Let’s recap: 14 inches of snow, -16 F temps, then 2.5 inches of rain, 14 more inches of snow, then -5. Finally, a blessed break in the morass of February and March. The snow finally melted away. It got up to near 60 for three days. Time to work now because we are supposed to get another 1.5 inches of rain tonight and tomorrow as well as 2 inches plus on Thursday. This will, even after extensive ditching, flood the barn. We took advantage of the respite to put up a sheep shelter and to build a hoop house so that we can move brassicas and other early season seedlings outside. Sheep farmers are notoriously parsimonious about everything from the vehicles they drive to the buildings they use. Let me introduce you to two very cheap, reuseable and relatively long lasting example of the frugal shepherd.

Ingredients for the above:

~2 Cattle panels

~1 Hog panels

~1 tarp

~6 rebar stakes

~9 zip ties

That is it.  Sheep don’t need much unless it is very, very wet or windy.

Below is a hoop house to store some plants we have started inside: brassicas, statice, bok choi.

~6 rigid aluminum hoops

~ 1 6X20 piece of plastic salvaged

~1 6X20 piece of light poly fabric, recycled from last season

~1 3X20 piece of heavy poly fabric, recycled from last season

~scraps of wood to anchor the edges.

And one wifi temperature sensor to make sure it isn’t too hot or too cold.  66 F today at 2:30, 50 tonight at dusk.  So let the rain come and let the spring come.