So I seem to do one of these
English lessons every year around this time.
I like to talk about all of the signs of spring.
For me, one of the sure signs of spring is when
Jen starts to put her little tiny baby plants outside.
So welcome to this English lesson
about the signs of spring.
So this isn't quite a mud puddle.
You can see my old Crocs here in the
picture, but there's definitely some mud down here.
This is definitely one of the sure signs of spring.
There's definitely mud everywhere.
Let's go a little further and
I'll find an actual puddle. Ah, yes.
Here's a real puddle for you to see.
A real mud puddle down here. You'll see.
We've had a lot of spring rain, so rain is just rain.
But in the spring we call it spring rain.
It tends to rain every other day here right now.
And so we end up getting these puddles in our
driveway, and they have a little bit of water in
them, and at the bottom, a little bit of mud.
The dogs really love spring.
It's a time where they can just lay outside in the sun.
How you doing, Walter? Good.
They can just enjoy staying warm instead
of running around to stay warm.
That's usually what they do in the winter.
But today it looks like Walter's
just relaxing and enjoying the sunshine.
So this is something I don't like in
the spring because it's so muddy, you end
up getting ruts in your driveway.
You can see here that there are some ruts.
The driveway... actually, this is a little bit part of
the driveway, a little bit part of the lawn.
It's a little bit wet and a little bit muddy.
And if you drive on it, you get ruts.
So it's nice to have some trees on
our property that stay green year round.
These are evergreen trees or coniferous trees.
But over here we have a broadleaf tree, or
what we call a deciduous tree, and they are
just starting to leaf out a tiny bit.
You can see that there are tiny buds,
and those buds will eventually start to open
up and leaves will come out.
So it's nice to see that there are buds on the trees.
And soon they will leaf out and we'll have leaves.
Another sure sign of spring. In Canada
in the winter, we do things outside.
We go for hikes, we go
snowshoeing, we go cross country skiing.
But we don't usually sit around outside.
We don't usually have campfires.
As you can see here, though, my
son has stacked up some wood.
He's getting ready to have a campfire
sometime in the next few weeks
it looks like.
These are actually pretty big
pieces of firewood, though.
It's going to be a pretty big
campfire when we do light this up.
But another thing that we start to do when
the weather gets warmer, we start to actually sit
around outside at night and have campfires, sit around
and talk and have something to eat and drink.
So I'm really looking forward to that.
So I'm always excited when the tulips and daffodils start
to grow when they pop out of the ground.
Our tulips this year, again, are in crates.
Instead of planting them in the ground, we've started to plant
them in crates, because in the fall, when you plant the
bulbs, it's a lot easier to just put the bulbs in
the crates and then fill the crates with compost.
So here you see some tulips.
They're definitely doing well.
They're definitely popping up, and we should have some
buds and some blooms in a few weeks.
Our daffodils, though, are just in
the ground, out in the lawn.
We actually plant these right in
the middle of the grass.
We put the bulbs in a number of years ago, and
they just come back every year because they are a perennial.
So sometimes we dig them up and split
up the bulbs and put them in other
places, but usually they just grow right here.
They come up every year and eventually we'll
have some flowers and we'll harvest them.
The peonies are just starting to pop
out of the ground as well.
They're always kind of cool because they come up
red, but then they do slowly turn green.
So obviously it's warm enough
for them to start growing.
So one of the jobs that we need to do every
spring is we do a little bit of spring cleanup.
One of the things we have to clean up
or pick up are all of these sticks.
Our trees through the winter tend to lose a
few sticks and branches when it's really windy.
Sometimes when there's a lot of snow on the
trees, we'll lose some branches on those trees
and we'll have to come out in the spring
and clean up all the sticks and all the
branches that have fallen on the lawn.
It's also kind of nice at this time
of year because the lawn starts to green
up a little bit. Throughout the winter
the lawn is kind of brown and doesn't look
like it has very much life in it.
But as we get a little bit of sunshine and the
days are a bit warmer, the lawn starts to green up.
I'm really happy as well because my
wheat field is starting to green up.
This is a winter wheat field.
It was planted in the fall by my neighbor.
I pay my neighbor to plant my crops
because he has really big tractors and equipment.
But the wheat field is really nicely greening up.
It means it's alive, it's healthy, and it's doing well.
So one of the exciting things I look forward to in
the spring is if it's a year where I'm growing wheat.
I love seeing the wheat turn green and start to grow.
Sometimes at this time of year, I'll see some
trays out in the field, and if I follow
the trail of trays, eventually I'll see that Jen's
already planting some little baby plants in the ground.
So pretty fun. I guess
this variety is very cold tolerant, and Jen's
out here planting them in the ground.
It's also nice to be outside wearing just one shirt.
I don't have to wear a coat.
I don't have to wear a winter hat.
I don't even need mittens or gloves.
It's really nice.
It's not warm enough, though,
for short sleeved shirts yet.
That will come in the future, but right now it's warm
enough that I can just be outside in a sweatshirt.
So we've been pretty happy this year
because the river has not flooded.
Well, it flooded once, but that was way back when
it was really cold, so it's not as bad.
Right now, the river is just normal.
But sometimes in the spring and, and this will probably
happen later this month, it will flood, and then probably
some of my wheat will get covered in water.
That's not good for the wheat, but
it'll only be a small amount.
So right now, the river is behaving itself.
In a few weeks, though, we might see some flooding
or because it's spring, we would call it spring flooding.
Sometimes during the long, cold, windy
winter, some things get damaged.
You can see there's a piece of metal
that's starting to come off my barn there.
So I have some damage on my barn.
When I see damage, I make a note of it
because I'll need to repair that damage in the future.
Often in the spring, after a long winter,
you see things that are damaged, and then
you know that you'll need to fix them.
You'll need to repair them.
Well, thanks for coming with me on
this little tour of the farm.
As I looked at all the things
that are changing as spring has arrived.
I hope you learned a few English
words and phrases along the way.
It's kind of fun to come out here and to
see all of the new life, to see the things
that are starting to grow, to see the brown of
everything from the winter start to turn to green.
And I'm glad I could share it with you.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you
next week with another English lesson.