I'm dreaming of.....my hands in the dirt!

I have been dreaming of gardening all winter long. Doesn't help that we put the chickens in the garden for the winter....I go their daily and dream of planting. I just cleaned up the straw and chicken poo that were spread everywhere. It will all get tilled into the soil, soon I hope. I turned the soil in the carrot box/raised bed and it's soooo pretty! Thick and dark and not clay looking. I want to go plant it now!

I tend to get into trouble trying to rush plants into the ground. Our evening temps still get to the 30's and low 40's in the spring, and not a whole lot higher in the summer. It's no fun to be sunburned from the 95+ daytime temps and then shivering cold in the 45 degree nights. Joys of the High Desert. One of the only places you'll need shorts and a sweater in the same day!

So I crochet carrot and veggie toys inside. And I can areate my little patch of lawn. And try reseeding it again. This year it will definitely get a top dressing of soil prep or compost. I'll have to buy either of em, I used up what compost I had last year. The new pile isn't ready.

I have all my seeds, but I may pick up some more squash seeds. Oh, and hubby wants to plant horseradish. I do need to finalize the layout for the garden. I will be starting some winter sown boxes, and would really love to build some cold frames. I'm having trouble talking myself out of buying the $50 grow light set up down at the feed store...I already have the seed soil and the little jiffy pots. It would help my often short growing season. But so would some hoop houses. I'm going to try using milk jugs for cloches again. I picked up a few wall-o-water things, our neighbor up the road has great success with em. I'm hoping for tomatoes in time to ripen on the vine this year! And I did see some hot caps just around the corner from the grow light....

95% of the snow is gone in the yard, just the shaded places left. That are always last. Like behind the house and against the brown barn door. (We have two barns. The upper Red barn, the barn that was built on this property, and then the bottom Brown barn, which is really a bully barn thing.) I do suspect that we'll get a few more skiffs of snow, but it won't amount to much.

The tulips are starting to poke up through the soil. I really need to get a fence up this year so the chickens can't dig them up. Or munch off all the greens. Or peck out all the seeds I have planned to put in the beds. We just stacked 7 ton of hay on Sunday, so that ought to keep em busy for a while. I'm sure I'll be finding eggs there soon.

What a beautiful sight, all that hay! To me there's nothing better. Security. And it's good stuff, from a local hay farmer. We got 4 ton from them in October, perhaps a bit earlier. Ran out around the end of January. Stresses me out! We won't be loosing their number! This 7 ton should last us until August or so, unless we get cows.

Chicks and turkey poults should be here in a week or two. 32 birds total. I'm just as excited for their arrival as I am for real spring weather. I need to get all my stuff for brooders together. Unlike last year, when I was putting the brooder up as soon as I got home with chicks.