It’s cold and unpredictable outside. Again this morning we had heavy snow fall. Here in the city, the roads were warm enough to cause the snow to melt, but just outside where it’s cooler, the roads are treacherous. This is of course normal, but with the days slowly getting longer, it feels wrong. Having these seedlings coming along on the windowsills, with the days getting longer, I keep thinking it’s spring, and look to my store of seeds to see what can be sown outside. Of course, there’s nothing! Still february, still cold. My clay soil is so heavy with water, that even hoeing is impossible. I start with a hoe, but within seconds it’s just a great ball of clay on a pole.
Good news, in the greenhouse the early peas are just beginning to sprout. The greenhouse is completely unheated and uninsulated, so it’ll be a while before the peas get any company from the toms currently on the windowsills.
I feel terrible for the chickens, although they don’t seem to complain at all. After a very severe winter, they’ve run out of grass in their sizable run, and the whole lot is waterbogged. The poor things are ankle deep in puddles most of the time. But their weight is good and their feathers are staying dry, so I’m not going to take any drastic measures just yet to fix it. One of the summer jobs though will be to improve drainage on their ground, and perhaps raise the ground level a little so that we all have an easier time next winter. I’m getting tired of losing my boots in the mud.
