Spring is when life's alive in everything. Christina Rossetti

Besides driving around the country, purchasing trailers (see Down On The Farm), the guys have been busy on the farm.

The thousand broiler chicks are happy and healthy. Martin continues to make improvements to facilitate feeding and watering them. It's quite a streamlined operation.

The apple orchard has been pruned, ready for this year's crop of delicious fruit.

Jeannie and Konstantijn continue to plant seeds in the greenhouse. The flowers and veggies that they started a few weeks ago are growing nicely. It's a pleasure to see all the greenery.

The bees in the tree hive seem to be doing well. More tree segments have been prepped for encouraging bee hives.

Note: If you happen to see a swarm of bees, let Martin know and he'll don his bee suit and collect them. Bees are vital to our food production.

Here are a few facts about planting seeds that will help you to garden.

• It's not true that squash seeds must be direct-sown into the garden because their roots are sensitive to transplanting. Rather, sowing indoors and then transplanting a four- to six-week-old seedling outside can prevent pest problems, such as vine borer larvae. Also, in cool climates, gardeners can cheat the spring season and have an earlier squash harvest in the fall.

• This is an important fact. Start your seeds at least one week earlier than the recommended packet directions because the directions often don't take into account a week's worth of hardening off.

• Here's a time and frustration saver. You don't need to scratch the seed coat of morning glory, poppies, or angels' trumpets. Scratching may slightly improve the germination rate, but who needs the trouble?

• The most important factor we've experienced is using Grander Living Water on our whole farm.

The purpose of Grander Living Water is to give back water's vitality, to restore its ability to hydrate things, to carry nutrients in living organisms, and to make water taste refreshingly good.

This video shows the impact of Grander water on living cells and that Grander units retain their effectiveness indefinitely.

The results of this experiment are remarkable. A high school student designed a science experiment using tap water, Berkey filtered water, Grander treated water, and a combination of the two.

In our efforts to reduce the use of plastic bags, and even brown paper bags, we found ECOBAGS…organic cotton bags in a variety of sizes. The company's mission is "to offer thoughtful, ethically and sustainably sourced, durable-reusable bags that inspire people to reduce, reuse, recycle and re-imagine the world we live in."

ECOBAGS come in a variety of sizes, just right for what you need: cute little sandwich bags for small items, lunch-sized ones with Velcro closures, large shopping bags, string bags for produce, and many more.

Get a few ECOBAGS and you won't need to carry your groceries out in some strange box. Wink, wink!

Harvest Haven Pastured Ground Beef - A farm favorite with so many ways to prepare it. Our ground beef has just the right amount of fat to make it tender and flavorful. And grass-fed beef fat supplies your Omega 3's!

Late July Organic Saltine Crackers, 170 g – A hearty old-fashioned soda cracker with a lingering fresh-baked flavor. Serve with your favorite soup, sharp cheddar cheese, or a tasty dip.

Harvest Haven Butterball Potatoes, 5 and 10 lb bags – Creamy tender flesh with a smooth consistency and rich, buttery flavor make these potatoes a favorite. Mashed, baked, French fried, scalloped, whatever you fancy, this potato will please.

Harvest Haven Garlic – As you can tell, we love our garlic.

Frozen Organic BC Blueberries – Low in calories, high in antioxidants, you know you should eat more of them. But they taste so good, who needs an excuse to sprinkle them on just about everything you eat?

Wholly Wholesome Organic Pie Crust, 2-pack - These ready to use shells are not only convenient, they're good, too. These tasty 9" pie shells are made with simple organic ingredients – no nasty preservatives here. You'll find them in the freezer section.

Please note, all ingredients in our recipes are organic.

When do you ever have enough trailers?

As Martin was giving us a brief tour of his projects around the farm, Victor asks him about some trailers stored behind the new equipment barn.

"Martin, what are all these trailers for?" queries Victor.

"Oh, I use all of them. You can never have too many trailers," Martin quickly replies.

"This one's for carrying the water tank. Those two are feed trailers. One for the chickens, the other for turkeys.

"I like these old trailers because you don't have to be so precise when backing up a tractor to them. The tongues are light enough to pick up and move onto the tractor hitch.

"As a matter of fact, I'm getting a couple more this week."

"Really? You don't have enough?" Victor asks with surprise.

"Oh no, you can never have enough trailers. I need another one for the turkey shelter, so it can be moved easily. And…" Martin trails off into a detailed explanation of where he needs more trailers.

Late Sunday afternoon, James and Igor, our friend from the Slovakia, were getting ready to head out on the road with our "new to us" truck and trailer to get more trailers.

"You guys ready to go?"

"Yep! We have our water bottles," James confidently replies.

"Just water? What about food? You're going to be gone until Monday night."

"We'll grab a few things from the store on our way out," James reluctantly responds.

Both James and Igor have food issues, as in not eating enough. Thin isn't exactly the right descriptive. They could be described as emaciated. We try to make them eat more, but food doesn't interest them much.

These two guys are good cooks. James does fancy gourmet meals with beef tenderloin or rack of lamb, and Igor goes for Slovak peasant meals, like sauerkraut soup or potato/flour dumplings with beef bacon (no vegetables because "Traditional peasant meals don't include vegetables!" Igor firmly states).

So, they grab some chips and snack bars to go with their water for their trip.
Unlike how Victor and I travel. For a less than eight-hour trip to Calgary to pick up supplies and drop off grocery orders, we go prepared…sandwiches with some kind of deli meat and lots of lettuce, extra lettuce, three different kinds of fruit juice and kombucha, coffee, cut up fruit of some kind, another sandwich of nut butter and honey, and a couple of Hornby bars, along with two big bottles of water. Half of this usually comes home, BUT you don't want to be without something, just in case. We are not emaciated, either.

Wanting to get to their various stops in the Edmonton area early, James and Igor "slept" in the truck at a rest stop on the way. It had snowed, so was too cold for a restful sleep. But these guys are hardy and after a cup of tea, they were on their way at dawn.

Loading their purchases on the trailer, our plucky travellers headed home with one more stop in Fort Macleod to look at a stock trailer.

"Looks okay. But what about that…?" James questioned the seller about a few issues.

"Oh, that's no problem. Everything's fine," he boldly stated.

"Well, I'll need to check with the manager about the price," James stalled.

"You'll need to make up your minds right away!" the seller emphatically declared.

"I can deliver it to you right now if you want it," he persisted.

"No, we need to talk to the manager," James retorted.

"Well, get back to me by the morning or…" the seller angrily insisted.

As James and Igor drove off, Igor asked, "What do you think? Are you going to buy the trailer?"

James curtly replied, "No! I don't like the guy."

"Me, neither."

Back at Harvest Haven, the guys are ready for bed.

One last check on the computer before lights out; James found another stock trailer for sale. He sent the person a message and got a reply right away.

"You can call now if you like," was the message.

"Are you sure? It's 10:00 o'clock."

"No problem. We're here."

A brief conversation and an appointment was made to look at another stock trailer in the morning.

This time, Martin and James headed out to a nearby farm. The unit was what they wanted, and this seller was very helpful, willing to make sure it was in perfect condition. All were satisfied with this transaction and Martin had another trailer.

When do you ever have enough trailers? Not sure. We're not there, yet.