Billy spent about nine weeks at The Rodale Institute in their veteran farmer training program. He learned a lot, came home with a wounded-and-now-healed chicken named Miss Ellie and a hive of bees, and jumped right back in to working on our guest house. Here is a blurb about him during his internship: https://rodaleinstitute.org/veterans-to-farmers/. We're thankful for the opportunity he had to learn from a large farm with years of organic experience, and for visitors who kept April company and helped us make progress on the renovations while he was gone. 

Last but not least, one of our out-of-state board members was here for a visit. Jennifer Mathews helped us build a large raised garden bed out of untreated scrap lumber we found around the property. We are filling it with our second-hand moving boxes, old newspaper, fallen leaves and sticks, and kitchen scraps. We will let these materials compost in place over the next few months and they should be rich soil in time for spring planting—the last frost is around April 13, so that’s about when we will set out seeds and the plants we’ve started inside.
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Thank you for your encouragement as we continue to move forward! We hope you are as encouraged by this momentum as we are. ​