Life at the Farm Under Covid-19

Hello dear friends, I hope everyone is keeping safe and well wherever you are!  The days are blurring together here at the farm.  Is this week 4 or is it week 5 of stay at home?  I cant remember!  My husband still goes to work every day as he is considered to be an essential service and I am working from home 4 days per week and only going to the city on Fridays.  We are doing a very good job of social distancing and only go out for groceries.

Yesterday was a beautifully sunny day.  The farm and nature seem to go on as usual.  For a break I went for a little walk outside.

I have discovered that borage continues to pop up everywhere.  Borage is a bee friendly plant so I have not been ruthless about controlling it.  This may be the year I investigate its' herbal properties.

Abby is still very puppy-like.  Her world revolves around playing, eating, playing, sleeping and then playing.  I am going to build a flagstone path through this garden as she and her sisters and turned it into a racetrack.  A proper pathway with strategically situated obstacles may help protect the plants that are otherwise being pulverized!

Such a pretty girl.  I take Abby with me at night when I gather the sheep.  She is (mostly) obedient but not very focused and the sheep seem to have learned to ignore her.  Of course we attribute this to her puppy behaviour and not any failings on the part of the farmers that are supposed to be teaching her!

This is a delightful miniature daffodil.  I used to have lots of them.  I wonder where they went?

A collection of snail shells.

Pulmonaria is one of my favourite spring flowers and the foliage is pretty at any time of the year.

On occasion the chickens make a run for it!  At this time of year they start doing quite a bit of damage in the gardens.  I have been adding lots of weeds and leaves to their chicken run to keep them distracted and so far my trick is working.

It seems that baking bread has become a very popular activity while we are under orders to stay at home.  It is almost impossible to find flour or yeast in the shops.  As I love to bake I had a good collection of different flours and a large supply of yeast but now I am starting to run low.  We are assured that there is no shortage of products and that the supply chain just needs time to catch up to the unexpected demand.

Our little barn bird feeder is a busy place.  I never have my camera when we have the most interesting activity.  We keep the feeders topped up and as a result we have chickadees, junkos, tons of sparrows, cardinals and squirrels.  This year we have had a lot of red winged blackbirds which only recently seem to have returned to our farm.

Our muscovy ducks are wondering outside of the barn following the sheep.  We still have a momma duck sitting on a nest of eggs.  This weekend we will need to move her as none of her eggs hatched.

The sheep are scattered everywhere.  I don't know what these lambs were expecting from me as they all came running towards me when I was taking their picture.

This little lamb is just a day old.  The green paint on the lamb and momma help us identify which lamb belongs to which ewe.   We use a special marking paint which does not permanently discolour the wool.

Last year we made a little fire pit using a piece of concrete casing from a well.  A couple of Adirondack chairs and a collection of fallen branches for a fire make for a great place to have a glass of wine on the weekends.  This past weekend we were burning some branches from an old apple tree.  

Lucy is now 10 years old and is still in good health for which we are very thankful.  She and her fur-sister Abby are quite attached to each other and great playmates.

The peonies are all coming up.  We are trying a new experiment with wire cages, partly to provide them with support as they grow and partly to stop Abby from running over them.

A red winged blackbird at one of the bird baths.

This year I am really noticing a huge increase in the number of allium I have.  This is one of my favourite spring flowers and they are great for naturalizing.

Nothing says spring cheer like daffodils.

We are huge composters at the farm.  We compost almost everything.  This cage composter is made with chicken wire and heavy plastic tubing.  I use it in the fall to add leaves and then I top it up in the spring with weeds.  We have a second set of composters elsewhere that are wooden frames with removable fronts.  When we constructed this composter we didnt think that far ahead so I am not sure how I am going to empty it.  :)

Our maples are all budding out.

Sometimes bulbs end up in the lawn.  Here is some muscari.

I have allowed sweet cicely to take over the universe by not deadheading the blooms and am now paying the price!  It is a very pretty plant but is now becoming a nuisance.

These are very difficult times and I am thankful that none of our friends or family have contracted the virus.  We feel very fortunate to live in the country and believe that this is the safest place to be.  The farm keeps us grounded and provides me with much needed peace and tranquility to help balance the stress of this crazy time.

I hope everyone keeps well and thank you for visiting my blog!