Good morning. I took you around the farmy yesterday. Yesterday was a day of bird song. It was still, overcast and bright. Which is actually a perfect day for the camera if you want some serious light for the densest colour in your images. Sadly we are still waiting in line for our spring colours, my sepia world persists. I would like to have shown you the birds but they were way, way up in the tops of the trees. But I know I heard a red-winged blackbird, and the mourning doves are back. Their spring song was sunny all in itself. The exciting news is that my Cardinal has appeared, he comes every spring with his wife to nest high up in the mulberry tree. Cardinals are very cheeky birds, bright orange and they flit about like little nightclub lights.
My lambing pen sits quietly. Waiting like me. With the really big barn doors open, you can see inside. Look at that fantastic old hand made gate. It is almost one hundred years old and is one of my favourite barn gates. 
No lambs yet, just a cat. Thing One I think, but he was so fast asleep in the cleanest pen in the place that he did not even raise his head the lazy sod. What if I had been a big fat mouse!?. 
Because it has been steadily getting a wee bit warmer in the last few weeks, the bees have been up and about. You will see that we have moved the blog hive away from the big trees. It was just too cold in the North shadow of that shelter belt. When we lifted it, we found that it was quite light, too light, (they have eaten up their stores of honey) so I have begin to feed all the bees sugar water.- see the little jars? – once I start this I must continue, probably until Late March, Early April – whenever the first flowers are in full bloom. But for now the bees are buzzing all over looking for food, with day after day in the upper 40’s. So I am forced to feed them sugar water. Especially this weaker hive. The problem with feeding this early is that the bees will become active and the queen might start laying so that is why I have to make sure not to miss a day until the first decent run of flowers. 
No grass in Pat’s Field. Of course not – it is way to early! I am going to drive you batty for weeks now, staring at the fields willing that grass to grow! And we all know how exciting it is watching grass grow. Actually for me it kind of is!! 
Look at that rain cloud. Though we had no rain yesterday. It is so exposed out here. The spring winds will start soon. Maybe I should create some kind of sound track so you can hear the howl of the winds hurling across the plains.. not yet though, not yet. For the moment we are still.
We are entering the time of year that I call the slog. It feels like spring should be coming. We feel like surely we can wear one less layer of clothing. It is not cold enough to light the fire but not warm enough to open all the windows. The nights are almost above freezing but not warm enough to leave the seedlings out at night. So hundreds of little plants in their paper pots lined up in their trays, are carried out every morning that is over 40F and carried back in that evening. The floors are covered in plants at night. I stare and stare across the tundra desperately seeking green.
Today I start to clear the flower gardens. I never cut down old plants in the autumn, I like to leave the seeds heads up until the birds have got every little mouthful out of there. So today I start to clear and compost. 
Ok enough chatting. The dawn is here, (this is the view out my loft study window about three minutes ago as promised) I had better hurry up and publish!! Looks like there may be a bit of rain heading our way. I am off outside to play.
Good morning.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
92 responses to “Walkabout the Farmy on a Still Sepia Day”
I love the idea of birds that look like little night-club lights! How utterly charming XO
That sunrise is gorgeous! Wow! Thank you for sharing 🙂
l love your old barns, they look so comfortable there, as though they really belong. And that sky is amazing!
This old barn has been here much much longer than the house, so i guess it really does belong.. c
I love it when cats are curled up like that to sleep.
He looks like a snail, no not a snail, one of those ancient molluscs that you find fossilised!! c
Those colours in the sky are awesome – I would have loved to have been there to experience it myself!
I made some paper pots of my own and started peas in them. They’ve been transplanted already to the outside garden box, it is about 80F here today 🙂 I have watermelon seeds that I hope will grow, but those have to wait another month… thanks for the inspiration!
EIGHTY! that is warm, watermelons will LOVE that! c
I just love all your posts, its amusing how you right so beautiful, have a lovely weekend!
Waiting. The art of patience is among the hardest to master. But you fill your waiting with so much action and rampant imagination that I can’t think you have the time to become impatient, really.
What a spectacular sunrise to send you off to your tasks, in any event.
I am feeling impatient with Mama though.. I mean REALLY! c
Well, I’ve been thinking about Mama, as I’ve been sorting through storage boxes of old photos and found a stack of adorable lamb pictures from when I lived at my grandparents’. Remembering the sheep as big as houses, then those ridiculously charming little cotton-clouds leaping around like they were spring-loaded (pun intended). Here’s to Mama’s ‘getting with the program’ tout de suite!
What a gorgeous sunset! And I love the photo of the barn with the cloudy sky. We too are still stuck in sepia and clouds. Looking forward to spring! The yellow finches made an appearance today, hopefully that means something.
your finches are early, how wonderful,. it will be ages before i get a finch.. spring is coming.. it will come.. c
What a lovely journey around the farmy. I enjoyed seeing so many special treasures, like the gate, the barn, the kitty. Beautiful sunrise to top it off. Thanks for sharing your world.
So pretty, C. We’re in the slog here, too, with not enough snow to really enjoy it, but still three months away from the real thaw. Boo. Keeping the crew from bouncing off the wall (and keeping me from becoming Screamy Mommy) gets more difficult by the day. We are so ready for spring!
it is the most ancient of feelings too.. c
Wow! That is a stunning and very colorful sunrise. The red-winged blackbirds are here in the Bogs, too. They’re our first sign of spring. I also thought I heard the spring peepers singing this morning.
spring peepers, what are they?.. c
They’re small frogs that make the most incredible chorus of sounds. You can see a photo of one and listen to them here:
http://www.enature.com/fieldguides/detail.asp?recNum=AR0014
thank you robin, I have a lot to learn! c
Ok. answering my own question.. i looked it up.. Frogs.. I love frogs!
We had an early spring day here in northern California: warm enough to go barefoot in the house. I am feeding a neighbor’s cats for a week, so I got a long walk in the sunshine. I saw clumps of daffodils and tulip trees in bloom, plus some showy red rhododendrons. But we could still get rain, wind or frost to knock all of these things down because it is still February and we are short on rain. The local birds were singing their hearts out.
how wonderful to walk though all that and SEE it! so many people do not See.. c
I love these walk abouts!
Glad to see the daffies and tulips are are coming up here, as well. My walks are beginning to display the fresh bright green of new foliage…I love that colour. I’ll know spring is really here when I can smell those new buds on the popple trees, as my dad called them. The best scent in the whole world – and my friend Susan agrees. We know where the best ones are and they belong to …well..US! 😀
so they do!!! awesome.. love to susan! c