I was up there earlier today. I had hoped to go up to the wood stove place tomorrow, but Massachusetts is expected to have a load o snow... we'll get cold rain down here in CT. At any rate: This is my house in snow, what remains today: (PS, two hours south at my home in Connecticut: "Leaves are Brown, There's a Patch of Snow on the Ground, And It's a Hazy Shade of Winter" - about one foot by one foot, and maybe 6-8 inches high -- the little that remains from the big snow a week or so ago...) Anyhow, back up here: Inside, Ladybug, Ladybug, fly away! I hear there were a bunch more when I wasn't around. I finally got to go out on my future back deck. I'd say about 1/3rd, or a little less, has been planked. It was a great day for my builders to be out there, and they enjoyed it. The dangly thing is the bathroom vent. The windows will eventually be framed in with wood. My first time out here! To the east... the steps will go down about where the ladder is, and will go about 2/3rds way down. Then there will be a 45 degree turn, flat. Then, another 1/rd 45 degree corner turn down, to the ground. Those stones off to the right? About where I will have a flagstone/flat stone patio. Lookin' back to the house.... Exterior color is named "almond", as per the unpeeled nut. The sun side will need a second coat, and it will all need a clear coat/preservative late this spring. By the way... the windows will only have grids on the top, NOT the bottom. Gonna be removed. I signed my sig in the basement. We are now adding in the workroom, root cellar, and the basement bath for cleaning up after man, er, woman-handling the livestock.

Wow there are a ton of updates since I've been on here last! End of the month rush to fill up this thread? I didn't know about separating onion sets/plants either. I have a bundle of Walla Walla that I'll probably get out into the garden this weekend.. not sure its worth unbundling now but I'll try to remember for next year! @tana - Yes I would love to talk canning! God willing we will all have great harvests this year! I take a really simple approach most years... freeze maters in 1 gal bags, then when ready to can, rinse under hot water to peel skins then into the big ol pot they go. I have an immersion blender that helps break everything down. @sunflowers - cool that you are doing the mason bee thing. I never knew they were that great for the garden.... I always saw them as something that destroyed my rocking chairs/pergola/anything that's wooden. I have some reclaimed lumber that they got a hold of last year... I end up cutting it in slices just to see how they did their holes. It is amazing how perfectly round they get them! As long as we're talking about ordering bugs online, I am trying praying mantis eggs this year. Hopefully they will be around when the Japanese beetles swarm. My 4 year old thinks they are the coolest, he keeps asking me to play youtube videos of them hatching. Cant wait to see his face when he sees the real thing. Wife is tentatively okay with having them in the house for now (if little one wasn't so excited about them she wouldn't have it). Made some progress the past couple days. Planted that broccoli in the pumpkin bed and will take the advise on here to just chop it down but leave roots intact when its done. Sowed some more lettuce/spinach. Built the rest of my ‘perimeter’ beds (three 2x6 beds, and two 2x4 beds). Made up some 5-1-1-ish potting soil and filled up all the front porch containers. Planted some hop rhizomes in the four biggest containers (Cascade, Willamette, CTZ, and Crystal). Plan is to have them climb up each corner of our pergola and train them along the top...we did it with morning glories last year and really liked the shade/comfort it provided. Im not sure the hops will be as aggressive as a first year plant but we're going to see how it goes. Still have to move the fence and build the two beds that will have peppers this year (6x5 each). Tomato seedlings are doing well with most having their first set of true leaves. Pepper young'n's (whipper snappers?) are doing great, really starting to take off now. Everything else has sprouted, petunias are taking forever to do anything. I really should take more pictures. Oh and I have to get my drip irrigation lines planned and then installed. Thinking of running 1/2 inch line through all the beds and then either adjustable emitters either directly on the 1/2 line or attached to 1/4 inch line when plants are further away. I tried running longer 1/4 inch line last year and it quickly became a tangled mess. Really itching to get one of those Rachio or other smart sprinkler controllers but I’m pretty sure my yard/garden budget is way over this year already and I still need to bring in/find/dig up a few yards of planting material. Sorry for the novel.

