Tractor Week....you dig?

A boy and his toy. 

We've been pretty quiet on the blog front for a while.  I guess we've been too busy with projects to write about any of them.  Unseasonably warm weather brought on a bad case of spring fever.  We've been outside working in and around the garden for the past few weeks.    The trees are budding, the tulips and daffodils are up, the asparagus is popping, and most of our cold-hardy seeds are in the ground.

Last week we jumped in with both feet and rented a mini-excavator.  The main motivation for the rental was the 400 bare-root trees we have coming in mid-May, for use in a wind break.  Just the thought of digging 400 18" holes by hand made our backs hurt.

The break will be made up of 7 rows of of trees and shrubs formed in an arc around the northwest of our house.  We purchased the trees, mostly bareroot, from DNRC Conservation Nursery in Missoula. Our intent is to introduce enough variety to protect us from infestation wipe-out in a particular variety (ie: pine beetles, bark beetles), to attract various wildlife, and to provide various color and beauty to the landscape throughout the year. The holes are now dug (thanks to Bill's skills on the mini-X), and the plants will be collected from the nursery shortly.

Putting in the water line to the garden.

Here's the game plan:
First row: Serviceberries
Second Row: Green Ash, alternated with Snowberries
Third Row: Doug Fir, alternated with Nanking Cherry
Fourth Row: Ponderosa Pine, alternated with Honeysuckle
Fifth Row: Ponderosa Pine, alternated with Snowberries
Sixth Row: Juniper, alternated with Honeysuckle
Seventh Row: Caragana

While we had the mini-X at our disposal (for a one week rental), we also put in a permanent extra water line to the garden, as well as some seasonal water lines to run to the orchard and to our eventual pig pen. (The piglets should be here in a couple of weeks!)

Attempting to move the chicken coop. 

Also, while we were feeling invincible with the tractor, we did attempt to move our existing chicken coop to a new location nearer the garden. We were able to get the coop up onto a sled, of sorts, but we attempted on the eleventh hour on the last day of rental and just didn't have the time or energy to get it set up properly for relocation. We'll try that again when we have more energy.

Blondie back in action with the rest of the gang!

Other spring updates: we had our first exposure to a full-blown broody chicken. "Blondie", our only Buff Orpington, was really determined to hatch those unfertilized eggs, and she would not willingly get out of the egg box to eat, drink, or even poop. It took locking her in the dog kennel for three days to "break her". Now she's happily pecking with the other chickens and looks to be her normal, happy self. The physiology behind "broodinees" lies in the increase of day-light hours, and the associated increase of prolactin in a chicken's blood stream. A broody chicken's body temp increases, and she is determined to bring baby chicks into the world, even it means bringing about her own death through starvation...and even if those eggs will never, ever hatch. Anyway, what a relief to see her back. In our research of how to "cure" her, I came across an old fashioned method of dunking the chicken in ice-water to bring down core body temperature. Luckily, we didn't have to resort to that.

Stewie in the Collar of Shame.

Other animal woes...Stewie gave himself a gigantic corneal ulcer, probably brought about by running down a tennis ball through thick grass and shrubs and getting whacked in the eye. He's improving, but slowly. He's back in the collar of shame to keep him from scratching at his eye, but seems to be maneuvering with it much more patiently than when he was a freshly neutered, crazy-with-energy pup.

Gooseberry Bush!

The garden is in full swing. The peas, onions, leeks, spinach, kale, and lettuce have been put in. The strawberries and tulips are blooming. We've plumped up the orchard by adding a pear tree (Chadwick Pear, which is actually a newly-named cultivar discovered growing native in the Helena valley) and a gooseberry bush! This bush, the Hinnonmaki Red, came highly recommended from Chadwick Nursery. It's a total flashback to childhood...picking berries off the volunteer bush in Grandma Cox's back yard.