Rob’s been making steady progress building the chicken tractor. I help occasionally by holding one end of something lol or whatever. I think he’s almost done actually and we hope to have it done by end of the month because I contacted someone that likely will have 3 pullets (pullets are young hens) by end of the month! Below I’ll show some of the progression. It has a ramp, a couple of doors, a hinged door to access the roosts. It’s pretty cool.

Some plants have come back from the wicked winter, and it turns out roses loved the severe cold. They went crazy with blooms and I read other people’s roses did same.

A lot of shiso is growing, like A LOT. I didn’t use it last year but I decided since it is so plentiful that I should try, so I steeped some leaves in hot water which turned the leaves from maroon to green and the water kind of dark and unappealing. Then, I poured in vinegar and it all turned bright red! Very cool. So we keep this in the fridge and add it to iced tea or cocktails :) Below 3 pics.

I’m only a week away from being fully vaccinated. Then I will return to in-person grocery shopping!

There are still more breweries nearby we haven’t even tried yet, so our last trip was to 12 Fox Brewing, which was great because it wasn’t as crowded as other places, they had live music, and there was a BBQ food truck which had really good food- the meat was NOT too salty and sides were tasty! We’ll be back.

This morning there was a teeny weeny baby deer curled up beside our driveway. Left it alone as this is normal behavior, even though it seems weirdly unsafe.

Looking ahead, we expect some visitors. In May, Tom & Leah are visiting for a few days (coming from Minneapolis), and Paige is planning to be here in June. Rachel & Zach probably in August. Others I’m not sure of dates yet. It will be fun AND great socializing experience for the dogs!! So hopefully the guests can handle the dogs who can be over-the-top…I assume with each visit they will become more “normal”.

Rob picked up another 1/8 of a steer from Grey. So this is “Greyson II” haha.

Our 3 chickens seem to be doing fine. Matt keeps creating holes in the yard to sit in and dust bathe in. So I added some diatomaceous earth to the barrels of dirt in the yard that are MEANT for dust baths but so far she’s not going for it.

So the other day I was on a walk and watched as utility crews worked on the telephone/whatever wires on our street. When they were done, there were these spherical objects attached to the wire (pic below). I realized, aha, it took them almost a year, but Tokyo Electron is onto us! They’ve installed surveillance!

Seeing more hummingbirds and lizards. Haven’t yet encountered a snake this spring. Anyway, more pics below.