Spring is here! Spring is here!

After a light winter (sorry east coasters) spring is here in Utah shockingly early.

 This means our perennials are blooming, like cherries and the grapes are waking up. 

I missed the peaches blooming this year as I was at work so often and it happened so suddenly and early.  As long as it doesn't snow again we should have a great harvest. 

In the spring we also had to deal with our first broody chicken.  A broody chicken is one who is trying to get the eggs to hatch.  Unfortunately for her, without a rooster this will be a disappointing prospect.  Also when she does this it becomes much harder to get the eggs, as she is always sitting on them.  Lastly she will stop laying while waiting to hatch the unhatchable eggs.  The easiest way to tell a chicken is broody is that she will fluff up her feathers and will sit in the laying box all day. 

It is too bad but we cannot let a chicken remain broody.  Foe one, it is useless to her and us, and for two it will make the other chickens go broody.  To combat this we move her to a separate cage and make sure that cool air is able to blow on her chest.

Leaving her like this for a few days will help her reset.

Because spring is here so early we are able to put in our tomatoes.  Obviously it is not quite warm enough to put them in and just let them grow, so we plant them and put a wall of water around each plant.

The sun heats up the water and keeps the plant inside warm through the nights, which are still getting somewhat cold.

 

We have also planted our brussle sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower.  We look forward to a great harvest, particularly of tomatoes (which will hopefully make up for the terrible harvest last year) as the plants will have a few extra months to grow!