Wishing For Spring

Hard to believe this is the same yard. About now every year we are wondering how soon spring will actually get here. Our garden seeds are ordered and the stack of catalogs for ordering more is pretty tempting. Winter is long in Idaho. Doyle still likes to go outside, I like to stay inside and plan to go outside. As soon as it is warm out. At the end of every summer I am happy to see fall arrive. I have hit my limit with gardening and especially mowing. We have a lot of yard to mow. It is pretty but it is a ton of work. I garden in raised beds but we plan to add a 50'X100' row garden in the north field this spring. Hard to grow corn and melons in raised beds. This new plan will have to include electric fence as the deer love garden time too. We will also continue to add fruit trees to our planned orchard area. The pygmy goats love young fruit trees. They also love grapes. This was a problem this past year. Can a pygmy goat wear a shock collar? We may have to see. A lot of what we plan to grow next year has a lot to do with what I plan to can. Canning is somewhat addictive. It is so rewarding to see your bounty add up. I don't even have a place to store canned goods but I didn't let that stop me, or even slow me down. I won't need to make pickles for a while but the tomatos go fast. I expect next year's garden to be more work, but I also think it will feed us well into the winter.