Winter has been too long this year.  I mean too long.  We’ve had about 175% of our normal snowfall this year.  We saw -25 degrees and very few sunny days, all the warm ones this year where snowy, so it’s been a long winter.

But today as I walked around our little homestead, signs of spring were showing so I thought I’d share some.

Garlic pushing its way through the snow

We try to grow a lot of the produce, some of the dairy, the eggs, and some of the meat we eat.  We planted hardneck garlic last fall and I was blessed to see it starting to green up.  The stems smell amazing (like awesome garlic) and can be used as a milder garlic (green garlic with the small immature bulb.)

Peach buds forming

Even the fruit tree buds where becoming apparent, our peach tree is young but may give some delicious fruit this year.  In our climate it is hit or miss, but the taste of the Elberta peaches merits the effort.  Seriously have you really  lived if you haven’t sunk your teeth into a peach so sweet and juicy that your instinct to wipe your face is overshadowed by your love of the flavor?  No you haven’t I say.

Raspberries!!!!

Who doesn’t love raspberries, and this was the first leaf to come out, even with snow still on the ground.  Our raspberries came with the place, honestly they may be a large part of the reason I bought it, they are delicious thornless ever bearers and produce two big flushes.  One in June on last years stalks and one in September on this years stalks.  Best of both worlds.

So spring has sprang has sprung and although we are still weeks away from tulips and daffodils at least life is returning to the farm.