Spring Happenings

Chickens snacking on a giant weed clump from my garden

 

Since I haven't been blogging much this spring, you've missed a lot.  For one thing, we lost that beautiful red hen in the last post.  I went outside one day and noticed she was looking a little off.  The next day she was worse.  Not knowing much about chicken disorders, I decided she might be egg-bound, a condition where an egg gets stuck inside the reproductive tract.  Sometimes the egg breaks, which then leads to a fatal infection.  Following the advice of Dr. Google, I gave her a warm bath in a storage tote, and applied glycerin to her cloaca.  It looks like she did pass an egg after that - a very calcified egg and a lot of liquid appeared inside the coop - but she died that night anyway.  It was very sad.  Since we now only had five I decided to just keep them all.  I wanted only four but didn't want to sell one all by herself.  So now we are swimming in eggs! 

Colorful tulip display in the former home garden bed



One of my favorite bulbs from the former owner's bulb garden

On a brighter note, we've had a beautiful spring for flowers.  Clematis, irises, and a few late tulips are blooming in my yard right now.  We had quite a few tulips this year, thanks to two years (make that three now) of free tulip bulbs courtesy of the landscapers at N's employer.  Every year they discard the tulip bulbs after they're done blooming and N brings them home for me.  There's quite a variety of colors now - yellow, orange, pink, purple, dark purple, and bright pink.


"A" rushed inside the other day to tell me "Mama, your Christmas tree is growing!"  I wasn't sure what this meant, but finally figured out that he was referring to my new pear tree, a Christmas gift from my sister M.  She insisted I name it "O-----".  It is a standard size tree, so I put it in my old home garden bed, which is now half shaded by the fence (and 1/3 by a neighbor's tree).  Other things that have been transplanted due to the fence: blueberries, raspberries, daylilies, irises, and hostas.  More to do still, always.

And the fence!  Oh we have been enjoying the fence! 

Purple Passion asparagus, blanching to green as it cooks

I've been picking asparagus, cilantro, and lettuce. The strawberries have put on a feast of berries so big I'm afraid I'll never be able to pick it all.  I think they'll come late this year, maybe the first week of June, and bear heavily from all the spring rain.  I transplanted some of the runners to another bed and when this year's harvest is done I'll pull out the ones in the current bed, which has had strawberries in it for three years.  I've also planted lettuce, carrots, beets, kale, sugar snap peas, and tomatoes.  There is some very healthy garlic in my garden - I think it'll be a good year for that, too.  The garlic bed is only half full, so early this spring I took a bunch of seeds I was going to throw out and poured them over that bed instead, then mulched it with straw.  Now I've got choi, lettuce, onions, broccoli, cabbage, and carrots growing in there.  I picked two handfuls of choi the other day.

There's always so much to do in the spring.  May is for planting - that's what I always tell N.