March madness

Spring is here ... or almost.  Tomorrow is the Official first day of spring.  Every day I see more signs that winter is (almost) over.  The trees are starting to come to life.  I see grass coming back.  The bees are out buzzing and collecting necter. 
I took today off from work.  It is so nice to have a 3 day weekend and get some things done.  I started laundry then realized that the neighbors were burning down the hillside.... that would not be a problem except now my laundry (hung outside) smells like smoke.   Oh well ....
I did a full inspection of the bee hives today.  The spring inspection is always quite long ... trying to find the queen ( I can never find her!!) and making  sure there are eggs and larve.  I swaped positions of the boxes so they can build up (the way they like to do).  They look really good.  I am so happy to see them healthy.  This is the first year I was able to winter them over.  I am excited to see how they grow this summer.
The chickens are doing well. I am so excited that they are once again paying for themselves. The price of chicken food has raised so much we had to raise the price of our eggs, so far it doesn't seem to matter to our customers! I am thankful for my loyal customers. I think if I had more eggs I could sell them all. People love farm fresh eggs. We are trying to incorporate the "sick chicks" and the babies into the flock. I have never seen a cock fight until today. I am wondering if it would have been worse if they were not brothers and raised together??? It was amazing to see they actually drew blood! I think we are going to have to cull one of the roosters. I don't think they can live together anymore. I really try to be objective and never get attached but I still do. The chickens are still pets. I still cry when I have to butcher them.
I am getting ready for planting season.  The beans I harvested last fall for seed were still sitting in my shed ....  so I needed to harvest them.  They are now ready to be planted. 
Last summer I bought a bunch of seeds at an auction and I wanted to make sure they are good seeds.  These seeds were stored in jars  in the worst possible conditions.  They still seem to have survived. The chickens are enjoying the sprouts!