And all of a sudden, it’s go time…

Winter.

*hint of warm weather*

Nope. WINTER.

80 degrees one day?

Nope. Winter the next.

This is our reality here in the world today… weird, nutty weather patterns that defy planning and hope and drive us all mad.

For the person with a garden and small farm? OMG. We can’t even.

If the road to hell is paved with the best intentions, well, so is the pathway to an awesome harvest, me thinks. We started our seeds indoors as instructed, meticulously planned the garden and then had to WAIT through all of the rollercoaster weather until it started to stay relatively consistent and we could think to get things outside.

Then? Well, then you have to harden off the plants, dear ones. Can’t just stick it in the ground after 2 months of fake light and controlled humidity in a greenhouse! You have to take baby steps of introducing these tender things to reality (kind of like socializing your pet, you know? Or kids.) Day by day, you take them out for an hour or two longer… day by day you check for sunburns and wind burns and shock… day by day you bring them back inside at night, too afraid that the time you invested will all just *poof!* disappear if you leave them out and they all die.

Gardening sounds awesome, doesn’t it?!?

LOL.

I jest. Well, not really. This IS what you need to do in order to bring seed starts outside. Hence the goal of both hubs and I to start less and less each year until we have a year round greenhouse solution.

But Mother’s Day was “IT”. THE day to get something transplanted into the ground. 40 tomato plants it was. The week before that was the direct sow of onions and potatoes, carrots, radishes and herbs. Hubby got his work on too, clearing the retaining wall of scrub trees and brush (chainsaw and torching pests, anyone?) Needless to say, we both were in heaven finally being able to work outside.

Yesterday the garden tractor arrived. Big investment that will hopefully help with many of the chores AND manage the chaos of keeping up this property (and even maybe help prep pastures for sheep, of course.)

Today? Today will be a combo of transplanting some of our starts (collards, cabbage, pak choy and chard) with direct sowing greens and climbers (arugula, spinach, kale and peas).

As the title of the post implies, folks: it isn’t time until it is and HOLY SH*T you better hurry up and get it all done real quick! If you wondered about the break in blog posts? It’s been kind hectic ’round here, friends.

Today also brought some new baby fluffies to the farm: our new day old baby layer chicks! 2 Olive Eggers and 2 Cream Legbars… I have no idea what to expect from these special/rare breeds , but these littles were $$ and thankfully arrived safe and sound (delivered to our door by the post master suspiciously 5 minutes before a work Skype call I needed to take from home. “Excuse the peeping, boss, it’s just new chickens.” sidenote *yes, my boss thinks I am nuts*.)

And while I’m posting pics, here is the rest of the flock doing their thing with Floyd keeping things relatively under control. Also, the meat flock enjoying the 80 degree day, finally outside and about 5 weeks old… 4 more weeks to go. Sorry Cornish across, you might grow to be massive, cost effective birds but Freedom Rangers have just taken over.