Port Potager

We've been enjoying a very mild weekend, and since we tapped our maple on Tuesday, we've collected three five-gallon buckets of sap. That means it's time to break into our wood pile and get cracking on boiling for the year: We decided to go all-in on a real woodpile this year, instead of cobbling together donations and those expensive packages of firewood from the grocery store.  What a difference a year makes in our sap storage facilities, though: Ordinarily we keep the sap buckets packed in a snow bank to keep it cold, but that isn't an option this spring. Almost every bit of snow has melted already! We didn't have much to begin with, and what we did have got washed away in the rain and melted by the nearly 60-degree day we had on Saturday. These are in the shadiest corner (note yet another broken fence section in view — even when winter doesn't deliver in snow, there's always plenty of wind ). Once we set up the maple sugaring...

Since Dolley's death , there has been a major shake-up in the henhouse. Though apparently benevolent, Dolley must have been in charge of the whole operation. We never heard her squawk much at the other birds, though she did try pecking at the little girls through the wire in their separate run before they were all integrated. She died before we had a chance to see how she would treat the young pullets. Enter Martha: Dolley left a power vacuum that Martha was quick to fill. (Martha has always been the most skittish, so this may have been a defensive move that bore a lot of fruit for her.) She terrorizes the young birds, stabbing at their tails and chasing them away from food, water and treats until she gets bored or needs to go lay. The henhouse has been much louder lately as she squawks and bullies her way through the day.  This is all totally normal behavior (for chickens), and since no one is bleeding or hurt, we've mostly let it go. But the other thing th...