Spring Happenings

I don't know if we get this lovely spring weather every year or that I'm just stuck at home and am forced to enjoy it.....but it's wonderful! It's between 65 and 75 degrees each day, not much wind. I've been getting so much stuff done. I tilled up a large plot next to the new strawberry bed and got about 12 seed packets planted of all different tasty goodies. The strawberry crowns that I planted in March are now full of flowers and partially grown strawberries. That's exciting!

We've had plans to fence in the front walnut grove ever since we moved in here 16 years ago. We've fenced in every other part of the property but that few acres has been put on hold for some reason (we're tired of fencing, that's the reason). Well, we think this is the year. Usually the weather goes from winter to summer with about 2 weeks of "spring" in between. So it's pretty easy to decide to put it off if the weather is already pushing 95 degrees in April. So Sean went up to the front pipe fence, that had some partially broken welds, and welded it up. He did a great job!

Since this pipe fence obviously won't contain goats, and really won't keep predators out we had to come up with a way to fortify it. We bought cattle panels from the feed store that we are going to clamp onto the pipe fence with stainless steel zip ties. Will it work? Who knows. It should keep goats in and dogs out but will it be pretty, perhaps not so much.

About a month ago two guinea fowl showed up at our property. They are very strange creatures that fly up into the trees to roost and make quite a bit of noise at dusk. They are also natures best bug eaters and will tell you if anyone or anything is happening on your property. The two guineas stayed with us for about 3 weeks before leaving and we really enjoyed them as did our closest neighbors. I talked with her and she said she'd love to have more of them around and they were a pleasure to watch out in the yard. So I went on the hunt for some hatching eggs (since chicks were hard to find especially right now when people are buying them up like crazy). A lady about half an hour away said she'd sell me some eggs so I went and picked them up and put them in my new incubator I got for my birthday (thanks Mom and Dad!). They should hatch the end of May if I'm doing it right.

I was at the feed store the beginning of last week getting some river rock for a project and since I was there I wandered back to their chick tanks. Low and behold they had six guinea keets sitting there. It's very rare to see them for sale in our area so I called up Sean and asked him ever so nicely if he minded six guinea keets in our living room. Of course he didn't care, he's cool like that. So now, best case scenario I have 11 keets the end of May, worse case the eggs don't hatch and I still have six. So I'm happy and the kids love looking in on these new babies and watching them scratch around and sleep all day.

I hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!