April Showers bring May Flowers!

 

Spring Fever!

Spring is in the air! 

The days are getting longer, flowers and trees are blossoming, and the birds are singing at 6am!  I love having the windows open and listening to all of the sounds.  Cam and  I heard a woodpecker the other day - it was cute!

 

Garden Preparations!

Before we moved to Portland I read that for the most part you can think of the rain as being broken up into three categories.  4 months of constant rain, 4 months of equal parts rain and sunshine, and 4 months of constant sunshine with barely any rain.  We're in the 50/50 stretch right now for sure!  The mixture of rain and sun not only makes beautiful rainbows, but everything is coming alive and growing so quickly and lushly.  The lawn grows so fast it could be mowed every day, and the dandelions are growing like the weeds they are! ;)  The plum tree is blossoming, the dogwood tree is blooming, and the sunflower and poppy seeds that we planted are starting to sprout...I LOVE IT! 


Plans and Charts!

The days are pretty much controlled by the weather, so if it's a gorgeous day we find ourselves in the garden and if it's rainy we're inside reading or watching movies...or planning the garden!  We've extended and "chicken proofed" our raised garden bed and it's ready for 80 sq ft of goodness!  Our peas our starting to sprout, and we've got beets, 2 different varieties of carrots, radishes and green onion seeds all in the ground!  Inside we started tomatoes, pepperoncinis, bell peppers, kale and eggplant which all seem to be coming along just fine but need a bit more warmth before they can be transplanted outside.  And I couldn't resist buying beautiful "Rainbow" Swiss chard starts at New Seasons which I think we might have set outside a tad too early...they're making it though!


Before we leave for Buenos Aires (IN TWO WEEKS! 4.26) we want to get a few more things in the ground, and we are really looking forward to coming back and seeing all that has changed in the short amount of time (10 days) we are gone!  We're' definitely taking lots of pictures before we leave so we can compare when we come back!  The chickens have been being awesome about laying eggs, even in the chillier weather and we get 3 eggs a day most days of the week.  I'm still so happy that we made the move NW and can be learning the basics and living a more simple lifestyle.  I've always loved the great outdoors, but now I'm actually enjoy it!



Emerging Sunflower Seed