It’s deliciously cloudy today, with gentle winds blowing and the hope of rain sometime this week. Living in such a sunshiny country makes cloudy days precious. I always feel like hibernating, drinking hot chocolate, and sleeping in a wee bit. So I do whenever I can.

We’ve been working outside a lot this month. Bear set up a big work table out of the wind and has been building dozens of bee frames so we have a good cache to draw on when it’s time to enhance our bee hives or add new ones. I’ve been bottle-feeding Jemima, digging up new garden spots with a crowbar, and trying to keep gardens and fruit trees alive with heaps of watering.

We had our friends, Sallie and Marshal, over on Sunday and had a great time working together on all sorts of projects. We each have properties that have more work than we can handle on our own, so we take turns helping each other, and I love it. No matter how big a project is, having friends to help makes it way more manageable and heaps more fun.

Last time they helped us with harvesting honey and planting fruit trees, and this time we hauled a trailer load of rocks for them to build borders and pathways, and took heaps of cuttings from my elderberry, salvias, geraniums, and fruit trees so they can plant privacy screens and flower gardens. It is always a jolly time, and even though we’re tired and grubby and aching afterwards, we’re also inspired, with full and happy hearts knowing we don’t have to go through life alone.

This week, in between writing travel and food articles for various publications, I get outside whenever I can.

I’m planting snake beans and purple beans, tomatoes and tomatillos, lettuces and chilies, radishes and onions, and getting seedlings started in my kitchen garden for pumpkins, cucumbers, melons, and capsicums.

I continue to harvest mustard greens, silverbeet, lettuce, and beetroot greens for the sheep and pigs to supplement their feed. I’m so glad I planted extra, since even when the paddocks are dry, I always have something nourishing to give them.

Bear and I have been eating lots of roasted vegetables: pumpkins, potatoes, radishes, beets, carrots, and sweet potatoes. With so much work to do around the farm, it’s lovely to roast up a bunch of veggies and a couple of hams or pork roasts, and have them on hand for quick lunches and dinners.

It’s lovely seeing signs of spring everywhere now. Baby sheep and goats dancing and leaping about the yard, our big hen sitting on a clutch of eggs, animals mating with nary a thought for what the neighbors might think, and fruit trees budding and flowering. After such devastating hail storms last year, I’m really hoping to get a good harvest of plums, peaches, apples, pears, pomegranates, apricots, grapes, and citrus this year.

Now I must get back to writing. I think I’ll make that cup of hot chocolate I was dreaming of earlier, and snuggle down for a writing marathon.

What changes of season are you seeing in your world right now? xo