but we still do not have a butcher.  This is a weird year for us.

Today the weather felt warmer, and there were what felt like spring showers.  I started noticing signs of spring around.

The turkeys have started laying eggs.

This hen is setting on eggs in one of the rabbit hutches.  So today I slid the ground eggs under her.  Hopefully this works out.  We have never hatched turkeys before.

I noticed the rhubarb starting to come up.  I weeded it and added more soil.  It is in a pot so Tom doesn’t weed whack it.

The croci are just starting to come up.

The day lilies by the house are sprouting.

The roses are starting to leaf.

The cherry trees are starting to bud.

The nettles are starting to grow.

And the magnolia is budding.

But we still have Rory who is getting to be quite impressive.

We believe he is infertile however as there are no signs of pregnancy in the cows.

Tom was able to shore up some of the fencing that he has been knocking down.

But there is more farther out in the field.  He does rub on the street sweeper brush some but still is working the fencing.

Starsky and Hutch are getting quite big.  We have never had pigs in February before.  I am still making cakes for them, and they are going through almost 1/2 bag of feed per day (costing $28 each).

I did talk to the butcher again today, and he said he will be out here before the end of the month.  I sure hope so!  We have decided to skip at least a year until things are more reliable.  It is too hard on the animals and us to wait this long.

We will continue with the chickens and turkeys though as we do have a reliable butcher for them. In that effort I decided to make turkey meatballs for dinner.  I found the recipe in a cookbook that Tom purchased a while ago (pre-pandemic) that we haven’t really used.

The recipe is called Baked Turkey Meatballs and Slow-Roasted Tomatoes.  I didn’t have tomatoes to roast but defrosted some tomato sauce I made with our tomatoes.  I defrosted one of our turkey legs and ground the meat.  I made broth with what I couldn’t grind.  I added a grated onion (I do not remember grating an onion before), grated The Old Spaghetti Factory Grated Mizithra & Romano Cheese Blend, Italian breadcrumbs, herbs de Provence, salt, pepper, Colman’s ground mustard, olive oil and basil.  I thought we had herbs de Provence, but we did not.  So I had to quickly make some using this recipe.  I made a large amount for only 1/2 teaspoon of it.  But at least we have it now.

The meatballs baked in the oven until done.  Tom had spaghetti noodles, and I had spaghetti squash with it and the sauce.  It was really good.  We couldn’t tell it was turkey.  I was surprised about how closely the turkey being ground looked like hamburger.

In other news, our septic system passed inspection.  This is huge news for us.

And these dogs showed up in our driveway.  They then headed down Prairie Road which was terrifying.  Then they headed up the hill to the development up there. I am hearing that they have been chasing deer and horses up there.  Not good!  I did post about them hoping someone will recognize them or at least be able to call animal control.  I fear for them.