With most of the snow gone now it’s easy to see the very first little signs of spring happening here at our little homestead. They were all around me as I did my chores outside this morning.

The quail have been spending less time burrowed down in the straw and are instead out sunning themselves more.

They will be laying eggs again any day now.

Since the wild birds will also be laying their eggs again soon I made sure to fill up the nesting balls for them so they’ll have lots of soft husky fur and bits of paper and string to use to build their nests.

At first I thought I was imagining things when I noticed that the apple trees are starting to get buds on them.

Until I realized that the grass is already greening up all around them!

There’s quite a bit of green already in the pumpkin patch bed we made at the end of the season last year, too. It’s where the black and white pumpkins will be planted in a few short weeks.

I can’t wait!

We still have quite a bit of nitrogen fertilizer to work into the beds. We’ll need some potash to go with it so I’ve started a burn pile for that.

And of course we have plenty of nature’s best fertilizer being made daily by Fred and Barney and all their girls…

They were strutting all over the pasture, crowing at me and having a good ol’ time now that the snow is receded and they can do what chickens do best. Both of the boys got a bit of frost bite on their combs this winter so I’m keeping an eye on that to make sure it heals up (which it should).

I’m sure like me, they’re quite happy to put winter to bed and get on with spring. 🙂