SPRING!!!!!!

I don't know about you, but we sure are glad that spring has arrived!  Although we've had a very mild winter, it is simply divine to be able to open the windows during the day.  We can see the green grass, smell the earth thawing out and hear the birds chirping away as they build their nests.  The sky is bright blue, the clouds are puffy and there is just a little bit of snow on the cap of Mt. Dominion (i.e. the mountain just northeast of us).  Old timers around here say that it's safe to plant your garden when all of the snow is off Dominion and the swallows fly home.  Check and check.  Yippee!  Of course, we're only planting cold crops now (potatoes, onions, carrots, beets, etc.), but my mouth can already taste the fresh veggies we'll be enjoying in the coming months.  I found a great recipe book a few years ago called The Garden-Fresh Vegetable Cookbook by Andrea Chesman.  If you ever see it, I would highly recommend that you grab it (and by grab I mean pay for it).  She breaks the book into sections according to harvest time (i.e. spring, early summer, mid-summer, etc.), and then has a chapter on many common vegetables harvested at that time.  Each chapter gives a history of the vegetable, planting & harvesting tips, cooking times and the math of each veggie (i.e. 1 lb. of fresh cucumbers equals about 4 cups of sliced or cubed cukes).  Of course, the author provides recipes for each vegetable as well.  I'm sure that there are other wonderful vegetable cookbooks out there - if you know of any, please share them with us.

Anyway, back to life at Stonehouse Farm.  The snow is almost off Dominion, and Annabel is learning that it can be loads of fun to tend a vegetable garden.  What's not to love?  Digging in dirt, throwing tiny seeds in the ground ("No, Annabel, you can't eat them yet.  Yes, you can eat them later - much later!!"), and playing with water.

 

The other sure indication that spring is here is the arrival of our lambs!!  We have had 11 lambs so far (6 rams, 5 ewes), and each and every one is mainly black with varying degrees of white accents.  We each have our favorites - mine is Peter Pan (a lively and adventurous ram) and Jordan's is Tink (short for Tinkerbell, one of our little ewes).  In case you hadn't guessed, we're naming this year's crop of lambs after character's in J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan.  There is one remaining ewe that is pregnant, and we are eagerly awaiting this last lamb(s).

All of the lambs are allowed out in the pasture now, and below is a photo of many of them with their moms.  It is incredibly entertaining to watch the lambs frolic and leap around the meadow.  We all find ourselves simply staring out the window for minutes at a time enjoying their play.

Lastly, as you may have noticed in the photo above, the sheep got sheared over the weekend.  With our warm days (and even warmer ones coming), it was definitely time to relieve the sheep of their rather heavy, stifling outer coats.  Below are some photos of our biggest sheep, Bobbi, before and after she was sheared.  For those of you who are unversed in the sheep world, Bobbi's look in the after photo is a cross between relief and indignation!

May you all enjoy a happy and healthy spring!