and sleep. We're hoping that all the rest are healthy.

The piano is here!

Our piano is here! My dh and Nathan and a friend and his son went to pick it up. It was fairly easy to get it out of the seller's house (as easy as moving a 400# piano can be). Then they drove it through light drizzle to our house and went to the back of the house. To get it in the basement, we decided to lower it in the window well and take it in through the large windows in the basement. To get it down in the window well, we used the tractor.

My dh beginning "his pick".

Expertly lifted, don't you think?

The rain held off and we were able to move the piano without having to wrap it in tarps.

Here is the piano positioned near the window well. Now my dh expertly designed our large window well in such a way that we could get large objects in and out of the windows to the basement and that planning paid off in a big way in getting the piano downstairs. The piano and the piano dolly we used fit in the window well with just a few inches all around to spare.

We're beginning to lower the piano down into the window well. I wish I had more pictures of the actual lowering but I had to help guide the piano so it didn't break the window.

We got it down into the well and put it on two boards. Then we rolled it onto the ramps and into the basement.

The final result!

By the way, when the boys weren't helping us, they made up a new game. They tried to catch falling leaves before the leaves touched the ground.

The straight and flat

A couple of weekends ago, we had a lot of sand brought in. We were finally going to fill in the low spots in the trail and try to avoid having standing water on our paths all spring. Here is Stephen standing in the lowest spot.

The children all enjoyed running back and forth on the sand piles.

My dh was in tractor heaven working those piles down and leveling them off.

And the finished product! Now I will be able to cross country ski without worrying about hidden slush under the snow and we will be able to walk in our woods without getting our feet wet.

Catch up Day

I've got to catch you up on some of our activities. It's been a busy week with the start of school and the garden still producing and some great activities in our town. So to start you off, here is a picture of our latest tractor accessory. We're using it for bringing firewood from the woods to our firewood stacks. The children are also enjoying rides in it.

I made an amazing Skillet Barbequed Pork Chops from the Cooks Illustrated magazine last week. It tasted fantastic. And the sauce was amazing.

Nathan saw this bird in our woods. It isn't a good picture since it was taken through the screen and at a high zoom. He is mostly gray with a red V on the back of his head. We've never seen him before. He turns out to be a Northern Flicker.

And I made pickles this past Friday after school. The yellow pickles are watermelon pickles and the red jar is pickled beets.

And last but definitely not least, Aaron is learning to ride his bike without training wheels. He seems to be taking to it pretty well. He's only had a couple of falls so far. We're a little slow on the uptake with bikes since we don't live where a child can bike very far. But once they learn, they have a great mountain biking trail in our woods to train on.

Of Woods and Food

This past weekend was just gorgeous at Cold Feathers Farm. It was sunny and warm, but not too hot or too humid. My dh spent a great deal of the time working on making our trails level. He took a couple of high spots and filled in some low spots. It is a little hard to tell in this picture, but the trail is very level now. Can't wait to try it out during cross country season!

He even put in a culvert to help keep the trail dry.

While the guys were working in the woods, I roasted one of our chickens (looking very much like a turkey here) in our charcoal grill. It tasted very good. I had to look up directions for roasting turkeys since the directions for chickens weren't going to cut it.

I also made a great gazpacho with garlic croutons. It was delicious! I cut the vegetables by hand rather than use the food processor so it was nice and chunky.

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Besides killing chickens yesterday, I spent some time processing pickles, picking wild blackberries, and picking green beans with another family. We're almost finished with the beans now.

Joe spent some of his time working on getting his snow plow attached to the tractor. He wanted to make sure that he had all the parts and knew how to get it on the tractor before there was a foot of snow and the John Deere dealer was closed for the day! And he got it on. Doesn't it look nice?