Guess who's back!

Today was (and still is, I suppose) pretty awesome.

I took they day off work today, just for fun.  We started the day by heading in to town, where our first stop was a construction materials store.  We had heard that they have supplies for finishing log homes, and we weren't disappointed!  They have all we need to prep and stain the logs, and they have chinking supplies as well. It looks like we may get that accomplished this summer!  And they have some stone façade stuff that we'd love to use on the basement.  And to top it off, they sell metal roofing too - it's too bad we didn't know about this store last summer!!

The rest of our shopping was good too - we were able to find everything on our list today.

After we got home, we were sitting in the living room when I noticed a swallow checking out their nesting site. I remember them coming back in May last year, and I'm curious as to their usual return date and how these two years compare to that.  Then I headed out to grab some items from the longhouse, and I hear the Sandhill cranes (I took a video in 2012 - see below)!  Into the evening, we noticed a large crow picking at the grass near the large garden.  And just an hour ago, we were out checking out the homesite, and the dogs treed a partridge!! So it's been a busy day for the spring critters here today.

As well, we got five eggs today, after getting four yesterday and an average of 3 or 3.5 daily since mid-January.  Which is both good (more eggs!) and bad (none of the girls are currently broody).  But all things come in time, right?  We'll have naturally hatched chicks this summer :)

What else is new?

We still have Dash. There was an adoption event at a pet store in town that was held to support the Rescue, so Kim and I took Dash there for the day. Another pup from Nicola's was there too (Ashley) and despite our best attempts to finish Dash a new home, she came home with me.

Who can say no to that face??

We're okay with that. She's a sweet gal.

We're starting seedlings this weekend; we'll be growing lots of sauce tomatoes, peas, carrots and cabbage this year.

There is still about a foot of snow in the open areas of the yard, including the garden.  But there are large rings of grass around everything that sticks through the snow, so it won't be much longer before we can see the gardens and start checking for rhubarb.

I spent Easter weekend at Hal and Cathy's with Kim, others in her family, Doodle and Zim.  Zim was less than well behaved, but we had a great time nonetheless. The chickens I took down at New Years are doing great, and still laying regularly. Everything was green and in bloom, including the daffodils, saskatoons and cherries. There are calves, and a few more to come, and seedlings in the sunroom as well. It was a great peek at what's to come up here as well, though without the cherry and saskatoon blossoms!  We'll be working on that this year - I'd like to pick up some sour cherry trees (pie filling!) and saskatoon bushes (syrup!!) so we will be getting some more fruit in the next few years.

And, just in time for the snow to leave... We got the snow stops installed on the roof in the past week, so we *shouldn't* have any more problems with the roof once we get it fully finished. We'll be starting the soffits soon too, and it will be nice to have that job done, even if I am not particularly excited about actually doing the work. I am still roof-ed out after last year's roofing insanity.

So, folks, let's try this conversation thingy again - what are your plans for the upcoming season?

In which Zim is confused and I am amused

Two quick items:

News: Phoebe is officially off her nest! She's been out and about for four days now. I hope we can make it back up to five eggs daily, but I would imagine that it's someone else's turn next. The next hen who goes broody will be allowed to keep her eggs, and hatch us a new batch of chicks.

Story: I just got home from agility with Zim, and I let Smash out of her kennel and took the pups with me to fetch today's eggs. Zim got quite a way ahead of Dash, and turned around and laid down in the path to the barn. Ask Dash wandered closer, Zim perked his ears, dropped his head, and stared at her intently. Aha! Classic signs of a doggie ambush. As Dash reached Zim's usual pounce threshold, she suddenly veered to her right, broke through the crust on the snow, sank to her chest and started bounding through the snow to reach the fence and crawl through the grass under the trough. Zim raises his head with a look of surprise and watches her go, then looks at me as if to say, "Well would you look at that! Where's she going?!"

Just another fun-filled evening around here :)