Howdy, all! It's been a while, so we figured it was time for another farm update. Over the past few months, we've made progress here on our little family farm. One of the biggest accomplishments was assembling the greenhouse. We bought our greenhouse kit from Costco over the winter. Paul then assembled the walls in the Corral, which you may recall is the bonus family room in our house. It's a room in the house that we can close off and use for special things like that. Anyway, we needed to clean out that room for a guest who will be coming in a few weeks, which motivated us to finally assemble the greenhouse outside. It meant leveling the ground, which was a project in and of itself. The project is finally done, though, and of course, I've already filled the inside with plants and seeds in pots. We still need to cover the floor with gravel and install a few wooden benches, but placing the pots on the ground works for now. I'm so proud of Paul's accomplishment. ...
I just noticed that the swifts (a type of bird) have returned, and they are at least a month early. It's been significantly warmer this winter and we've had no snow, which is an usual pattern here. In past years, we've had at least two lengthy episodes of snow, usually one in December and another in February, with 12 to 18 inches of accumulation. We've had zero snow this year. Also, the temperatures are normally much lower, with overnight lows in the 20s and 30s, and a few dips into the 10s. This year, the overnight lows have only reached 28 degrees a couple of times, and have mostly been in the 30s and 40s. We're up to the 50s during the daytime now. So, obviously, the birds decided to migrate here earlier than usual due to warmer temperatures in the region. The reason I noticed they were present is because they often fly swiftly down the exterior of the house right outside the kitchen window, which during the daytime causes a noticable shift in the sunlight. They...