We’ve been loving the early spring and welcoming its cheerful colors popping out of each fruit tree’s guild of flowers.

As you can see in the nearby image, we’re inadvertently conducting an experiment in the food forest, seeing how well the fruit trees handle the chickens’ extended presence while their pasture regrows from the solar array installation.

The closer tree still covered in blooms is what the further tree looked like just a few weeks ago. The further tree has been a favorite of the chickens, who hop around it, plucking off flower buds with abandon. Oops. We’ll see how that affects the fruit yield.

On the remaining fruit trees, the tent caterpillars were sent to their next life by the tens of thousands this month. Better luck next time, little dudes.

Lots of transplants of the hardier veggies like kale and chard made their way from the greenhouse to the newly compost-topped hugelkultur bed, while we were rebuilding trellises in the food forest and the nearby supporting beds. You read that right, the veggie starts made their own way out there; it was like Fantasia!

Speaking of mice, in the greenhouse this year we’ve been battling the (expected) slugs and the (unexpected) invasion of mice into the greenhouse, who are feasting on our seedlings. Oh well, we’ll just make more to share.