Pick Up Sticks

Sunday was glorious! We spent all afternoon outside doing chores and working in the yard.

The boys played pick up sticks, proud of the pile they created and ready to roast marshmallows.

Ray cleaned out the chicken coop. The girls were happy to stretch their legs and hunt for scraps in the yard. One bold hen was brave enough to belligerently squawk at me. I think she was expecting more kitchen scraps.

My little workers helped me clean up the kitchen garden. We pulled giant stalks of broccoli. I was amazed at the root system these tiny trees had developed.

Once cleaned up, we spread some wood ash the neighbors gave us in the garden.

Wood ash adds potassium to the soil, so we are using it in the kitchen garden to balance out the nitrogen that the chickens have been “supplying” all winter.

Then, we went to check the pond. Jake was splashing with one of the sticks he found and Joe was tromping through the mud when I saw a streak of orange splash through the muck.

One of the goldfish we released last year had survived.

When we put them in, they were about the size of a nickel. This one had grown to the size of a dollar bill.

I couldn’t believe it! I was so excited to see it…perhaps even more excited than the boys. The spot it was swimming in was pretty shallow, so we used our chicken catching net to move it to the deeper pond.

There were plenty of tadpoles and bugs for it to feast on so I’m hoping to see it grow even more this season.

We are going to dig out the pond more this year and fix it so that it will hold water all the time. Then, we’ll add more fish.

Fishy, fishy please come here
Fishy, fishy be a dear
Fishy, fishy you survived
Fishy, fishy you’re alive!