The Spring has Sprung and a Spring has Sprung

Can you see a Cob Oven and a sleeping dragon making a bench?

We've been very beesy around the farm here this week. Milestones have been reached, everyone on the farm but the farmgirls have, at least, their first Covid-19 vaccine. We're all really happy about that. Now our plans can go forward! This is a really big deal. So.. what exactly have we been up to? Spring around the farm is a really beautiful time of year and is just teeming with work. We currently have a number of irons, sometimes too many irons, in the fire.

The nuc in the trunk of the car before we unpacked the new bees.

We got our package of bees in this week. We had three hives going into winter, but only one survived :( so we purchased a new nuc. A nuc is five frames full of bees and a healthy laying queen. After an hour of orienting to their new location, we placed the bees into their new hive. It is named "Hunnysuckle" and seems to be thriving. "Daisy", our top bar hive is thriving, too.

We set the nuc on top, remove the yellow plug and let the bees orient for an hour before placing them in their new home.

We have achieved one goal that has been over ten years in the making - productive dairy goats for folks that are lactose intolerant, like farmgirl#1. She helps a lot with corralling the goats and feeding them but today, two goats escaped and decided that the grass on the other side of the fence was greener. She recaptured them and came to report it to us with the comment regarding Blaise: "That goat has got some maneuvers!" lol

Maryjane: So, I'm ready for milking, open the gate!

In any case, we now can offer fresh raw goat's milk to our customers here at the farm. The farmgirls tried it and pronounced it delicious and better than cows milk. If you'd like to try a quart, you have to come to the farm to get it at this point. It won't be available at the farmers market. We're excited to be able to offer milk and eggs and perhaps in July, honey, in addition to healthy fruits, herbs, veggies and lovely flowers. Such is the bounty of our country!

Too swampy to mow, thought it was just runoff.

There is one project that has taken a hard left. We thought we had an area that would be our bonfire pit. It has the pit and a BBQ and a woodshed and this wonderful crescent berm that we had plans for. The problem is that the bonfire area kept filling with water. We took to calling it Lake Backayarda and making jokes about mosquitos but it was really a serious problem.

Getting rid of debris and tossing rocks where we thought we needed 'fill'.

But the reality is what was lurking under the crescent. Xander dug trenches as we prepared to drain the swamp and put in drains, etc. so the area could be paved. He thought that we were going to have to grade the yard lower on one side to encourage better run off of rainwater.

The start to the trench to drain off rain overflow.. we thought.

It became apparent that no matter how deep he dug this trench, it filled back in within just a day or so..no rain necessary. Yes, you guessed it, we finally found the spring that we had heard about in the old records - right in the middle of our backyard. There is one more spring up in the woods that feeds the ponds. That spring is very easy to find but this one was a surprise.

The water is trickling out nice and steady but slow.

We're trying to figure out how to work this spring into our future plans since it runs right through the middle of our recreation area. The situation is under investigation whether or not we could just change it to a water feature, a small koi pond, possibly. We just don't know what we're going to do with it, but the water is certainly a feature of our hillside farm that we do have to deal with.

What would you do if you found a spring in your backyard? Let us know in the comments!