It's Almost Spring....almost! Garden plans,starting seeds, splitting firewood, new perches for the coop...

This past weekend we took a break from extra work around the farm and enjoyed the Valentine's Day Weekend.  I hope you spent the weekend with someone you love!

Here's a little from weekend before........

We are all excited about the beautiful weather we have been having here on the farm this weekend.

I have been working on the Spring/Summer garden plans!  I use an awesome FREE program to help us layout and maintain the garden beds and you can too.  Go to The Smart Gardener and join for free!  It is a really cool, easy program that not only allows you to lay out your garden, but choose the seeds/plants you would like to use, place them in the garden and it will even send you a to do list via email of what needs to be done that week.  It has all kinds of information from when to started seeds indoors, to when to plant outdoors, when to fertilize, when to water and even when to expect harvest.  They have a great series of videos available that walk you through the whole program.  I would highly recommend  this program!

The other item that I have found very helpful are a 12" x 12" - 3 ring binder and 4" x 6" photo inserts.  This binder has about a three inch spine so it allows you to insert and fill quite a few pages.  The standard seed packages slide right into the sleeves and make it very easy to sort, store, and view seeds.  I keep the binders in a cabinet where they can stay cool, dark and dry.

You may notice many of the seed packages are from "Mike the Gardener Enterprises". My sweet farmer man purchased a 3 year subscription to a Seed of the Month club for me!  It is like Christmas once a month when my packages of seeds arrive in the mail. I have had great success with Mike's seeds and I can't wait to try out some of the new varieties I recently received.  If you are interested in joining the club and receiving 8 packages of seeds in your first shipment and 4 packages of seeds each month after that click on this like to check out Mike the Gardener at Average Person Gardening! and get your own surprise each month...or surprise the gardener in your life with a cool gift!  Ahem...guys...Valentine Day is NEXT Saturday!! Hint..Hint!!

I'll be starting tomatoes, peppers, celery, and several other veggies this weekend.  Nothing like getting your hands dirty.  I wish we had the ability to send scents via the internet....you wouldn't believe the awesome fragrance coming from the greenhouse right now!

The fragrance of the this orange tree greets you when you walk into the greenhouse!  It is so lovely!

Our one and only navel orange <3

 While I worked away at the plans for the garden, Scott and our farm helper Craig, worked on a truck load and a trailer load of firewood. This is only one stack of four. We were so blessed with beautiful, seasoned, precut firewood! A huge thank you to our new friends The Tarpley's!! <3

My farmer man also reworked the perches in the The Chick Inn II.  With the addition of a few hens and a few guineas it was getting crowded in the coop and jockeying for a perch position in the evening was becoming a nightly event.  He extended the perches by adding two more rungs to each set.  This should make bedtime a little more peaceful.

 
 The critters all had a great weekend with plenty of free range time to get some extra exercise and sunshine. I hope you had a beautiful weekend where you are!  Thanks for checking in on us at The Old Five Notch Farm :-)

"Rudy" and a couple of his girls, relaxing and enjoying the sunshine

"Rudy" and one of his favorite girls, "Woobie"

"Oliver" has a new favorite place in the back yard! It's an Oliver on a Stump!