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Here is the proud father of Sarah’s new puppy, who was born (with her seven siblings) on April 6, 2013.  She will join us in June.

Here’s a tired-looking mom with her puppies.

We have been conducting a low-level war with the Canada Geese as long as we’ve been at the farm.  They are pestilent, and persistent.  But I too am persistent: whenever we see geese, we run across the lawn at them, screaming, and then get in the rowboat to chase them off the pond.  Our neighbors think we are quite insane.  However, vigilence in the spring has meant that, for the most part, the geese give up by June.

And here is a woman and her tractor, returning from the garden.

Sarah dusted off her bicycle for the first ride of the season.

Here is one of our resident turkeys.  Soon we should have lots of poults (that is farm talk for baby turkeys).

On Sunday, Sarah went for a trail ride in Walden N.Y. with her friend Michaela (not pictured).

We returned from a long absence (okay, two weekends) to find many signs of spring.

At school, Sarah just finished a segment called “Wild Northeast,” in which each student selected a northeastern animal or plant (only two kids picked plants) and wrote a little book about it.  Sarah chose the Northern Spring Peeper (seen here and here).  She was a bit ambivalent about the return of this blue heron, who comes to the pond to eat — you guessed it, Northern Spring Peepers.

Another sure sign of spring is the return of the Canada Geese.  I chased them out of the pond on Saturday and Sunday.  There were also scaups and a pair of mallards.

We did a little spring cleaning on Saturday, clearing out the flower beds.

Sarah was up early on Sunday to see what was in her Easter basket.

Later, we hosted an egg hunt.

We had enough snow on the ground so that Sarah could try out her snowshoes, which were a Christmas present last year.

She and her mom made a snowman.

While they were doing that, I found this horseshoe sticking out of the ground.  It looks very old.

Here’s the completed snowman, with a jaunty birds’ nest hat.

We had clammy weather at the farm this weekend.

Sarah stayed indoors and made origami frogs.

As you can see, we had an extremely busy Presidents’ Day weekend at the farm.

On Sunday night, Sarah had a sleepover at her friend Sophie’s house.  Jen and I made pizza and watched a movie (Argo).

I have re-thought my pizza recipe, both sauce and dough.  You can find details at the recipe page.

We drove up to the farm Saturday morning after Sarah’s magic-themed 9th birthday party at our apartment.  We spotted 16 hawks on the Taconic on the way up — a personal record.  When we arrived, we found the pond frozen solid.  Sarah found a cat tail and made a wish.

Sarah and Jen shoveled off the thin layer of snow, but, after an hour or so, we realized that none of us had ice skates.

Saturday night, Sarah had her friends (counter-clockwise from Sarah) Anna, Michaela, Sophie and Lucy over for a sleepover.  They played Sneaky Statues, ate pizza, watched Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, and had slices of Jen’s delicious lemon cake.

The celebration continued in the morning (Sarah’s actual birthday) with blueberry pancakes.  In the afternoon we all took long naps!

We had a nice long weekend up at the farm celebrating Martin Luther King, Jr. day, President Obama’s inauguration, and my father’s 75th birthday.

It was cold on Saturday, but on Sunday it was mild enough to get everyone outside.

The wild turkeys seem to be doing OK this winter.

Sarah broke the ice to make sure the streams were flowing.

We had a persistently foggy weekend, in a non-metaphorical sense.