Signs of Spring

This afternoon I discovered some exciting signs of spring on site. It’s been a long, cold and dark winter and the current cold weather makes it still feel very much like winter. But over the past week, small changes have been happening. Small buds are appearing on the fruit trees, the bees are coming out of the hives more and early crocuses are flowering.

All the chickens were huddled up in their respective nest boxes, even in the New Coop. I was astounded to see all of the bantams in the nest box – I wasn’t aware that any of them had ever looked inside, let alone walked into it! Even Gertie had got herself inside with the others. I encouraged them out with treats and refilled their water bowls. I picked up Gertie and let her eat away to her heart’s content from the little food bowl. As I was watching her, I felt several tugs on the bottom of my trousers and several taps on my foot. I looked down to find Connie seemingly taking offense to my clothing choices! Rude some would call it!

With all the girls fed and watered, I went for an amble around the plot. There is definitely a lot of work to be done in the fruit section (more wood chip) and some pruning as well as some more clearing. As I was pondering this, something caught my eye, a flash of white from the bottom of another plot. Walking over, I discovered one of Phil’s trees was starting to bloom. Maybe because it’s been such a cold winter, or the fact that winter on site is characterised by the colour brown, made the cherry blossom seem so startling.

With the cherry blossom appearing, I walked around the site, looking closely for signs of spring. To my delight I found that some of my fruit trees were in the early stages of throwing out buds and some of the fruit bushes had flashes of green.

All around the site are signs of life, not only from the plants but with more people coming back into the site. After months of seeing only a handful of plot holders, it’s lovely to see everyone coming out of their winter hibernation and I look forward to spending more time on site catching up with everyone in the sunshine surrounded by our crops.