Mothers and Others - Miscellaneous Tidbits

When I came downstairs Sunday morning , Cadence had created a lovely Mother's Day bouquet from flowers blooming on our farm. So sweet. However, we are all nurturing so many critters and plants right now, I think we all deserve to be recognized for mothering this year!

This Mother Day was special because Rog's mom, Ruth, is visiting from Oregon. It's her first visit to the farm, and she seems to be enjoying the gardening, the bird-watching and the baby animals.

Rueben, the Jersey calf, has grown a lot and now drinks from a pail rather than a bottle. He has to look up from the bucket frequently so he doesn't miss anything, milk dribbling down his chin. He has the beginning nubs of little horns starting to come through.

The black runner ducks are huge! Not full-grown yet, of course, but they have tripled in size and their body shape has changed to look more like an adult. They are still living with the little bantam chicken (peeking into the bottom right in photo)that came as our bonus exotic chick with Cadence's hundred heavy-body broilers. That chicken thinks he's a duck.

The blubells I transplanted from Flo's yard are thriving...but they are no longer blue! They turned vivid pink. Maybe the shock of being moved? The acidity of the soil? Leprechauns playing a joke? My friend Judy gave me a few more bluebells from her yard this week and she can vouch that these were definitely blue. We'll see what happens this time.

It's finally reliably warm enough that Rog helped me move the little greenhouse from the basement (where it held seed starts under lights) outside to the patio.

The plants seem to be happy to have real sunlight -the tomatoes and the gourds are doing great!

Cadence has finished drywalling , taping and mudding the ceiling of the granary. We still need to install windows, a floor, and any civilized amenities(water electricity), but she and our dog Nutmeg have begun sleeping out there.

We have all been working very hard, but still manage to find time now and then to just enjoy the farm

and the warm spring days.