Spring projects

Things are speeding up at the farm these days. The restful days of winter are over as we get things ready for the 2013 growing season.

Neal is working on an automated chicken feeder. He is getting closer to a functioning machine, but there are still a few kinks (like it won't work when you put a full days worth of feed in it). If you have ideas on chicken feeders, let us know. Neal has been crowd-sourcing suggestions from his family, but we would always take more ideas.

We just got some clear plastic in the mail that we can use to cover Catherine's potting shed. Neal already started onions and leeks in the shed, but we need warmer temperatures in there to start things in the nightshade family like tomatoes and peppers.

We are crossing our fingers for good weather for making maple syrup (below freezing at night and 40's-50's during the day). It looks like we might be in luck this weekend at the farm. Neal has tapped a couple maple trees already and based on a suggestion from Ellen from  Sustain Jefferson, we may try black walnut syrup as well this year. Neal's dad will help us out this week by collecting sap at the cabin up north and we will go up there to boil it down in a couple weeks.

More pictures of our projects to come with next week's post.