So, as I said when I started this blog, a year ago, it definitely has been and will continue to be a learning experience...

What have we learned so far? Well among other things...

• Shovels (and manual labor) are your friend: You can always count on a shovel (and the associated required manual labor) even when the tractor (with plow) won't start, or gets stuck...or when there's nowhere for the ATV (with plow) to put the snow. When all else fails, you can always do things the hard way -- it takes a lot longer and hurts a lot more, but it'll get'r done eventually.
  




• Treasure the mud room: We have 4 seasons...spring mud season, summer, fall mud season, and winter. Without the mudroom, I shudder to think what the rest of the house would look like. Where would we keep our boots (rubber and winter), coveralls (insulated and not), and defrosting chicken waterers?




• Invest in good tools: We learned this lesson after returning the first leaf blower we bought..right after moving in. It just wouldn't cut it. We went back and got the slightly more powerful model, with backpack straps (it's a long driveway)... This principal has held true with leaf blower, chainsaw, ax, ATV, shovel and others. Whenever we think we can save a few bucks by skimping on quality, we end up regretting it.




• Plan ahead: several notes under this one -- First of all, never ever ever procure lifestock until they have appropriate housing--you'll regret the race against time that ensues. And remember the other important details...like how you're going to get them water when the spigot and hose are frozen solid....and how to keep said water from freezing in the waterer/trough/whatever. :-)




• Rewards: All that said, there's a very rewarding feeling about having weathered near 5 feet of snow with the power out for over 40 hours.... about being able to bring in and sell your own, farm-fresh, conscionably-raised eggs... about building your own chicken coop, form scratch, even after a rebuild and rewriting the plans yourself... about cracking open a jar of your own apple butter.... about successfully pulling a wineberry thorn out of a duck's foot...
  

So, with the exception of maybe investing in a set of tire chains for the truck...I wouldn't trade it. :-)

Granted, we bought it at the grocery store...but why is the one we repotted turning more yellow than the other one?

Here's our garden plan...much condensed from last year (see that empty half? That's the lower half, untilled so far -- we tilled the upper half last weekend -- and slated for winter wheat, or clover, or some such.) Those x's are paths -- we're planning on mulching them with empty chicken feed bags, although I'm not sure how well that will work, since some of them are plasticized (and thus impermeable to rain). Any one have luck using anything like that for mulch?

...is super easy. We just clipped some of our forsythia branches last week when we started to get spring fever. Several days in a vase indoors and those buds just popped :-)

Well, things are finally starting to warm up a bit around here! Almost all of the snow is melted in the yard, and we were able to finally fill up Dorian Duck's pool from the outside spigot (as the hose is no longer completely frozen). Our garden plan is well underway (and much more consolidated than last year -- we have a whole half of our veggie garden left to plant in one or two things...wheat? peanuts? clover?). These (and below) are all signs of spring :-)