Glendale Farm -- Notes of Nature and Farming in Middle Tennessee
Spring Finally! If you blinked you missed the Redbuds!
by Delk on 04/21/13
Finally spring! If we have ever had a later spring in Middle Tennessee, I can't remember it. Usually, we get daffodils first, about a week or two later the redbuds bloom, and then usually about Easter the dogwoods bloom. This year the daffodils came up in a warm spell in February, and then nature turned the heat off. It still looked like the dead of January around here during the first week in April. Last week we went from dead brown grass and bare trees straight through the redbuds to green grass with blooming dogwoods about as fast as Luke Walker getting off the Death Star.
A dogwood in the Spring Field in bloom this week
My view is that whatever the groundhog said, he is a lying SOB. If I ever get my hands on him, I'm relocating him to Brentwood. (For those of you who don't know, that would be Brentwood, Tennessee -- a bit of suburbia where the deserving groundhog would probably be mowed down by a texting mom driving a Volvo.)
Honeysuckle in bloom yesterday on the yard fence
Here at Glendale Farm a late spring is a very serious issue. We raise our sheep, cows and goats on grass. Our chickens are raised on pasture. (A chicken on pasture will consume about 10 percent of its diet in grass.)Those critters have been very hungry and not very happy about having to eat old hay all the way through March!
Blooming Wisteria
We are very serious at Glendale Farm about producing lamb, beef and chicken naturally. There are demonstrated health benefits of consuming pasture raised and finished meats and eggs from pastured chickens. Click here for a comprehensive article on the health benefits of consuming grass raised products.
Dogwood at the Middle Pond, yesterday
So finally, spring and spring grass have come to Middle Tennessee, and for now all is right in the world for Glendale Farm.
