Spring and early summer

The wood barn filled with eight cubicmeters of wood.

The farm has a hillside that slopes towards the south where the snow disappears first. I had already made some strawberries fields there, but I wanted to use the slope more. In the future I wanted to plant some fruit trees and berry bushes there, but for now I started with a small terrace garden with three terraces. I build it with stones and branches, the soil had heated up enough for digging, only some parts were still frozen. At the top terrace I planted artichoke, the lower terraces I was going to plant herbs and salad, but later when the soil got warmer.

It was now May and more and more snow melted away for every day. It rained a lot this month almost every day. Before the snow had melted away I transported the canoe to another lake three kilometers away. I wanted to try to fish there since I heard that there where pikes (Esox luciuc) in that lake. I called it the Pike lake, but I had to wait before going out with the canoe there were still ice on the lake.

The logs for the storage house I was planning to build was ready for use. I had already made the foundation last year. It was a bit tricky to get up the three top beams since they were five meters long, but I succeeded by building a hoist with three thick poles. The beams of the storage house were at place and I was going to continue with the rest later on, for now I covered the construction with a tarp.

The rain continued and I was down at the wet meadow taking away big grass bumps, small trees and bushes. Last year we had taken some hay from here, this year I wanted to take more and it would be a lot easier to use the scythe without all the bumps. I used a hoe to get rid of the bumps, it was a boring heavy work and the constant rain did not make it better.

There were no ice on the lakes anymore so I went out with the canoe and put down the cage, next day I had gotten two pikes and I got pikes almost every day. I ate some off them but most pikes I dried for my dog, she really liked them.

It was time to prepare the gardens. I turned the soil with the hoe and sowed swedes, turnips, carrots, parsnips, red beats, salad, parsley and I also put the potatoes in the soil. The potatoes had been inside for three weeks to start germinating. In the house I had already sown leeks, pumpkins, zucchinis, winter squash, winter kale, cabbage and some herbs, but it was to early to plant them outside.

The rain did not seem to stop and now it was already June. The potatoes had already started to grow and the swedes and turnips had also started to come up. I did not believe it were going to be any more freezing nights so I planted out the leeks, pumpkins, zucchinis, winter squash, winter kale, cabbage and the herbs. A week later the temperature unfortunately dropped below zero for some nights, the potatoes took heavy damage a lot of black leaves but they survived. All the pumpkins and winter squash died, only two zucchinis survived. The swedes and turnips survived as well as the carrots and parsnip that had started to grow.