On the North side of the barn is a smallish field. A loafing field really.
It is directly behind the pig sty.
We rolled the last two bales of mississippi grass hay through the pig sty and out to the North side, positioning them with difficulty at either end, then built a fence down the middle.
Right about there where the lambs were laying about in the morning.
Then Queenie, Hairy and The Bobby took up residence in one side.
And Mama and her flock were on the other side, sharing with Daisy through the fence and the sheep and Daisy still with access to their indoor living. Inside the barn is a special pen called a creep pen that only the lambs can access, this has good alfalfa and some oats and barley with their own water bucket. Otherwise the big sheep steal all their stuff. In fact I find that the lambs are often in there, out of the way of the others, just sleeping.
Do you see Johnathon Livingston Seagull Tilly?
Good morning. Life on the farm is toddling along in this new warm environment. The clothes are out on the clothesline, I have begun to clear flower beds, today we will put in the first of the potatoes and another set of onions (my aim is 365 onions this year.) After a few more days of warm sunshine like this then we will see some grass beginning. I feel like a race horse being let out of a starting gate with a great Leap.
Yesterday I was standing in the barn thinking what a joy it was not to have to wear so many clothes, though I still had four layers and the clown pants on!
The boys are off to begin to collect next years firewood today. A friend is tearing out some of his hedge trees. I growled at him yesterday about pulling down the trees that help keep his air clean, I asked him what he was gaining, he said four extra rows. (He was talking about corn and beans) I used colourful language. (Which only made them laugh as bad language in a posh NZ accent cannot be taken seriously evidently). John called him a tree assassin and shook his head. He hates to see trees go down.
The flip side of this dirty coin is that we will now work to get our wood shed filled so the wood is put to good use. Hedge apple wood makes good fence posts too so I hope to pull some of that size out of the piles before they set fire to the lot. And I will take the man a tree tomorrow, to plant in his own garden, as an offering to the tree gods. (Can you imagine the look on his face but he will not be able to say no!) Frankly I wish the trees had Gods but I am afraid they would be a vengeful lot in this day and age. It makes me so sad to see big trees go down, I cannot help but feel it. Every year we plant trees here, but I have an old apple and an old peach that will have to give way to the young ones soon, due to rot, but it will still make me sad to take them out. John keeps putting it off. We will plant four trees to replace them though.
I hope you all get to plant a tree this year. If you don’t have the space, let me know and I will plant a tree for you. Maybe along the creek or along our back fence line for shade for the animals. You can choose. Keeping the tree canopy alive makes a huge difference to our air quality so look after your big trees in town too, especially after last years drought.
Back to the farm. Each of these loafing fields has access to a big field. My plan is that once these bales are gone, we can lay out the electric fences, open the gates and let the animals begin their green grass cycles. And in the interim the empty home fields will be growing new forage for the late summer. Won’t that be excellent.
Have a lovely, lovely, lovely day. It is almost dawn, off I go.
celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
76 responses to “Looking after our canopy of trees”
I’m amazed that there’s no more snow in your photos!
It’s lovely to see the blue sky and the ground (even if not very green) because it does look like the weather is finally warming up and the ground thawing. The lambs are so cute. Happy Easter to you and your family and all the barnyard animals xx
Planting trees is so important. I often give Plant-A-Tree gifts for Holidays . . . with an ornament for the recipient of the to-be-planted tree.
Love the photos, as always, Celi, but the blue sky is today’s main character. Look at how BLUE that blue is! So very bluetiful. I hope your crusade to plant more trees catches on. I planted one on Mom & Dad’s property before it was sold. Mother Nature needs all of the help we can give her.
Eeek, snow! On the ground! The cold lingered here too. I hope we’re past it.
I can feel the excitement. Farm life is definitely quickening. So sad to see the trees go down. At the bach I planted lots of trees 40 years ago and now their babies are growing up everywhere, so thick and fast that I have to pull some of them out while they are still small. The wood pigeons and tuis spread the seed in their poo. It’s a fantastic stage when the bush becomes self-seeding. Do hope some of yours will self seed too – maybe over on the neighbour’s property??
Celi I cannot plant a tree here…would you..could you?
That’s nice the lambs have their own space. That Tilly is a dainty thing, isn’t she?
We lost two bush tree things next to our house in all that snow. They were weak after the drought and the trunks snapped from the weight. This weekend we will have to pull them out. Then we will hunt for something new to put in. I’m sad that they didn’t make it but still excited to go look at new little trees. There isn’t a ton of space so maybe a dwarf something or another!
We had to remove three old and decrepit water oaks here because they were dropping HUGE Killer limbs down onto the ground, but like you we have made it a habit to always plant a new tree to replace them. Our new trees are actually two to one in replacement of the old. We planted fruit trees! Two apples, two peaches, a persimmon and a fig. 😀
I wonder if the tree assassin knows that trees attract rain? Greece was an oak forest before the birth of Christ. It is semi-arid now because of deforestation. I bet the tree assassin would be happy to have his tree belt if he could believe there would eventually be more rain.
If you have room to plant a tree for the Shush Sisters, I would be deeply honoured. I will plant some things on my completely covered arid balcony for my part!
How wonderful to have a Farmy Commenters Lounge grove of trees 🙂 We planted a mango tree-ling last weekend that grew from a seed Dad chucked into their compost heap. When it sprouted, he put it into a pot and gave it to us. We will now pray to the weather gods, in the hope one day we will get to eat its fruit.