Yay Spring!

Today was beautiful!  The first nice day we've had in several weeks.  Oh, it felt so good to see blue sky and feel sun on my face.

The kids and I took full advantage.  We went for a nice long walk through the woods to the beach and picked baskets full of spring nettles.  Hooray for nettles!  They are so delicious and nourishing, especially after a long, dark winter.

Sequoia decided the easiest way to carry her basket was on her head.

Ducks and loons riding the current as the tide went out.

Filling baskets.
You can see from Sequoia's goggle face that winter still isn't quite over yet... yesterday was great on the mountain!  

Sunlight!

Throughout our walk we discussed, among many other things, what all we might make with our succulent harvest.  Cedar is strongly in favor of nettle raviolis.  Last spring, while Steve's mom and her husband, Lou, were visiting from New York, we made several hundred nettle raviolis.  Our kitchen became rav central with people at every station- some mixing dough, some mixing the stuffing, rolling out dough, stuffing, folding, cutting, and the kids whipping up the most amazing "scrapiolis" from the dough scraps you could ever imagine.  It was heaven.  Somehow, I'm pretty sure Cedar will get his ravioli wish come true again this year.  Now, if we could just magically whisk the grandparents in from the east coast....

With my recently discovered gluten intolerance, I must insist that raviolis be just one of the nettle delicacies we indulge in this year.  Lucky for me, we harvested plenty.

Bounty!

mmmmmmm.....

Gotta watch out for those hairs/spines!

Such a beautiful plant.

I have several spots still tingling from hours ago.... love it!

Can you tell I look forward to nettle season all year?  It's so fleeting and so amazing.

Believe it or not, there are many other signs of spring around the homestead as well.  Signs that are making my fingers itch to do more than inside chores, knitting and tickling the computer keys.  These tingly fingers are digging back into the soil!  Today, after our nettle walk, the kids did math and spelling while I made lunch, then back outside we went.  I got to spend the rest of the afternoon hauling chicken poop... heaven.  Seriously.  It was fantastic!  I got two beds in the main veggie garden covered with wet cardboard, then mulched with this winter's partially composted straw and chicken manure.  Soon, more layers of fully composted material go on top until the beds are ready for planting.  It felt so good to move load after load from the chicken yard to the garden.  My body is ready to wake up after a long winter's nap.

One of the beds I worked on today.

I was so blissed out moving poop and building beds that I lost track of time.  I grabbed Q (Sequoia) in a hurry and zipped off to gymnastics.  Only when I sat down in the bleachers among the other smartly dressed parents chatting about their neighborhood association did I realize that maybe other people don't have the same deep love and appreciation for my chickens' fabulous fecal fertilizer as I do.  I discreetly shifted a little further down the bleachers and hung my fertility clad boots over the far edge.

Umm.... moving right along.

 More spring springing forth:

The raspberries are bursting from the canes.

Egg production is increasing.

The house is full of peeping.

And they are so cute.

So cute indeed.  We can't keep our hands off them, or them off our hands!

And, as for Napali junior... you remember, the November chick... well, she turned out to be a he.  And he has just started his adolescent crowing.  Hmmm, how lovely.  However frustrating, we are all so smitten after our winter together by the woodstove, he'll be sticking around as part of the clan.  Say hello to this handsome young man.

Napali Jr. and some of the ladies working in the garden.

I hope that wherever you are, spring is popping up all around you!