Hazel, Yes he is very much a typical coyote in appearance. His coat might be slightly more golden than what I usually see, so I think there is a slim chance he has some domestic dog DNA in his heritage, but he is not at all the sort of coyote-domestic dog hybrid we sometimes see here, so if he has domestic dog DNA, it is a small amount. I had to deal with a coyote one year that was a clear coyote/golden retriever mix. About the only part of him that looked like a coyote was his head and his tail. He had no fear of humans and would try to walk right up to you, which is extremely dangerous and cannot be tolerated. I ran into that one occasionally while walking my dogs and he would try to walk along with us, not in a menacing way, but because I knew he was a coyote, I always reversed course and headed straight back home. If a car came along, he'd run right off. Otherwise he'd pace us from about 20 yards away. This one is not like that, but he also doesn't exhibit much fear and he certainly doesn't slink off with his tail between his legs like coyotes often do. He is probably 2 or 3 years old---a young, muscular healthy one that is eating very well, not looking at all like the lean, skinny half-starved ones we often see in drought years. Clearly he roams our neighborhood a great deal and is used to humans and the noises we make because he does not startle easily and he also has taken to standing his ground a bit and staring back at me instead of just turning and running off. We probably should have shot and killed him long ago, but the longer you live with wild things, the more you know that all of them have an important role to fill in the ecosystem and the more you understand that it is better to divert them, to try to prevent them from becoming habituated to your presence/your habitat, etc., instead of killing them. And, truthfully, killing a coyote or a bobcat doesn't really protect your animals because another predator moves right into the available territory as soon as you kill one. I have studied his trail and no matter which wildlife trail he uses to enter/exit the woods near our house, it appears that once he gets deeper in the woodland he is utlizing a fallen log that rests across the creek bank about 10' above the waterline as a bridge to cross the creek. So, also on our list of things to do must be for us to go into the woods (ugh, in snake season already) with the chain saw and cut that log into several pieces so it no longer serves as a bridge. It is a very large tree trunk, possibly a walnut that the idiot beavers chewed/girdled but couldn't bring down due to its huge size about a decade ago. I've only seen it from the road's bridge over the creek, but tomorrow I think Tim and I will put on our leather workboots and such and venture into the woodland to check it out. With free-range chickens, you expect to lose one to predators here and there, but it really doesn't happen that often here. Except in the past year it has happened too often. I worry more about the coyote getting one of our cats than our chickens. Still, when a coyote is coming into your yard while you're outside working in the garden and not that far away, you do have to take action, if only to establish that you're a threat and that the coyote needs to stay away. So, that's where we are now. I left all the poultry inside their individual chicken coops/runs today, and they are not happy even though their fenced runs are large and fully covered with fencing so they are safe. Once poultry is used to free-ranging, they're never really happy confined. I don't care if they're happy today, because at least they are safe. Our chickens would rather be free than be safe, but their vote didn't count today. Only mine did. I kept the cats in, and the dogs are in their fenced dog run with the 8' tall fence to keep the coyotes out. So, I am not worried about the dogs, but I do always bring them indoors from the run if I have to leave the property. Kim, The thought of the blood doesn't bother me. We use blood meal and bone meal, after all, as organic fertilizers. I'm glad you and your little man are having so much fun together. See there---he'll be like me---growing up gardening and having it in his blood, which is a wonderful way to grow up. When kids understand where their food comes from and how it is grown, they automatically understand concepts that non-gardening children (and adults!) do not. Amy, I think Tim would have a stroke if I suggested he bring home some Zoo Doo (lots of zoos do sell it!). He told me yesterday he'll take care of the coyote himself. I love my husband, but I rolled my eyes. When I was having cougar encounters in the yard and was terrified and just trying to make it back to the house alive and in one piece, where was he then? Sitting on his butt watching TV and not paying any attention to any noise outside, not answering his phone (which he conveniently leaves in another room so the noise will not interrupt his TV viewing of some stupid movie he has watched 10,000 times before) and completely clueless, even though after the first cougar encounter he KNEW I was terrified and wanted him to keep his phone with him at all times. If I ever kill him it will be because he walks into his office, closes the door and tunes out the whole world including me and any predator that might be out in the yard with me. If I do not specifically tell him "I am going outdoors, there is a coyote lurking around, keep your phone right beside you", he won't have his phone handy. It makes me nuts. The odds of the coyote coming into the yard when Tim is home on the weekend are between slim and none. In the last year, that coyote has killed dozens of Chris' chickens (he built his coop too close to the woods and knew better and wouldn't listen to us, so what do you do?) and comes into the yard all the time when I am outside and when Chris is