NO time for pictures...too busy working

We have had a busy week...with two wwoofers here to lend a hand all kinds of forward movement has been made. The nettles have been pulled from the blueberries (ouch, is right. I forgot to wear gloves). And Shelton and Julia worked and worked down in the raspberry and marion berry patches in the garden. All is weeded and denettled.

We made nettle infusions, and nettle soup and dried batch of nettle in the dehydrator. Our first 'crop' of 2010.

Yesterday they watched Andrew the AI guy work his magic with Mattie. They seemed more than impressed with just how far he got his arm in there. Phew. Then I showed them how to dock the lambs tails and turn the boys into wethers (is that how you spell that, hmm). I expected the wwoofers to be a little more squeamish than they were but they dove right in and in minutes were pros using the handy dandy little tool which is seriously called the emasuclator. It only took a few minutes and all the boys were fixed.

So far, we have four boys lambs this year, one set of twins and two huge singles. Since we are growing the lambs for meat is always nice to get boys as they grow quite a bit larger than the girls. Two of them are going to have four horns just like their daddy did. We have two ewes left to lamb so maybe we will get some girls, who knows. Those poor ewes can barely make their way through the barn door to get their dinner. It is no fun being late to birth when you are expecting twins!

I also got started growing the flowers for Grace's wedding. I was outside today in the wind and the sun mixing a big vat of potting mix. Peat moss, coconut hulls, perlite, compost, worm casting and a bit of dirt...stir until mixed. I felt sort of like one of Macbeth's witches brewing my magic. As soon as the seeds turn into little starts I am going to plant them out in the hoophouse and wish them a speedy life to flower. July 4th is going to get here sooner than I can imagine.

Next week we are going to compost and mulch the blueberries, working to keep the mummy berry in check. The list is long. Good thing we have these two young backs to help cuz we have lots of work to do. Yea for wwoofers.