What day is it? If it weren’t for the sprinkling-in of a 9-to-5 job and Sunday morning church to punctuate the sentence, I might not know where the time stood.

Standing out by my greenhouse and veggie plots, I would have thought time was on fast-forward, speeding if not hurtling into mid-summer.

All this warm weather is nothing but a shot of adrenaline to the flurry of spring.

If I’m being frank, a dash of procrastination and poor planning doesn’t seem to help with the sudden onslaught of to-do items either. Thinking spring would occur in its traditional slow fashion, with lots of false hope that the temps would rise early, I put off purchasing a rototiller for our farm tractor. First, there were none to be had; then I went in search of a deal; and finally, when I had my eyes set on a like-new possibility, I had a computer-glitched mid-auction bid.

Looking ahead at no less than a week and a half of 70- and 80-degree weather, I embraced the Nike slogan and went straight to the first Tractor Supply that had a six-footer.  A day later, I was assembling my brand-new rototiller without a regret and hooking it up for immediate action.

Driving it up and over the back hill to our greenhouse, I quickly learned just how closely I had threaded the needle by selecting one this large, as it had me doing small wheelies every time I rolled over a clump of dirt or a ladybug’s fart. While the ride up the hill was slow and somewhat dramatic, going down the other side and actually running it in the ground turned out to be far less concerning.

As it turns out, my little 31-horse D12 did have enough power for all that heavy metal. And the result? Boy golly. Have you ever wanted to drink dirt? I could have pulled a teaspoon of that good topsoil and dropped it in a fresh glass of moo-juice for some fine chocolate milk.

Needless to say, I’ve been more than pleased with the soil since we’ve begun chewing it up with the new tiller.

But remember I said we were busy? Yeah, not only have I been racing to till all of our old and newly plowed plots, but in between I’ve been attempting to actually put plants in that tasty chocolate silt. As that battle persists, however, another one wages on in a different theatre of war—the chickens.

With only about 126 chickens on staff at the moment, we decided that it was a good time to drive ourselves even more crazy and purchase an additional hundred layers.

Under ordinary circumstances this would be fine and no more than a day in the life. However—we can’t just leave well enough alone. It was simultaneously decided that since we were getting these new birds, it would be a good time to completely redesign and renovate the interior of both of our larger buildings to test a potentially more efficient egg collection tray, easier-to-clean boxes and new tiered roosting bars.

Please take a moment to say a prayer for me.

Sooo. Onward and upward. Given the deadline of incoming poultry, I waged war against the chicken huts, tearing out all the existing roosting bars and boxes just to recycle and create new ones in a more comfortable layout with hopefully a big boost in functionality.

As the saying goes, when it rains, it pours. All I can say is thank God it isn’t actually raining, so I can get out and do all these things I’ve gotten myself into. The way out here we just keep rolling with the punches. I believe in working with a smile though, because it’s a fast trip downhill if you just sit and dwell on the mountain of work— and after all, we do love the work.