What a nice day we had yesterday: 81 degrees, very sunny, nice breeze blowing.  It was a great day to have the windows open!

Today is a different story: 34 degrees, heavy, wet snow falling.  The trees have budded, some have even started to leaf out, so I’m hoping the snow won’t break a lot of branches. 

I had set a few trays of vegetable seedlings out last week in preparation for transplanting them into the ground, so I made a trip out to the farm to put them in the barn lest they get crushed by the heavy snow.  As I opened the door, some movement caught my eye, and I thought, “Great, the mice are inside.”  But then I discovered it was a baby rabbit.  “Cute,” I thought.  Until I realized that rabbit had been snacking on my broccoli!  One tray had been munched on pretty heavily, but luckily the rest seemed to be okay.  So I set them up high where hopefully they won’t get eaten.  I suppose I wouldn’t blame the little bunny.  A nice warm barn full of tasty, tender greens on a cold, wet day.  Seems like rabbit paradise to me…

The moisture is a welcome thing, though.  We’re 2 inches behind normal for precipitation so far this year.  And we’re only 4 months into it!  That combined with a cooler than usual March has wreaked havoc on our planting plans.  The lettuce and spinach we started back in mid-March hasn’t amounted to much, with only very spotty germination.  Guess we should have started irrigating sooner.  Or else planted later.

At any rate, we’re running a good three weeks later than originally planned.  Our earliest salad greens won’t be available until late this month.  Chalk it up to inexperience.  It’s definitely a good learning opportunity, though.