Birchtree Farm

Feels like we've gone back in time to last fall when it wouldn't stop raining. We had a sudden warm up recently, and all the snow melted in two days. All the ditches and creeks were running full to the brim and they had a flash flood watch for some areas. We don't get flash floods around here, not like the ones where rivers crest and wash down streets or anything, but all the low-lying areas, big and small, fill with water. Somehow the town engineers managed to figure out how to move water north towards the lake, but it's a slow process given the lack of significant slope in this area.

So, our poor sheep are once again surrounded by water. They have a dry shelter and partially dry-ish yard, but everywhere else is either under water or very squishy. It would be impossible to have sheep here at all except that this waterlogged condition is basically limited to several weeks in spring (except of course for last fall). The areas now covered by water turn into lush lawn/pasture later in the season. The spring water does provide us with several weeks of various frog and toad choruses, which is nice, and I guess we'd miss it if it didn't occur. Of course, then there are the mosquitoes.....

We cleaned out the ram pen tonight. It was getting rather...ripe... in there. The bedding was piled up about a foot and was starting to cook pretty well in some spots as we found when we started to dig. We didn't want the barn burning down, so we forked out (or rather, my husband forked out) the bedding and we replaced it with clean straw. The old stuff we piled at one end of the garden to continue its journey into compost.

The chickens I think are really enjoying the warm weather and the muddy conditions. Makes it easier to hunt for worms. They spent all of the cold part of winter in the coop, even though we opened the door every day, but at the first real sign of spring they started popping out. Probably had cabin fever by that point.

The first lambs are due in about 3 weeks. I hope it dries up some by then!