By the middle of April we were hoping spring was finally here. However, looking back at least a month I found some pictures that I just had to share with you. Spring fever was starting to get the best of some of us after being cooped up by our late February record snowfalls for this area.
We'd had several days of gorgeous spring-like temperatures that were rapidly melting our snow and turning our rabbit trails into mud. This further increased our spring fever.
During this time we were treated to some awesome sunrises!
We are blessed to have such beauty all around us. Of course the cows are responsible for getting us all out of bed at o-dark-thirty in the morning so we are able to witness the sun rising.
Ok, back to my spring fever thought. This was, after all, the first part of March and usually by then the snow is mostly gone and we can start hoping for green grass. I finally couldn't stand it any longer and had one of the boys put a thermometer in the greenhouse so I could see how hot it was.
Even though the greenhouse was still buried in snow outside, they reported the rising temperature to me every few minutes. The first report was somewhere around 80, the next time it was 90 and I think it topped out somewhere around a 102 degrees that day!
I quickly summoned some man and boy power to dig a trail to the greenhouse so I could assess the situation myself. When I got there and looked around there was green grass growing in my greenhouse, the soil was thawed and quite warm. I was ecstatic!
JW1 quickly volunteered to dig up the beds inside so we could plant some cold weather greens. Of course I gladly accepted, since being seven months pregnant at the time wasn't allowing me to do a whole lot of bending over!
Over the course of the next couple days JW1 did an awesome job of turning the beds over and hoeing them smooth enough to plant seeds.
Now what self-respecting little boy is going to hoe dirt wearing shoes when throughout history spring work is the time shoes come off and we can do such work in our bare feet. This idea, despite the fact that there was still two feet of snow not 12 inches from his bare toes!
And yes, when bare feet and dirt is involved, the younger members of the family are immediately interested in getting involved. Although I am under the impression it was merely a ploy to be able to remove his boots and shirt, in the case of JW2, so that he could thoroughly enjoy the fresh dirt to the greatest extent possible. Needless to say a bath was in order that night!
And I must say that after about three to four weeks, we now have baby greens taking off wonderfully. We had a few weeks of straight rain; think like five to six inches of rain on top of that snow!
So the greens have not had the amount of sunlight I was hoping for. But despite the foul weather they have done surprisingly well. Now that the weather is starting to moderate a bit, they are just starting to put out their first true leaves. I am so excited for the first ones to be ready for harvest!
For those who might be interested in what six inches of rain looks like on top of two to three feet of snow, we took this photo on one of our town trips.
This is our city park. It was actually flooded by a creek that breached its dike and flooded the sawmill and the park. Ahh the the joys of spring!