working on his house on weekdays, but never on weekends. That could be because we have a weekend neighbor whose property, which sits between us and the river, is not here during the week but often is here on the weekend, so it might be his presence that keeps the coyote from coming up through the river bottoms, crossing through his land and coming onto our land. I have thought about ordering cougar urine though and using it there on that edge of the woodland. Nancy, We have long had dogs---anywhere from 3 at one point up to 8 (a stray dog adopted us and then had puppies) and now we are down to 2 very old, grey-haired, more mellow ones and two hyper-excited ones that I guess are about 3 years old now. It is the easily excitable younger, smaller dogs who sound the DefCon 5 Coyote alert. They are ferocious barkers when a coyote is near. I believe all our dogs have prevented us from being burglarized on several occasions. Once, the word got back to me through a third party that a less-than-honorable person was prowling around our property looking for stuff to steal and our then young and healthy dog named Biscuit (who was a big softy but had a very ferocious attitude towards strangers) went ballistic over his presence. Supposedly this idiot fled and then told all his friends and acquaintances to stay away from our place because "they have a dog that will tear you up". Biscuit crossed over the rainbow bridge several years ago and we miss him so very much. After Biscuit, Duke was our main protector. He died last year. He was a Rottweiler-terrier mix and looked mean. He could act mean and just his appearance terrified people, but he also was just a big wussy. Luckily, no one but us knew what a wussy he was. His brother, Jet, is my big protector now and he has become extra-protective since Duke died. He even barks at Tim and Chris and doesn't really want them coming too close to me, which just makes me laugh, but it makes them highly irritated. I tell Tim it is his fault, When he leaves for work, he tells Jet "you take care of Mom today" , and Jet does just that. The problem is that Jet doesn't really turn off his protective instincts when Tim and Chris come home from work. It is easier to have 4 dogs than 8, and when our two older ones cross over the Rainbow bridge, I don't intend to replace them. We'll still have the two younger ones, and they think they are tougher than they probably are so they bark at anything. I mean if a car comes up our driveway, they have a full and total conniption fit. It is hard for anyone to sneak up on us with all these dogs, and that is a good thing. Amy. I'm so sorry about your dog. It is so hard when we have to let our furry companions leave us. My garden still is too muddy to do much, which is frustrating. I am going to try to weed today and then add some mulch to the just-weeded areas. Baabaamilker, I was going to say dianthus (specifically Sweet William, which is Dianthus barbatus) and bachelor buttons, but I see you already have it all figured out. Kim, How odd that the lettuce seeds did not sprout. Are the seeds fresh? Hazel, You can grow lettuce and pretty much all greens indoors under lights in the summer, preferably in an air conditioned room that stays below 80 degrees. Both heat and lack of water make lettuce taste bitter, and I think it really is a moisture issue more than a heat issue, at least until the lettuce begins to bolt. You will have the best success with leaf lettuce or with summercrisp lettuce varieties, not iceberg. Iceberg types are nice and crunchy but take too long to head up here and hit that wall of heat pretty early. Tim likes the crunch of iceberg, but leaf lettuce is more acceptable to me and I like the crispness of summercrisp ones. I really don't think it is a variety problem---I think it is our heat and lack of abundant moisture. Every lettuce variety I've ever grown has done well as long as it is well-watered and as long as it has shade from noon onward in the hot months. Eventually even well-watered, well-shaded lettuce will bolt though, and growing more indoors is one way to work around that. Amy, I'm sorry you're disappointed with the work done in your bathroom. That's why I like for us to do it ourselves, even if it take us 100 years to finish one project. Katie, I hope you're enjoying the chickens and hope the weather stabilizes soon so you can get plants in the ground. I have almost everything in the ground now but I am very far south and have been having awesome warm weather for a long time. I also have frost blankets if the cold nights come back, as they are sort of threatening to do late next week. Your lettuce looks fabulous! Dawn

That does look hopeful, spedigrees, and water in the brook is a wonderful thing. I second the pancake placement, Jane. As if the cold snap wasn't enough, the NWS is talking about "... Elevated risk for fire spread today... Even drier air will overspread southern New England today with minimum relative humidities only 10 to 20 percent expected across much of the region. Northwest winds will not be as gusty as Saturday, but still quite strong with frequent gusts around 25 mph. This combination will lead to an elevated risk for fire spread. Winds should diminish fairly quickly early this evening, after sunset." I do have one unexpected sign of impending spring. My clivia 'Golden Dragon' has never bloomed in the winter when it's supposed to - it always waits until it goes out on the deck (around the beginning of June) and then blooms in July. But this year it started showing a bud on February 28 - probably earlier but I wasn't looking for one. and today the blossom is looking serious even though it's hiding between the leaves! And last year's flower stalk has two seed pods on it! I think I'll wait and see if the seed pods/fruit ripen and then maybe try to germinate the seeds (if there are any in there). Claire