Spring Is Here - For Now Anyway!

Odds and ends....

This morning, while the children got ready for school, I stepped out on the front porch and listened to the birds.  One can't help but smile when listening to the music!

The maple sap run is over. Now we've moved on to cleaning the sugar house and pulling taps.  It seems like we barely started and it's already over!  But there were a lot of full days of work tending the evaporator and collecting sap.  Maple sap almost consumes your life for the short period that it's here.  According to my husband we finished with almost 100 gallons of maple syrup.  A lot of it, though, is quite dark.  Personally, I'm partial to the dark maple syrup, I feel like it has a richer maple flavor.  I just hope that it will sell!

So now, planting has begun.  I'm a bit behind the ball on getting my seeds for transplanting started, but better late than never!

I entered a Grow It Forward Heirloom Garden Contest.  The contest encourages gardeners to grow heirloom, non-GMO vegetables.  They want to Grow It Forward for the benefit of future generations.  I love their logo:

Grow Heirlooms. Grow Diversity. Grow Community. Grow It Forward.

I entered the contest and was sent five packs of seeds.  It's kind of funny that I was already growing three of the packets they sent me!  The packs I received were: 

Artichoke, Gobbo di nizzia cardoon (You eat the stalks and they're supposed to taste like artichokes - I'm growing them in the high tunnel because they like a lot of heat and have a loong growing season 

Beans, Royalty purple pod (I had these) 

Peppers, Lemon Drop (Interesting, a tiny, hot, yellow pepper) 

Tomato, Striped green bell ( I had these)

Beet, Mammoth Red Mangel (Ironic, because I had ordered these - and paid too much money - from eBay!  They're supposed to be a good winter feed for livestock - including chickens) 

In the contest, I can win prizes related to gardening.  So it would be nice if you occasionally clicked on the Grow It Forward widget to the right of my blog posts and left a comments for Fitzgerald's Family Farm.  

The quickest way to find me is to go to the Gardens tab along the top and click on it.  Then go to "All Grow It Foward Heirloom Gardens" tab near the top and after you click on that you go down along the right, to where it says "Find Gardens in Your Area." Put in Coudersport, PA.  Hopefully I'll show up! (They didn't make this easy!)  

My camera is AWOL.  As soon as I find it I'll be posting lots and lots of pictures!  

I need to go out and enjoy these beautiful days!  Some cooler weather is on it's way!

Spring, Almost

The sunshine gleams so bright and warm,

The sky is blue and clear.

I run outdoors without a coat,

And spring is almost here.

Then before I know it,

Small clouds have blown together,

Till the sun just can't get through them,

And again, it's mitten weather.