Up until this week, it's been generally chilly, with just a couple warm days here and there to tease us. But this week it will be consistently up in the 50's and 60's with bright sunshine. I've been outside doing spring cleanup chores - things like raking the lawns to get rid of matted down and thatched dead grass, not to mention a winter's worth of dog poop (you wanted to know that, right?) :) The snowplows had thrown sand and gravel from the road 15 feet up onto the lawn so that all had to be raked out. In some places it was half an inch of sand covering the lawn.

Also, in the back where the woodpile is, there were the remains of all the wood chopping and splitting that was done last fall - bark slabs and chips of bark and small bits of wood. Then there were all the sticks and things that the dog dragged out of the woods or off the woodpile, or out of the scrap lumber pile and left lying all over the place. So I sorted out the good scrap lumber, threw the useless scraps into the kindling bin, and anything like small bits of plywood and paneling from the disassembly of the old kitchen cabinets into the garbage. Then I raked all the bark and dead leaves and dumped them into a pile to compost over time. I also cleaned out under the lean-to where we kept the working haystack, getting all the hay chaff and damp hay off the pallets and folding up the tarp that helped cover the hay.

Next I need to get the garden in shape and get a couple raised beds made. I have started some seeds indoors: tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, broccoli, and cabbage. Peas need to be planted directly into the garden Real Soon Now, so I really need to get the garden area figured out and get that done. As usual, I probably have been too ambitious with my garden plans, but I'll do my best.

The poultry figured out pretty quickly how to get around the electronet I had been using to try to keep them towards the back of the property. They either went around it, or went through it and their feathers kept them insulated from the shock. So I rolled it all back up again and stored it away.

At least one duck has started laying, but the eggs end up in the poultry yard, having been kicked out or rolled out of the duck nestboxes we built. Twice I retrieved an egg and placed it back into the nestbox. I'm hoping once a clutch is laid that someone will start incubating and we'll have fluffy ducklings 35 days later!