Spring has sprung!

Despite the chilly weather last week, we had a lot of garden and farming fun. We came home from work Monday night to find that we had our very first asparagus ready to harvest! Granted it wasn't much, but boy was it tasty!

That same evening we ventured out to the new seed library at the Berea Branch and got an assortment of seeds to try this coming season. We planted the carrots and beets on the weekend. Also, forgot to mention previously that my friend Hessy gave us 2 Egyptian walking onions to try out in our garden. They look like they survived the cold just fine, so hopefully the warmer weather encourages them to multiply.

Speaking of the new seed library, Nathan was featured in the library's new quarterly magazine! Getting famous ;-)

Last week the Swamp Rabbit Cafe & Grocery had some strawberry seconds that Nathan snagged for us. He had to chop off a fair amount of damaged bits, but there was plenty left over to enjoy. We had bowls of these beauties for dessert almost every evening!

On the subject of food, I decided to try beef again very slowly. Had a shot glass worth of ground beef twice and didn't have a severe reaction like the first time around. Will keep trying small amounts to get my body producing the right digestive enzymes!

CHOCOLATE! We added chocolate back into the diet for our anniversary weekend. The chocolate waffles were as amazing as they look. Kudos for Nathan creating such a delectable recipe! Since there have been no ill effects with it mixed into a batter, we'll try a bite of a dark chocolate bar today. I'm thrilled to be able to enjoy one of my favorite foods groups again ;-)

The longer days and (generally) warming temperatures have our hens kicking into high gear with egg production. Nathan came home to find TEN eggs in the nesting box one night and then two days later I found 7 eggs. Never gets old collecting such beautiful eggs! We've been selling a few dozen to friends/acquaintances and eating them for breakfast everyday. So delicious!

The fermented feed experiment has been going great. Their droppings are the healthiest I've ever seen them and their egg production has been amazing as I mentioned above. However, one hen still has the runs, so we decided to try a natural herbal dewormer recipe found in the Fresh Eggs Daily book I was given for my birthday. Mixed up dandelion greens, Italian herbs, mint, pumpkin seeds, oatmeal, water and a dash of molasses in the food processor to make a foul smelling paste. The chickens thought it was tasty and gobbled it all up. Hopefully that helps Amelia get rid of the worms and the rest of the flock not get them. If not we'll have to go the wazine route, but we'd rather not have to toss a whole week's worth of eggs in the trash!

This past Saturday we finally had a weekend at home with time to work on our own home improvement projects. We spread mushroom compost, turned our compost pile, harvested a 3-gallon bucket's worth of kale, thinned and transplanted day lilies, and finally got around to setting up some organizational systems in the garage! The pegboard and shelves are still a work in progress, but we hope to have some time in the evenings now that daylight savings is here to sort, toss, and organize what is left in the garage.

Sunday marked a special date on our calendar; we've been married for a whole year! Hard to believe how fast time has flown, but it has been such a wonderful adventure thus far. Here's to many more with my dearest and favorite farmer!