Improved Biology!

Last week, when we had the first dozen small bantam eggs, Isaiah asked if he could make deviled eggs. His Grandma had showed him how, and he loved them enough to attempt them solo. He hard boiled the eggs alone, peeled those tiny, fresh eggs alone, mixed the ingredients, and brought me a plate of them when he was finished.

It's hard to give a sense of how tiny these birds really are.

They are almost like well-feathered pigeons in size, and their eggs, when cracked, are mostly yolk with a bit of white.

We like having the different colors, though we have mostly the reddish-orange birds, with a few white and a few black (with specks of color here and there).

Joe fetched the two eggs out of the nesting box and carried them with him as we explored the farm together.

Abraham helped demonstrate the eggs' size.

Without a full-size egg for comparison, though, there's not enough contrast.

As we walked, Joe dropped an egg a few times. He fell a few times. And once he dropped the egg in the orchard and, despite knowing where he was standing, and looking for an off-white egg in tall green grass, we spent several minutes searching. We could not find it, and we didn't want to walk too far. Finally Abraham spotted it. The grass is a lot taller than it looks, and the egg had nestled down in the vegetation, almost like in a nest. The egg eventually made it back, with only a small dent.

Joe reminded me that I should use "all the dented ones" first, before getting started on the whole ones.

After milking this morning, Phil moved Belle out of her rye patch and up above the apple orchard, next to the road. She was ecstatic. The mooing she had done, grumpily, off and on all day yesterday ceased. And when we went up to see her after a day of grazing, the area looked untouched. She has a few more days there.

Phil brought her down for milking, and back up when the milking was done.

After 24 hours in the first paddock, Phil moved the cows to the next. We went over to see this fabulous pasture Phil mentioned. The grass looked good, as little Elvis, firstborn this year, showed off his new hornbuds.

Charlemagne was ready to mount Fern, though she wasn't ready for such attention. (Phil also noticed him wishing and hoping with Catherine yesterday, and Clover was wishing and hoping with Charity today.) Spring is in the air!

A straight-down photo of the previous paddock shows that they did a good job grazing, but there is enough grass to hopefully grow back quickly. That's known as "stockpiling," and Phil is getting a better eye for what that means.

And while I'm talking cows, I could mention that the calves we have penned are so friendly and fun.

No longer the size of Shadow, they are growing well.

Shadow is a good dog. We tie her up before milking, but she still willingly comes when we call, knowing that she will be restricted in movement for 20 minutes or so.

One of the more disgusting things we found on our stroll around the farm was a web that we hadn't seen here before.

It took me a bit to realize that the leaves on that tree had been completely defoliated.

The eastern tent caterpillars had taken over. We clawed open their tent with sticks, and smooshed the caterpillars we could get. Disgusting!

A regular spider web is quite different.

The biggest amazement here, though, is the growth. Not so much in construction, though Phil did do a full batch today for the first time in a few weeks.

The biology is growing. It feels, really, like it's exploding. That's what most of my photos were about today.
The comfrey in the greenhouse, en masse and humming with bees.

And close up, beautifully flowered.

My comfrey patch in the orchard.

The boys enjoyed flipping from the person-less comfrey photo to the one with Abraham. Pop! There he is!

Looking very handsome.

And in the next row up, such a lush carpet of my beloved crimson clover.

And a bit above that, the lush carpet of grass and clover, where Joe lost his egg.

Down from there, in the lane of orchard that has plenty of broom grass and where I've noticed the last holdouts of the previously pervasive poison ivy, there is no poison ivy to be seen.

But there are little wild strawberry blossoms!

The baby apples are smaller than peas.

Some trees have quite a few coming.

And a couple trees are just now flowering!

In a different sort of fruitfulness, the rye that Belle finally gave up grazing is fully headed out now, and grew amazingly tall, four feet and more.

In one section, you can see how the rye overshadows the peach trees in the foreground. Those trees have been transplanted at least once in their three years on the farm, but that rye looms large behind them.

I think Phil plans to scythe the rye down. (He mentioned today, though, that as much as he loves the scythe, he's eying a weed whacker.)

I love how grain catches the setting sun and glows luminous.

I was thrilled today to spot a few young comfrey plants poking up near the apples we planted last fall. We had tried to do a small guild, with daffodils and comfrey and peastone around the tree, but I hadn't seen any sign of the comfrey until today.

And the last fruitfulness: asparagus, which I haven't harvested at all. I was so eager, and I pulled a stalk or two, but the idea of odd-smelling urine was a bit too much for my pregnant nose and brain to deal with.

So much fun on the farm!