Yesterday I made 42 jars of dandelion jelly. Well, maybe it'll be syrup as they haven't set yet but the pectin packages say it could take up to 2 weeks. Hurry up and wait ! Herbie says we could make wine from it if it doesn't set. I snipped the flowers off their green parts with a scissors - took hours, and I used the 2nd half of the flowers to make a dandelion flower infusion. Thankfully I didn't have to snip those, just dried them out a little so they wouldn't turn to sludge in the grapeseed oil I covered them with. I candied the lemon zest too and it's not half bad.
Today I had a new idea for Daisy May and her galavanting spirit. I stuck plastic fence posts from the lower barn enclosure to the pasture gate, and ran an electric wire channel the whole way. She was as good as gold. A little turning around when she reached the gate to the lower barn, but I waved a large stick in her face and she decided to obey :). Hope the dogs don't run into the fence tonight.
She is a strange cow. I can fasten her collar to the wall in the milk stanchion and then wash and milk her fine, but cannot approach her anywhere else, never mind get a lead on her. I've lead her the whole way with her head in the grain bucket, and she's bolted back when I turned to open the gate.
Picked up another 2 bales of hay from Mike after Herbie fetched 2 yesterday. Gave the sheep the last half of the last square bale from our field yesterday, so Herbie placed the one bale next to their enclosure for me. I covered it with a tarp and put a large stone on top seeing as I can't remember what I did with the stakes I used last year. Each of the 3 enclosures for the cows and horses had a fresh bale and there's one waiting.
Helped Herbie clean out the drier pipes today, and moved the relief washing machine and drier into the corner where the table was to give more room down there.
I also walked the hayfield and pastures today and think that I should be able to get our first cutting next week. It's about 10 inches high already after the rain. Hopefully I can let the beasties into pastures soon too. Need to get them out of my veggie garden so that I can work it up and start planting. Haven't found any morels yet, I looked again today.
So far I've found 14 of the 29 asparagus I planted 2 years ago. All 10 grape vines are budding, as are the 6 surviving blueberry bushes. All 3 elderberries are budding too. I thought the one had died last year but no. The strawberries even have flowers :). So we lost all 10 hazelnut bushes, 1 plum tree and both apricots, and maybe 1 paw paw. There is a tiny twig sticking out of the ground, but I can't see life in it. The 2nd one has tiny green bits showing. The beehive is alive and humming too. Need to set up the others so that maybe they'll split and swarm so I can increase the hives.