Spring is... uh... well...

...still kind of bleak and gray and very, very dry.

Living in Michigan, I find that I am actually learning to recognize the earlier signs of spring. And I can see it, people. It's coming. I think.

~I have one, brave, little crocus poking it's head up in my pitiful front flower bed.

~And I saw some green poking up in what few perennial plants I have left that have survived our brick-like soil and a half a dozen moves to different sites so that their home could be dug up by a backhoe.

~We have no snow!

~Yay!

~There are lettuce sprouts! In my cold frame! They might grow! If I remember to water them...

~Nathan tilled the garden.

~Yeah, no kidding. In March. In Michigan.

~See the thing is that after all that rain and flooding, we've be oh, so dry, so the soil is actually in decent shape for tilling right now.

~Am thankful for a reprieve from The Mud.

~Nathan also expanded the garden for me. We're going into the last available sunny spot, which happens to be the location of the clothes line.

~Now I have no clothes line.

~I'm trying to decide on a new location for it. The only place that we won't be needing for growing things will be in the front yard, right by the road. Hey, neighbors! Wanna see my laundry as you go around the corner? This is also right under the maples, which may not be such a hot idea. Arg.

~As of today, we now have the chickens fenced into the garden, ostensibly to keep the soil light and weed-free until we start to plant things there so that it won't need tilling again. In theory.

~We like to find more ways to leverage our poultry forces.

~We have had approximately 26.5 escaped chickens today.

~We only own 13 chickens.

~(The ".5" up there is for the chicken who was standing on a gate when Jonah pushed her back in before she could get out.)

~I am very sad because it is transplant-starting-time and while all the seeds I planted are showing their little faces now, I realized that I forgot to take cuttings of my coleus last fall before they froze, stiff and brittle and dry and dead, and have lost my whole collection. I had acquired some new, exotic-looking ones, too. Boo.

~The maple sap run is almost over, which means that the trees will soon be budding out!

~We're seeing some little green shoots poking up in the brown lawns. With a little rain, we'll be in the green!

Spring is springing!