#100HappyDays :: Day 26

This year's garden is beginning to take shape.  We are beginning to eat lettuces and the thinnings of beets and radishes as part of our daily meals.   A sunny day, even a cold one, gave us a lot of opportunity to get caught up yesterday.  Happily looking forward to the promise of a long season.

Springing The Chickens

Nothing does my heart better than to give the little specialty chickens their access back to the outdoor tractor again.  This morning was Spring moving day for Topaz, Chanticleer, and our little D'uccle hen whose name escapes me at the moment (I will have to wait till Sid gets home from school for that one :) 

We are in the process of scoping out which beds to set our first salad greens, leeks, and radishes to seed in.  No worries about spinach, it over-wintered and is thriving!  Since we can't rely on this amazing weather not being interrupted by a little jack frost, we are going to order two high tunnels for beds that we will attempt all season gardening in. 

The garlic is managing to push it's way through all of the heavy straw that we had piled on it's winter resting place and it looks to be strong and healthy.  

I find the sun's higher location in the sky and the music of frogs, yes they're out already, songbirds, and roosters all around to be amazingly energizing and relaxing at the same time.  I'm looking forward to a weekend of 4-h, sunshine, soccer, and gardening! Happy Friday!

Monotonous Rewards

I have a love hate relationship with canning.  I love to find recipes, create, process jars and fill the root cellar with the fruits of our labor.  With canning tends to come an afternoon of repetition, and by the end, exhaustion.  Oh, don't get me wrong, it is well worth it, but with a never ending processing to do list right now, it can be tiring.  Then after peeling and roasting a few of our tomatoes, that thankfully ripened, there was just a little of each kind left over.  Not enough to fill a jar, but they melded together beautifully, visually preserving a fresh reward to be opened in winter's darkest days.  Note to self: growing multicolored tomatoes is not only fun, it has the simple benefit of taking the monotony out of canning!