The Garell Stretch: Slower Than Molasses in Winter....but Spring is finally on its way!

When would I ever say I was happy to find a fly in the house...and a spider? The same time I am happy to find a dead frog on the road and the fresh smell of skunk in the morning.

Arrival of Spring!

It is true what they say about farming during the winter, I see how our early ancestors must have suffered with the cold and the dark and its effects on the animals and plants. I can see how the many sacred celebrations focused around prayer and light were so very necessary for our pre-electricity ancestors.

As we said goodbye to Fall, we had some unusual and usual critter contacts.

A family of slugs had set up house in the cozy nest of our front tree, I was happy to toss one to our hens every now and then.

This poor little snake was finding some warmth on the road, unfortunately he was squooshed.

We had an unknown visitor for about a week, it was trying to get into the coop over and over. Leaving behind little tuffs of its hair--critter unknown and not at all successful getting into the coop.

This little guy fell for the trickery of the weather...he thought it was Spring...he was wrong.

Came across this massive bird dropping, at the time it was unclear what bird left the gift. Daily, we have watched not one, but two hawks happily hovering in the tree over our coop. So far the girls are smart and really know how to hide from them. As Spring approaches it will be fun to see if the hawks have babies.

The girls have become quite comfortable hanging around the porch, I even hear them knocking to come in from the cold.

They loved their Halloween treat.

Still running the garden, the plants are a bit confused with all the shifting temps.

We tucked in our kale, onions and garlic for the winter.

Our kale harvest got me through a long ride to Florida...they made perfect kale chips.

We had an accidental crop as well. We had a bag of potatoes go bad, so we tossed them in a hole near the lake. I heard that if they have an underground water source they will not push out of the ground. We did not water them at all and we had a nice pile of potatoes in three short winter months. I believe they call them Christmas potatoes.

Our early Fall crop pushed through the Winter season just fine. Our daikon radishes were planted to help breakdown the clay soil so it will be perfect for our no-till method of Back to Eden Gardening.

As Fall approached the changes were amazing.

Leaf'ing us with quite a mess to sort...most of the leaves were piled in the compost and the rest were burned.

Over the Summer I found these tiny little pine cone looking things and have been keeping them in my tiny pot. Winter showed us this plant's early stage...I don't know what it is, but it lives on the edge of the water.

We had more than enough mushrooms...I mean everywhere...too bad we don't eat them in our house. I added a compost box (from a dear friend that moved away)...so far just leaf composting all of our food compost goes through the chickens and the worms (which are all tucked in for the Winter).

Strawberries, onions and herbs all tucked in...hope they survive.

We got a BB gun, girls did well with the target practice...will come in handy if we need to chase off a chicken predators when our youngest daughter is not out protecting them while she plays.

Winter actually took its time getting to our neck of the woods. This is our oldest on Christmas Eve after we had a little rain. The water wasn't even to chilly for her to make her way out to the dock...oh wait...where did the dock go. (she is standing on the bench)

It is hard to believe that the lake had been partially drained right before this flood. They drain it just enough to kill off the algae and give us some time to work on dock repairs.