Such a busy time of year

Spring is such a busy time of year for us. We do spring cleaning, inside and out, which for seven people is a LOT needing done. We start on the yard goals which are large and many and include animal related tasks. And lastly, we start really focusing on fiber. New fleeces coming in, old fleeces sought out and used, inventory taken, rovings reordered, wonderful things dyed and carded, and everything packaged, labeled, and priced for the festivals. My workload triples in the spring and I am grateful for the extra hours of daylight.
This year is so promising. New blood coming into the rabbitry and definite progress with our english lines and our broken satins. I finally settled on a breed of chicken and right now we're hatching out black copper maran eggs and if all goes well we will stick with them and the olive egger crosses that will be produced with my americaunas. We added three lovely little khaki campbell ducks this year for the extra eggs too. The chicken coop will be relocated and expanded shortly and the rabbits are finally going to get the improved quarters that they deserve. I've already started building the fence around the garden and very soon the main fence will go up. We've gotten four raised beds built out of the ten I plan to have. The gardens are looking beautiful and we plan to add to them quite a bit this year. We've also started laying down the mulch for the pathways that we'd been planning. Most importantly, I believe we will finally be getting our addition this year! So it's busy, and good, and wonderful.
On another note, my girls are such amazing little people. Today while grocery shopping (me +5 kids) maggie, (who is 8) stopped multiple times without being asked to fix a malfunctioning sandal for cash (who is 2), to help herd the group in the right direction, to put things back on the shelf that the little ones tried to grab as they were walking by, ect. and Amadea who is 6, just blew me away tonight. Baby fell asleep on the couch and I really needed to get things done, so since they were all watching the movie they had earned I put her in charge of sitting next to him in case he woke up. When I came back in after folding laundry she had fallen asleep, but first she had put pillows above tarquinns head and at his feet and then she had curled up next to him with her blanket to make sure that he wouldn't fall. Amazing. We are not just raising children, we are raising extraordinary human beings. It is so good after all the destruction and noise and stress to see such responsible, awesome little people starting to form.
That's all for tonight, here's to a year of progress made and still enough time to sit on the porch and watch the kids play.