Homestead Journal - Spring At Cobble Hill Farm (Entry 1)

 Well, we're shaking things up again.  I'm trying out a new type of post to see how it feels.

our pear tree

Spring represents a new start, so I decided that this was the perfect time to work on a new style of post.  My thought is that these posts will feature our seasonal homestead activities, which may include gardening, chicken-keeping, preserving, meals, etc.  I'll make a section for them in the index under homesteading so that they can either be read in order or by season once I have a few archived.  These posts will be sporadic, sometimes more than one in a week and sometimes skipping weeks.  I'm not sure until I write more to see what seems right.  

I've been struggling recently to figure out what to post.  This isn't a new struggle, which you already know if you've been reading this space for a while.  I'll be honest in telling you that with an average of 135,000 different people visiting this space each month, it sometimes feels overwhelming to figure out what to write and share.  I am amazed that so many people visit this little site and truly honored that so many of you follow along regularly.  The blog "experts" say that no one likes to read journal-type entries.  They say that the days of the traditional blogs are gone.  I, personally, like reading those types of posts but I also understand that they are right in that many people do not.  So, what to do?

I've looked at the numbers to see what you are reading.  I've looked at those of you who regularly read this blog.  I've looked at what brings people to my blog from google, pinterest, and other sources.  I've also looked at what those of you who are email subscribers read.  Would you like to hear something funny?  It turns out that pretty much all of the views from each of these avenues look at different types of posts.  (i.e. Pinterest traffic = recipes, google traffic = homesteading, email newsletters = journal-type posts & recipes, etc.)  

So that didn't really help me to determine what to write/share more or less of.  And that leads me to trying something new to throw in the mix.  I'm hoping that some of you enjoy everyday journal-style posts too!

Enough about my blog struggles, let's move on to spring on our homestead!

I absolutely LOVE my clothesline!  It's a Breeze Catcher and I've had it for at least 10 years.

Spring is such a great season for reminding ourselves to slow down and take time to breathe, relax, and enjoy the beauty that surrounds us.

It's been spring officially for just over a month, but it's finally feeling like it in upstate NY.  Meaning, the days and nights aren't quite so chilly (this week's daytime temps are upper 60's to 70 degrees!), a color other than brown is appearing on the lawns and in the gardens, we are starting to shed layers, and the coop girls are laying eggs regularly.  And our clothing and linens are being dried on the outdoor clothesline!  Such a simple but joyous change from winter.  

the Coop Girls LOVE their dust baths!

Can we just chat about the coop girls for a minute?  Those ladies are truly amazing us.  We are down to a flock of 13 and half of them are over the age of 5.  Knowing that, the expectation for eggs from the elders is low but somehow, we are receiving 3 dozen eggs every week.  All of our easter eggers are older yet we are receiving almost half of the eggs in blue and green tones.  It's really unbelievable.

I was able to get a thorough spring cleaning of the coop completed over the weekend.  It's nice to sweep away cobwebs, dust off the windows, and clean out their litter.  I've been opening their windows and big door most days to fill the indoor coop with sunshine and fresh air, only keeping them closed if we have cold winds.  This way, the girls have a warm spot to get out of the breeze.

one of our asian pear trees

The fruit trees are waking up, getting ready to show us their beautiful leaves.  Our Asian pear trees are biennial bearing which means they provide their larger crops every other year.  This year will be the large crop year.  I'm excited to eat a LOT of them fresh and then stock up on more apple pie-style filling with the excess.

I've wanted to add more blueberry bushes but I'm not sure that's going to happen this year.  In order to put them where I'd like them, and where I think they will be most happy, it will require raised beds to be built.  I don't know if the to-do list will allow for that, but I'll add it just in case we can find the time.

When we moved to our property in 2008, we quickly realized that digging on the property was going to be challenging.  Our ground is full of rocks.  Just digging to plant small plants is a challenge so we didn't want to fight with working the soil as needed for a full garden.  But, interestingly enough, the space where we placed our garden is actually all sand.  Obviously, it's fill as there is no sand anywhere else on our property.  Not quite the same difficulty as working with rocky ground, but sand would need lots of amending.  So that's why, for the most part, everything is in raised beds on our land.  And that is why the additional blueberry bushes will also go in raised beds.

One interesting thing we've noticed this year is that we've had no chipmunks on our property.  None.  We usually have them everywhere.  Instead, we've been visited regularly by a very cute but very pesky red squirrel.  Hopefully he/she will behave their self.

We also haven't seen our wild rabbits as of yet.  There should be quite a few of them this year.  I jokingly (but somewhat serious) told my husband that they are all waiting for the seedlings to be planted in the garden so they can snack.  That's when we'll see them.

Speaking of the garden, I have a few kale plants, chives, and comfrey that have returned after the winter rest.  I also have plants up that I planted last fall such as garlic and carrots.  I love having fresh spring carrots and the easiest way I've found to do so is by planting them in the fall, allowing them to start to grow and then overwinter.  This way right around the time the asparagus is in full harvest, we have carrots to pull too.  It tastes like spring in a bowl!

I just planted peas and some fresh greens and will be adding seedlings to the garden in the next week.  Harvesting of the greens should start in the next couple of weeks.

We tackled raking half of the property this week.  We are blessed to be surrounded by many trees but with that comes lots of leaves, branches, and twigs that are blown all about.  Although our property is fully cleaned in the fall, by spring it looks like we had completely forgotten about cleaning up!  Between the ice, snow, and winds that come with the 6 months since we completed fall clean-up, we are given a job that we've recently began breaking up into 2 or 3 days rather than trying to complete all in 1 day.

 Not much going on in the kitchen this week as we've been enjoying outside time any chance we can get!  The grill has been fired up and we are starting to switch to using that.

I hope you are able to take a healthy dose of joy today by getting outside to enjoy nature. Unplugged, of course.

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