Spring is coming, guys. We ordered all our seeds a few weeks ago, and started seeding spinach this past weekend. The greenhouse is all prepped and waiting for those little soil blocks to sprout little spinach seedlings. Today we saw the first one break the surface of the soil, so once the rest of them poke their little cotyledons up they're going in the ground!

Out in the greenhouse now, the carrots we planted back in December are starting to come up. Wait, let me try that again: The carrots we planted WAY BACK in December are starting to COME UP! Now! Carrots! Growing! I'll confess to not being 100% confident that those carrots and spinach will do their thing, but I'm pretty excited to see how it goes.

Of course, outside of the greenhouse now is about two feet of snow, which all fell in the past 24 hours or so. I've shoveled it out twice so far and will probably need to do it again in the morning. I'm glad to have some snow, finally, but my back is not entirely happy about all the shoveling.

Still: Spring is definitely coming, and I've got the sprouts to prove it.

Things have been busy around here. We were traveling for the holidays, for visiting family, and then because of a death in the family, so we were scarce about the farm for a little while. It feels really good to be back. We went to the NOFA-VT winter conference this past weekend, which was really great. It's two days of workshops and yummy food and being surrounded by farmers, gardeners, foodies, homesteaders, and activists. I went to a home butchering workshop where they actually butchered an actual entire pig right there. It was pretty crazy.

And it didn't really prepare me for the chicken we're going to have to butcher this week. She's prolapsed and probably eggbound and you don't want me to go into any more details, I promise. She doesn't appear to be suffering -- chickens aren't especially demonstrative, but she's acting like a chicken and not like a sick chicken, as far as I can tell -- but at this point it's pretty clear she isn't going to get better. So it's just a matter of time before she gets infected and everything gets worse. It's part of farming, unfortunately; the animals you love end up dying, and you end up killing them.

I've assisted in chicken slaughter before, but I haven't actually done it myself yet, and neither has Jeremy. We're a little nervous, but I think it will go alright.