Spring in the veggie garden

I've been able to get a little gardening time in while working hard to get the old house ready to list for sale.  The fence posts are in and ready for the fencing.  Amazingly, we got all the posts in on the first try.  At our old house we would have put in one post for every 4 posts we got in at the new house.  At the new house we stretched a string and put all the posts in a perfect line. That never would have happened at the old house.

The mini hoop house at the near right in the above picture is home to Siberian early tomatoes.  They have been outside for about three weeks and are doing quite well.

The large hoop house is home to the paste tomatoes and tomatillos.

I have been a raspberry pusher and have gotten rid of many of the raspberries in the garden.  A few people have made the mistake of saying "I'll take as many as you want to get rid of" and then had to say "that's probably enough."  I have filled Prius's, Excursions, and minivans with raspberries.  Still lots to go though.  And the red raspberries will be staying in the garden until fall.  Just not enough time to move them this spring.  Now I have to adjust the garden plan. 
And here is a gratuitous picture of some pretty little tulips that are just about to bloom right outside the vegetable garden.

Can you love a tree?

Is it possible to love a tree?  Because if it is, I love this tree.

When we first viewed our new house at the end of last April the tree's blossoms were mostly over.  Last year all the flowers were about 2 weeks earlier than usual, but this year is back to normal.

I have always wanted a big old magnolia tree and now I finally have one.  One of the best things about this tree is walking under it every time I walk across the little bridge to get the mail.  And the smell is wonderful when you are engulfed by the tree.

Even now, as its leaves are beginning to fall, it is lovely walking through the petals on the ground.
Yup, I love this tree.

The new septic system at the old house

One of the things that has been holding us back from putting the old house on the market, besides finishing up multitudes of projects, is the need for a new septic system.  The old one was limping along for years; fine for us but wouldn't have passed inspection.

Last fall we had the design, permits and contractor all lined up and ready to go.  The only thing holding us up was permission from the Department of Health to actually break ground.  Apparently the soil conditions at that time were not right, so the waiting game began.

Tuesday night Alan got a call from the contractor that they would be starting the next day.  Alan went over Thursday night to check on the progress and take some pictures:

We were working around the new house on Friday when Alan got a phone call from the contractor (who also is the engineer who designed the system) with the news they had hit rock. (we were afraid that would be a problem as there is a huge amount of rock in the area.) In three attempts to dig the holes for the tank and the pump tank they kept hitting the same granite ledge.  They were in the process of getting another, very expensive, piece of equipment to drill out the rock, adding many more dollars to the project.  We decided to head on over there to see how things were going.  Luckily, in the meantime, while they were waiting for the equipment they tried digging in one more location and had success.  We arrived to dump trucks, backhoes and skid steer working away like crazy. But by the end of the day the line from the house was hooked up to the new 1500 gallon tank and we could use the plumbing again in the house.

The engineer says they should be finished on Monday.  Now we can no longer say the septic system is holding us back from selling our old house.  Time to get this place finished!

Our wild visitors

For a few days this week we have been having some wild visitors.  We wondered if our tom turkey would call any wild turkeys.  Well, apparently the answer is yes.
Monday evening my daughters found these visitors:

The two turkeys on the left are the wild ones.  There was a tom and a hen.  The tom and our tom were trying to fight through the fence.  My daughters went out to scare them away and got a few pictures. Here they are running away.

They've been back a few times and we have all seen them now.  Spring gobbler season is April 27-May 31.  It will be interesting to see what happens if we get a lot of hunters in the woods gobbling since our tom gobbles at every little noise.  Hopefully the hens won't try to go to the calling in the woods.  They now have 13 eggs in a nest that I am hoping they won't want to leave.

Our first turkey egg!

While we were outside in the snow yesterday moving the greenhouse, pruning the cherry tree and moving turkey run fence, one of the turkeys was hanging out in the doghouse I put in their pen as a nest box.  She was making weird noises and sounded like she was sliding all around on her feet.  The straw I had put in the box last week was now outside of the box so I put more straw and some small branches in the box.  She stayed in there a while while we worked pounding fence posts.  Eventually we realized that all three hens were in the pen, and this is what I found when I looked inside the box:

We were wondering when the hens would start laying eggs, since the turkey sex has been pretty frequent.We'll have to wait to see if the hens are capable of hatching out some poults and raising them up.  But, egg laying is the first step.

How to move raspberry bushes

Step 1: Buy a battery.  (Because you know you have to set up the electric netting for the chickens .)
Step 2: Set up the electric netting. (Because you must move the chickens and their coop so it/they don't get hurt when the tree is trimmed.)
Step 3: Move the chickens.

Step 4: Take down the fence around the old chicken run.  (Because you don't want to ruin the fencing when the tree limbs come down.)
Step 5: Drastically cut back the big Maple tree that casts a large amount of shade on the vegetable garden. (Because the big branches coming down will fall right where you want to move the raspberries.)

So the simple act of moving raspberries (which have taken over about 75% of the old veggie garden) turned into a multi-step process taking quite a few days. Hopefully, the tree trimming will be enough as we really didn't want to take down the old maple.  And the chickens love having a larger pen with lots of grass to eat.  Maybe my next post will be about the electric netting.
So step 6 will be removing the grass and adding compost to the new raspberry beds.  Then I only have about 100 raspberry bushes to move.  And those are just the ones I am keeping.  I am giving away quite a few bushes to various gardening friends (thank you so much!)

20 days until Spring

While the calendar may say there are 20 days until Spring arrives, there are many signs of Spring already around here.  Of course there was that sill hen who thought it would be a good idea to hatch some chicks in the brutal cold of February.  Sadly they did not make it.

But today is the first time I saw the turkeys mating (sorry no pics on that).  I am hoping for lots of Narragansett poults to sell and raise for meat. Now I need to research turkey nest boxes.

Saw these pretty little snowdrops in one of the beds in the front yard:

And the tree peony is budding like crazy, can't wait to see this in full bloom:

The rhubarb I brought from the old house has survived and is starting to come up:

Lots of other bulbs are starting to peak out of the ground.  It's going to be great watching what comes up where.  From the diagrams the previous owners left it looks like there are lots of bulbs around.
So many things to do outside now!