I had to pick them out of cold water & snow...and I'm not sure if they are edible. We'll see, I guess :)
We had beautiful sunny spring days here this weekend. It prompted us to do three things on our "to-do list":
1. figure out where to put laying hens. We decided on 4-6 chickens, either Barred Rock pullets or Chantecler pullets (a Canadian Heritage Breed) that are cold hardy and friendly enough to have around kids. We think one of the out building was once used as a big chicken coop, so we've decided to turn it back into one for a small number of chickens that will hopefully supply us with fresh eggs.
2. figure out where to put a few bee hives. Friends of ours started last year on their old farmhouse nearby, so we went to dinner on Saturday to talk shop (and yummy food!). We won't be getting any honey for the first year, but it will be good to have them around to pollinate.
3. mark off the birch trees we could tap for sap. Although maple trees are the biggest producer of sweet syrup around here, we have almost none on our 135 acres. But a girlfriend of mine goes up to the Yukon every spring to tap birch trees, and although the process if more difficult and finnicky than maple, it can be done (ie different sugar with lower content). We thought we would try it out at least once. Within a 0.5 km radius of our backyard, we found 50 birch trees bigger in diameter than my hand.
We also visited the barn again, and opened an old chest left in the back part. It was lined in newspaper, and we were lucky to find an intact remnant:
The people is this area were ship-builders and rock-quarrying people. Many prominent families had homes here and in New England (mostly Boston), and this chest must have been from one of those family members. Nifty.
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