I know that spring has arrived with I hear the chirp of a new chick. There is the wild fanfare of morning birds and the grass is greening up, buds popping on the trees.
But a wee chick is a great big exclamation mark on the arrival of spring.
I wonder what you see that means spring to you. Chicks? Daffs?
A Chick in theFarmyard
It was really too cold for this tiny chick to be hatched out – I went up into the top of the barn to find the nest and sure enough the others did not survive.
You know I am going to tell you when stuff like this happens right?
You and I – we take the good with the bad.
It is a farmyard thing.
The wild hens hatch the chicks up in the loft of the barn, and this nest was right next to the edge – I am fairly sure this little fella (and it is almost definitely a rooster as we seem to have a plethora of roosters) fell straight over the side and Mum dived after it. The rest of the chicks did not survive without their mother.
This is unusual actually. Usually the Mums jog back and forth until they get them all together. But she is a first time mother and also those were cold nights. And we do not know what happened that night, who else was lurking in the barn.
This is a strong chick though – already it has survived a few days in amongst all these roosters.
Cats Look On
Thankfully the mother hens protect the chicks from these mini lionesses too.
I know I have said it before but I will say it again. I will be very happy when there are no more cats on this property. They kill too many birds. And they are well fed too!
I will miss LuLu and Vandal as individuals but cats do not belong in my growing forest.
Weather
I was going through some old comments the other day and came across a person saying that she loved how I mentioned the weather. She found it interesting that comparing her weather to our weather was strangely grounding for her. She felt like she had company.
And it is true. You do have company here.
And we ALL have weather in common!
Do you see that? Three more days before we can begin dragging the pots out of the glass house. And begin hardening off the vegetables.
Today I am going to begin digging though.
Getting my Kitchens Garden begun.
This blog began as The Kitchens Garden and next it will be The Kitchens Garden with The Sustainable Home. (And yes you are all coming with me) But my first love will always be this little garden.
I will take some pictures of the Spring garden for you today!
Take Care. Talk soon.
See you in the Lounge of Comments. We can talk about your signs of spring (even though it is not spring for many of you – it is coming up Autumn!). Sorry!
Celi
The Kitchen's Garden 
37 responses to “Do You See What I see? The First Spring Chick!”
I looked at that weather image and thought, “wow, that’s a warm spring day”…and then I realised it was Fahrenheit, not Celsius. Different hemisphere; today we’re going to get up to 30°C, but it’s autumn, and still a bit too hot for sowing cold climate winter crops. I must get my beans sprouting ready to go out when it cools some more.
Soon I hope! I am bring cautious this year! Going slow.
The first sign of Spring for me is that slight change in the feel and smell of the air. Daffodils just starting to emerge. Waiting now for rhubarb to show, it was just planted last year so I hope it survives. Another sign of spring for me is when the sap buckets appear on the maple trees. To me maple syrup is the first taste of spring and then rhubarb. Love the budding of the trees but still will have a little wait for that in southern Ontario. I try to have a road trip when all those beautiful shades of green appear.
The first sign of Spring for me is that slight change in the feel and smell of the air. Daffodils begin to appear. Waiting for my rhubarb to show. It was planted last year and I hope it makes it. Another sign is the sap buckets appearing on the maple trees. The first taste of Spring is new maple syrup followed by rhubarb. New buds appearing on trees (all the colours). It will be awhile yet here in Southern Ontario but when the first beautiful shades of green appear I always plan a one day road trip.
It was good to see sunshine and one tiny chick. Restless is a good word for spring. It goes back and forth not quite making up it’s mind. I get a kick out of people that want the weather to be the way it’s always been??? And perfect for them, of course. 🙂 Spring always has lots of variations and extremes. It’s summer heat that is relentless and holds on so tight. But we need it to make things grow. Sigh.