Looking back….
Well the Elk have been extra hungry in the last two winters. Nettle roots are dug up with their hooves and eaten so the patch gets smaller. The raspberry bushes we planted out of the fenced garden between heat waves in the summer and Elk in the winter did not survive. It was an experiment. The two rhododendrons we have had on Will Hill even got nibbled on this winter! The Linden tree with the wire cage continues to grow.
We said good-bye to our friend Rose who has been with us for awhile. She moved nearer to her son in Victoria area. And Galen has returned from his winter in Mexico. Liv is working for our neighbour bagging soil that he makes and sells. A few of Stuarts chickens love coming to visit. We named one Barbarah, she likes to hang out at the bonfire. She lays on her side and lifts her wing towards the heat!
As we move the seedlings we started from the grow lights and heat pads indoors to the greenhouse attached to the house where we now have a grow light, we noticed two rat nests in the greenhouse. Because it is attached to the side of the house we will have to move it to stand freely at another location this year. We do not wish to put poison out. So our friend who used to work for an extermination company in Vancouver said coconut oil with peanut butter in a trap. And to wear rubber gloves so that they don’t smell your human scent!
Recently quite a few birds have flown by us quite low…eagle, heron, hawk, raven…all dining at our neighbours for chicken dinner. Along with some Ermine or Fischer’s that come up from the rain forest along Oliver Creek. We put out some bird seed in coconut oil in mugs with a stick for the birds to land on and hung them onto tree branches, to eat this winter, but alas the grey squirrels finally found them and showed their acrobatics in trying to reach in.
This February we seeded into rolls of fabric. And we started some early cucumbers to grow in pots in the greenhouse. Liv built the first garden box on legs to be easy for me to reach. I seeded two types of butter lettuce and they are up now on April 1st. The sawmill is waiting for Greg to cut up more slabs so she can continue building boxes for greens.
