The farm is busy with Spring, spring, spring these days! We’ve been working in the yard, starting the garden, and cleaning up the winter compost piles in the weekend sunshine lately.

The tractor blew a hydraulic hose and was stuck in the field for a few days. The worst part was that Coal was right there at the fence line with me, opening the gates, and got sprayed too. He wasn’t hurt, but I don’t like using dish soap to wash the dogs that was the only way I knew to get the hydraulic fluid off him.

Turns out when you Google “how to get hydraulic fluid out of dog fur” you get a lot of weird, unhelpful links.

We’ve also been doing some driveway and parking maintenance. We had to do some weeding and add some stone to the driveway and pea gravel to the walkways. I don’t really understand where it goes…I guess it just compacts down into the ground. But we had some slow spots and dragging the driveway wasn’t taking care of them anymore. The fun part was that I just got to sit in the truck and inch forward when I was told. The boys did all the raking and shoveling!

It’s also that time of year when we have to keep all the fence lines cut. Firstly for the electric fence to keep it from grounding out and not working. But secondly, around the house, we’ll have unexpected visitors moving in if we don’t keep the grass short. Penny came across this vibrantly colored King snake right in the backyard by the garden. We calmly herded him right out of the yard and back into the woods. I don’t want those kinds of visitors around the porch. That’s our space.

We also had a bluebird fall into a water tank. He was soaked through all his feathers and shook up. But we fished him out and set him in the corner of a garden planter where he wouldn’t be disturbed. In a few hours he got himself together and dried out and flew off.

It’s amazing to me when I write these things all the tiny little daily wildlife interactions we have here at the farm. Lots of “bird things” always going on here, plus bugs and snakes and little wildlife like rabbits, turkeys, possums…it’s just a never-ending woodland parade through here on a daily basis!

In between chores, the kids have been taking off on their dirt bikes. The boys are working on a movie together with the Cowboy’s action camera. He has this one plus an accessory kit, and we’ve been really happy with it as an introduction before trying a more expensive GoPro. They’ve been switching between helmet cams and chest cams and even had Mr. Fix-It out there doing some stunts for them.

I haven’t seen the final movie yet, but I’m just enjoying them working together so much. It’s also an interesting phase of parenting to have the house empty so much without having to constantly check on them. I even sat on the back porch and just read a book for an hour last weekend!

Looking for something to read? Here’s my Farm Reads list from February. I’m still working my way through because I read the entire Game of Thrones series in the middle instead of just the first book. I put the Iron King aside to read the Troy series by David Gemmell. But I enjoyed discovering Lisa See and have several other books by her on my nightstand pile.

What’s new at your homeplace this Spring?