Winter 2019 farm update...

Here is an update of what we did over Winter 2019:

First, if you don't live locally (Moscow, ID), it is important to let you know that we had a record amount of snow this year.  Most of it came in February.  I think I heard estimates of up to 50 inches of snow over the winter.  Here are the water trough raised beds to show the depth of the snow.

This picture was taken on March 1st...

This picture was taken yesterday (March 24th)...things are melting nicely...

I took the covers off the large round water trough and the spinach that I planted last fall looks amazing!  It looks almost exactly like it did last fall before I put the covers on.  The walking onion is starting to take off too (back center of picture).  The weather has really warmed up so I expect that we will be able to start harvesting spinach soon!

I experimented with growing lettuce inside.  I started some in December.  It worked really well!

We made some time to go snow tubing at Silver Mountain! We also did some tubing in our own front yard due to all the great snow we got!

Mark and Henry getting ready to "tube" down the hill.

I experimented with making my own soap.  This is an olive oil based soap.  I used oil infused with calendula flowers (that is why it is kind of an orange color).  It just finished curing and I got to use some for the first time right before I started working on this blog!

We continue to work on diet and exercise.  I have been taking Mark swimming and he really enjoys it.  I thought I took a short video of Mark swimming but I must have deleted it by accident.  

It looks like we are on the right track with the weight loss.  Yes, there are some ups and downs and we plateaued for a little bit but we seem to be back on track now...I would say he has lost about 15 pounds at this point.  Still would like to see him lose another 55 pounds...I know that seems like a lot but with warmer weather coming, we should be able to get out and exercise a little more.

Sad news...the bees did not make it.  Yes, these are all dead bees that were at the bottom of the Langstroth hive.  My top bar hive did not make it either.  I cleaned out the hives yesterday and have already ordered new bees (hopefully, they will be available on April 13th!).  I will harvest some honey from the top bar hive so that is a nice thing to look forward to.

Lastly, I spent some time yesterday measuring and flagging our "front" yard where we are going to be building our poultry coops.  

Here is a low area of the property where some water has accumulated.  I have marked it so it can become a small duck pond.

I also had someone out last week to get an estimate on fencing and extending a water line out to the coop areas.  It is both exciting and super scary to move forward with the poultry egg business.

Looking forward to warmer temperatures!
~Denise