Great weekend!

The weather was absolutely perfect this weekend! It felt like May rather than February. The "teaser" for tonight's local news says that we're in for cold weather this week, but at least we had a couple of days of early spring.

We're building raised beds for the garden this year, because as we learned from our failed attempt at a vegetable garden last year, our clay soil does not drain well. So Aaron built 4' x 8' rectangular beds out of 2x4s and we "double dug" 3 of the beds this weekend. Today we are just about 4 weeks before the last frost date, so I planted chives, leeks, carrots, spinach, mixed greens, and peas. I also transplanted the cabbage and broccoli seedlings we started last month. And then I planted purple coneflower seeds in all of the beds around the house. While I was doing all of that, Aaron and ML (who came over again to try to kill coyotes) built a milking stand for Matilda, who is due to have her kids later this month. The milking stand plans are available for free on the Fiasco Farms (http://fiascofarm.com/goats/milkstand.html) website, which also has a lot of good information about herbal worming for goats, if you're into that, which we would like to be.

So, as I was saying before, ML came over this weekend to hunt coyotes again. This time we had the whole setup. Aaron's friend from the hospital loaned him a special coyote calling device, which basically amounted to a tape recorder attached to a megaphone. It makes the most hideously painful noise which is apparently supposed to sound like a wounded group of rabbits. I am skeptical that rabbits make any noise, much less the horrible screaching this machine makes. In addition to the noise machine, the other new toy was a battery operated rubber rabbit replica that shakes like it is having a seizure when you turn it on. I must admit I got quite a kick out of watching the boys hiding out in the pasture in the dark with their toys and guns, just waiting for a hapless coyote to come wandering along. Needless to say, despite all of the accoutrements, no coyotes were harmed during the making of this weekend. Apparently a curious and confused owl was wooed my the seizure-ridden rubber rabbit, but since he was not the chosen target, he too survived the weekend.