Spring is on its way!

Temperatures have finally warmed up hear in MO. The girls have been spending more and more time out side. This last week we got in some serious time at the archery range and the park. They also spent a great deal of time playing in the mud in the front yard.

With the warming temperatures comes gardening season. We are planning what will be going into our garden this year. We are keeping it to things that we eat. We only want to grow what we can use since we have a limited amount of space available. So far the girls have settled on broccoli, spaghetti squash, pickling cucumbers, white radishes, carrots, tomato's, green beans, and artichokes. Everything but the artichokes will go into our raised beds. We will be trying out a small straw bail garden this year. Lettuce will be going into those since they are higher off the ground it will be harder for the rabbits to get to. We will also be planting a large plot of calendula flowers, herbs and spices. The girls started blueberry seeds about a month a go they have finally sprouted. We had a lot of excitement over them as blueberries are the girls favorite. I don't know if they will make it but we are giving it a try. If they do well we should have about 6 or more blueberry bushes. How ever it takes about 2 years before they start to produce any berries.

We have begun to prepare the garden. This mean turning in compost and peat moss to try and improve soil quality. The girls find this process quite enjoyable. Mostly because they get to get dirty and play in the water. 

We are also getting out and doing some hiking and just visiting some of our favorite places. Big Spring which is about 20 min up the road from us. It is a huge spring that bubbles out of the ground. It has this amazing boiling action and its absolutely beautiful. We stopped by for a quick visit Thursday just to see how it was looking. With all the rain and snow melt its interesting to see the changes in our water ways. Normally this spring is crystal clear. But on this trip is was sort of a green color and you could not see through it. There were no rangers around on this trip but we think its is due to all the extra water that was coming out from the rain and snow melt. The spring tends to flood the area at times. The sound from the water coming out of the spring is so loud. That when you are standing next to it you have to almost yell to hear each other talk. I though we would share some quick photos that we took so you can get an idea of what we saw.