It feels so good to finally be able to work in the garden.

The spring weather has finally arrived, I sure hope it stays a while.  It feels great to be out in the garden after all those long, cold months of staring out at it from behind the window.

This is the first time I plant potatoes, onions and garlic.  So my fingers are crossed while I watch for signs of life from below ground.  No sign of the potatoes greenery yet; but the onion and garlic I planted last month are about 5 inches tall.  This weekend I planted 80 more onion sets, and about 30 cloves of garlic. 

Meanwhile, the tomato and pepper seeds I started indoors are finally starting to grow.  I can't wait until I can move them out into the garden.  We've expanded the garden area again and Nick wants to till over even more planting space.  When that is done the garden will take up most of the back yard.  We planted six blueberry bushes in what we call the Love Garden (a special garden area Nick made for me years ago which was supposed to be for roses.  Of all the rose bushes we planted, only one survived.  So now we have decided to give it a try as a fruit garden with blueberries and later on, blackberries and strawberries.

Our little chicklets are growing fast and want to go outside to play.  They are still too small to let them out into the run.  This batch of chicks aren't as nice as last year's batch which were calm, clean and friendly.  This years young'uns are skiddish, smelly, and not at all friendly.  The older hens don't want anything to do with the little ones and I can't blame them.  I am hoping there are roosters among the young so we can't put them into the pot.  Among the young are 3 white leghorn pullets, and 4 white rock straight run which seem to be about two weeks older.

The other day when I collected the eggs, one of the blue eggs was quite different.  I should have taken a photo, but didn't have a camera handy.  The shell was soft like a pliable plastic and although the white managed to seep through, the yolk was still inside and could be seen right through the shell.

The girls have also slowed down egg production for some reason.  Ever since one of them died, the others have been laying only half of their usual number of eggs.  We had been getting eggs a day from 10 hens, now we are getting 4 eggs a day from 9 hens.  The easter-eggers haven't changed their laying habit, 2 -3 eggs from the three birds every day.  So what's up with the RIReds and the black sex-links?

All for now.......