Around The Farm - Part 1

Springtime seems late this year, even for up here in the north country where it's always later than much of the country. I have continued cleaning up big quantities of waste hay and dumping it on the compost pile. You can see Remy and Blue in the background. They were inside their new corral:

The barn badly needed cleaning, so I got that done also:

 Inside the back room, one of the new baby roses (Sevillana) bloomed. This was Day one:

  Day two:

 The Carefree Delight rose was pretty much spent but it had already put out a new bud to replace it:

My seed trays, baby roses and two new double Begonias seemed to need even more light in their back room, so I added two light bulbs:

The first seeds to germinate were the Globe Thistles. I've tried growing them twice already without success, but maybe this effort will produce some healthy plants. If not, I will give up on Globe Thistles:

The white fantail pigeons seem both happy and healthy. I put an ad on Craigslist, offering to sell some or trade for new birds which would add to the gene pool in my pigeon room. Alas, there were no takers:

The little hens are also doing exceedingly well:

The Iris and Lily garden is coming up rapidly now. It's so crammed with bulbs that I don't suppose I can fit any more in there:

The Daffodils put on a show for passersby on the gravel road:

I seem to have lost a number of plants over the winter, but it's too early to abandon all hope for them. The Mandarin Honeysuckle, however, survived the winter and appears ready to grow rapidly this year: