I've A Feeling We're Not In Kansas Anymore...

Wow.  How about this weird weather?

Sunday was in the 80's and muggy.  Monday we were under Tornado Watch and the wind picked up my chicken tractor and tried to blow my dinner away.  Today, Tuesday, it's in the mid-forties and I've had to fire up the woodstove one...more...time (crossin' my fingers.)

Here's the meaties hanging out after I got the chicken tractor set back up.  A little bit redneck, but it does the job.  It takes two of us to move this tractor (not really happy with the design, but I'll have to work on that next year.)  I had the tarp covering it all the way across the top and had it attached so well with bungees that the wind picked it up and tossed it like a frisbee.  It's over 100 pounds!

I couldn't flip it back over or move it by myself, so I had to completely disassemble it and reassemble it. 

The birds didn't go anywhere.  They just sat huddled around the feeder looking a little stunned.  It took me two hours to put everything back together and round up all 36 chickens.  (You don't want to chase them too hard or give them a heart attack.)

Cornish X are tasty, but they're rather unnatural and not very chicken-like in their mannerisms.  This will probably be the last year I raise them for the freezer.  I want to work on developing a good dual-purpose homestead flock next year, possibly Light Sussex or Black Copper Marans.

Anyhow, while I'm bemoaning my bad luck with the weather, check out my swamp. This is my garden today, April 12, 2011.

And THIS is my garden last year, April 7, 2010...

I am so far behind right now.  I've just had to toss my ag extension garden calendar.  It's giving me nervous fits.  No tilling until the swamp dries out.  The only things I have planted right now are peas, onions (in a raised bed) and a little bit of spinach that was left over from my winter low tunnel experiment.  The renegade chickens ate all of my early lettuce.  Their days are numbered...

This is my lilac bush last year, same date as above.

This year, a week later than that, it still has not yet bloomed.

I am so ready for sunshine, warm breezes and flowers.  Where did spring go?

We've had a lot of unsettled weather this spring and a lot of high winds and a few tornado watches.  My neighbor, Charlie, got tired of picking up all the branches on his maple trees, so he hired some fellas to come give them a drastic haircut.  They'll eventually bush back up again, but they really do look funny right now!

Sorry for the low quality of these pictures.  There was a drizzly rain all day and I didn't want to get my good camera wet, so I took my pocket-sized point-and-click with me instead.  Such a dismal day as it was, there wasn't much the good camera could have done to make it look any better anyway.  :P