Hello dear reader!

These past two months have felt like four. Lots of ups and downs through the winter time. The good news is that we are fast coming out of the cold season into the long Ozark warm season. The honeybees are out, searching for potential new nests. I saw one of their scouts fight a spider while I was relaxing at Sunnyside:

That honeybee just kept going up to the spider until a complete stalemate was reached. I took this as a sign that it was time to put up a couple swarm traps and try to capture some honeybees. There are more than a couple experienced people on the farm thinking on the honeybee hive situation for the year, which is super exciting!

Crocus

Signs of Spring are plenty. One of the first crocus flowers of the year was spotted by Hedge, just behind Fanshen.

Pexter and his big pile of fertility… thanks for shoveling shit!

Each of these pictures has a story to tell. The above one’s story is pretty simple: our friend Pexter wanted some pictures taken for his profile. He keeps his soshmed (social media) on level. You can see where most of that pile of manure came from here (cow manure is a top notch soil amendment):

Happy cow means happy manure means happy greens means happy lettuce eaters.

Some pictures don’t need much explanation, here is the final fall carrot harvest with PT and Richard:

So many carrot!

Above you can see yours truly trying out our new Jang mechanical seeder to plant lettuce. Joseph, a most magical faerie, diligently and lovingly hand seeded one row to give a comparison. I don’t know why, but the legend of John Henry comes to mind. This is a precision machine and I’m happy with our initial results. The spring carrots will be the first real test, hopefully less thinning this year.

We have four new little pigs on the farm. Butchering season is ongoing with the larger pigs and cows. Farm bacon and farm eggs each morning is a mighty fine breakfast. The forestry crew has been down at The Yurt, helping out Richard get his new home established.

Richard chainsawing at his personal shelter, The Yurt. This was today! Feb. 19, 2019

I am going to be directing less and less energy to this blog and the East Wind Community channel for sometime. Other things in my Life need more attention. I have really enjoyed writing this blog for the past two years or so. One of my initial goals with redoing East Wind’s website and restarting the community blog was to attract people to come check out East Wind. Well, that is happening and I live with so many wonderful, loving people right now. Seeing your intentions become reality by committing yourself to being something different is an incredible experience.

I truly hope you have enjoyed reading my blogs. No doubt, I will post more here, but I want to make it apparent that this blog will no longer be an obligation of mine (I set a goal to put something out each month, I average one every six weeks probably). This is where you pick up and I fade into the background. This is how a proper hand off begins, by making your intentions known. 2019 will be a great year. =)

East Wind celebrates Imbolc, 2019. What a Beautiful Day.

P.S. If you don’t know already, I have put out a number of videos on the “East Wind Community” channel on YouTube. For the most self indulgent video, you can click here. And here are the rest of the most recent:

Post and pictures by Pinetree (Sumner)