Signs of Spring?

Slowly but surely, Nova Scotia is turning towards Spring. We've had some lovely warm sunny weather, though if a breeze is present it chills down a lot. There are still patches of snow, but we probably have 90% clear ground.

We had a menagerie of visitors on Sunday, Georgie walking 'Girl', one of his foals, out for the first time and then Jonathan and Mark 'walking' their two bull calves out haltered. I'm not sure who was walking who, but the effort of handling these animals like this really seems to pay dividends down the road.

Yesterday, we put spiles in 4 sugar maples to collect sap for making maple syrup again. It made me look back at the blog entry from this time last year, and inevitably muse on all that has been and gone and dunnit in the interim.

We have loads of seedlings coming up both indoors under the light table and in the polytunnel. Off to a flying start compared with last year. It will be interesting to see how much earlier we start harvesting. The rhubarb has started peaking through, which is always a good sign of the season turning.

I've spent some time in the woods below the house this week, clearing hanging trees, spindly rubbish and dead trees - not that you'd notice! There may be a bit of usuable firewood, but we still need to gather ~6 cords for winter 2010, and get that split and stacked.

What else? We've all had minor illnesses, Breagh got a silver medal for her science project, both kids got great school reports before March break this week. We've all been out for gentle runs as we intend to do the Spartans 5k fun run on April 5. In fact, I may nip out for a 1 mile jog just now. Pathetic really, when you think the distances I was covering a few short years ago...