The birds are chirping, the grass is turning green, eggs are pipping–all the signs that Spring is officially here. After a very cold winter, I am relieved to be on the other side of it. Spring is my Season!
Even though Spring is my favorite time of year around the farm, with warmer weather comes and even longer to do list! Since we started our seeds back in December and January, I have already transplanted some of our frost resistant seed starts in the garden for Spring harvests. The other direct sown seeds have been planted and our sweet peas and kale are already emerging!
Things have been quite busy on The Ridge as we prepare for the change in seasons. We set up two rain barrels, we built a new garden fence, we refilled all our raised beds with fresh soil and compost, and we are starting a new project of clearing a fence line in our woods to add more grazing area for our livestock.
With extending our fence line it will give us another acre to work with, which is perfect because we are expecting a couple new faces to join us on the farm in the next month or two! Any guesses?!
While we are scaling back our poultry hatching this year, we have all three incubators at max capacity and have successfully hatched our first batch of quail for 2025! In just a few more days, our second batch of quail will be hatching and in the next week or so our first batch of ducklings here on The Ridge will also hatch.
We are working through our waitlist for quail, ducks and chickens as soon as we can. Our hatching eggs are still at a high fertility rate, so if you are looking to fill your incubators–please let us know! You can see what’s available here.
Other than staying busy with the endless farm work and gardening, both Farmer J and myself are working really hard to prioritize spending time on ourselves as well. The past two years of building our micro farm have been amazing, we have learned and grown so much by rapidly scaling up our gardens and raising livestock. But with that, we have not spent time pursuing our other passions and interests.
This month, Farmer J tried yoga for the first time and we successfully went to an entire month of weekly yoga classes. It has been a great way for us to prepare our bodies to come out of winter and prepare for a taxing Spring season, while also spending time together. We’ve also started exploring our area more, and are forever falling more and more in love with the Shenandoah Valley.
Lots more to come this Spring, so stay tuned! I can’t wait to introduce you all to some new faces around the farm soon, and share all the progress with our 2025 projects.
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Ravens Ridge Micro Farm 