May Daze

This is my favorite time of year!!  It is exhausting and overwhelming, but all the green and growing and spring fragrances make me so happy. I wish computers were in smell-o-rama so you could get a whiff of this magnolia.

This summer we are hosting a series of WWOOFers  who already are making me feel more like we may actually be able to handle the demands of this little farm this summer.  Jessica is our first WOOFer/intern, who plans to work with us four days a week the entire summer. She is an accomplished baker (bonus for us!) and eager to learn the ins and outs of farm animals, dairying and gardening. Already she has been invaluable in helping us bake breads and pastries for the Farmers Market.  Here she is, putting a pizza into the wood-fired oven--our traditional supper on Friday bread-baking night.

Sourdough loaves rising.

Jessica’s reflection beams in the  bakery case at Saturday’s market. We sold out two weeks ago at the first market of the summer season, so  increased our production significantly last weekend and still sold out early. So, if you want one of these delicious goodies, better come to market before 10 a.m.!

Yesterday, Mother’s Day, Rog made a wonderful farm breakfast - farm eggs scrambled with garden asparagus and chives, bacon, Rog's sourdough bread, toasted, with Jessica’s  strawberry rhubarb jam, and rhubarb coffeecake.
A great power breakfast for a hard-working Sunday!

Rog hauled in several loads of topsoil to fill in bare areas and bumps in the farmyard, then fenced out the poultry and overseeded with grass. This is where weekend concerts happen and we especially want it to be green and lush for Laurel and Darin’s farm wedding at the end of June.

While Rog worked on the lawn, I transplanted three boxes of Lily of the Valley and Hosta roots my friend Jonya had  thinned from her garden and kindly given to me. Daughter Cadence and I weeded a large section of the greenhouse. And I shoveled many hundreds of pounds of muddy hay and manure from the incredibly deep,  muddy cow feeding area. (Will it ever dry out so we can get some equipment in there?!)

I strung temporary fence in the front yard and moved LaFonda and Jitterbug there all afternoon to mow the grass. Little did they know, the fence was not connected so had no zap to it. Happily, they did not test it.

Probably they just appreciated being in fresh, delicious grass and out of the mud and did not feel the need to go anywhere else.

The bees were busy  hauling in pollen and nectar. You can see the big yellow pollen packs on the back legs of a couple of these bees.

Dandelions and violets have finally popped out, giving the bees plenty of food sources.

Last year, I discovered a nearby ditch totally carpeted in  one of my favorite spring flowers, bloodroot. They are in bloom now, and I dug up some for my wildflower patches. (I hope it is not illegal, but my wildlife expert friend assures me it is not a bad idea to establish new populations.) I only took a few plants and did not make a dent in the ditch flowers.

The nice thing about the gray, rainy weather is that it makes for painless transplanting and prolonged blooming. The bloodroots seem very happy in their new homes. I hope they eventually expand into large drifts.

It has taken six years for the  Virginia bluebells to begin to expand, but now they are beginning to form a carpet of blue in my back yard, just as I hoped.  So many new baby plants, although most won’t bloom this year.  The blossoms should open any day now.

Birds are nesting all over the place! I love seeing the birds flying around carrying nesting materials, grass and twigs trailing behind them. We have wrens in the bluebird house, robin nests on the barn and house, and yesterday I discovered a cardinal nest in the honeysuckle vine that climbs the windmill.  There are two eggs in the cardinal nest so far, blue with brown speckles.

I haven’t found any of their nests yet, but we have a bunch of orioles, rose-breasted grosbeaks and hummingbirds frequenting the feeders.

Such a glorious time of year!!