our goslings are climbers

Compost. Who does not love it?! Everyone of us here at Sunnyside Farm does. It is the best way to grow vegetables and fruit. There are certain times of the year where the compost has tons of mealy worms in, on and around it..and the bluebirds visit the farm for a bluebird feat. Mealworms are their favorite!
An active compost pile has many varieties of bugs and bug larvae in it. It does not usually smell, as long as the proportions are correct. If you smell a stinky compost pile, put some dry grass/hay/leaves in it, along with a smaller amount of fresh, and the thing will stop stinking up the place.
The geese and the ducks explore the various compost piles daily. It seems like the geese eat mostly greens, but there must be something else they consume in that pile, because they do go in every day. Here are Toulouse and Clover with their little ones, teaching them to climb and poke all through the compost pile. And if you look closely at their babies, one is a duckling (a split second decision we made that will have an interesting outcome) and the 2 goslings look nothing like each other! One has dark feet and beak, the other has light beak and feet. And their overall coloring is different too. We hope it means a male and a female, but do not know.

Early mornings bring plenty of dew to the farm. Here are the potato beds and the asparagus in the very early morning sun. Over the winter we bought a push mower (the kind without a motor) that is about the same width as the walk ways between the vegetable beds. So sometimes we mow, sometimes the chickens are in the row toe tiller between the beds, and most days we can walk between rows weeding, checking for bugs, picking. The vegetables look fantastic this year.