With spring approaching fast, our outside crews have been busy as bees. In the garden, everybody is looking forward to seeing a much needed, brand new perimeter fence being raised within the next weeks and to re-skinning our both of our greenhouses. Both of these projects have been made possible by generous donations – Sarah and Owen Fairbank (perimeter fence) and The Cobble Hill Womens Institute (greenhouse covers). Andrew is also working hard towards achieving organic and biodynamic certification this year, as well as doing all the regular preparation for a growing season.
The farm crew has built over a dozen birdhouses over the winter and put them up all over the estate in time for spring. Some birds we hope to see nesting are violet green swallows, house wrens, chickadees and flickers. We are also putting up new livestock fences along the new farmhouse driveway and around the barnyard. Many of the holes on the slope had to be dug by hand, with a lot of hard work and enthusiasm to get out great big rocks. We are going to start stirring and spraying our biodynamic preparation 500 in the green houses, the garden, the pastures and hayfields. And finally, lambing will be starting in early April which will be a first time experience for Aiden, our new farm crew member.
The forest crew is busy making firewood for next winter and reopening the paths around the property after this past winter’s damage. We will also take down a number of trees along the garden fence line to protect the new fence. And hopefully we will see delicious mushrooms growing on our mushroom logs again this spring!
