The month of March is always a busy one here at The Hostel in the Forest. Everyday we greet newly arriving Hostelers who are eager for a getaway from their daily routines.

We’ve kept a posted schedule of activities available each weekend to share with our hostelers a bit of what we at the Hostel do, including garden and sustainable kitchen workshops.

With the last of the cold snaps behind us we’ve begin celebrating the coming of spring. The air is crisp yet warm on the skin, scented with the sweetness of blossoms. As soon as you walk up to the domes you see the budding flowers of the Cherokee-Rose and Azaleas bushes. The Wisteria vine that crawls up many of the trees here is also beginning to bloom. The front porch is alive with color.

Lake time has once again become a very popular activity. All day folks enjoy canoeing, swimming, or just sitting in the sun on the floating dock. Some have even indulged in the occasional midnight dip.

If you were to take a stroll around the grounds you’d find many of our Oak trees, Gum trees, and Blueberry bushes in bloom. In the garden we have recently grafted Pluot scions to our Plum trees and Asian-Pear scions onto our conventional Pear trees. All of our winter greens are flowering and within the week we’ll be hand tilling them into the earth to provide bed space for our spring/summer starts. We’ve also began planting Strawberries and Potatoes in our Lake Garden’s new no till raised beds. In our Fruit Orchard we have planted additional trees such as Nectarines, Peaches, and Granny Smith Apples. Next we’ve laid down cardboard to prevent Blackberries from overtaking the young trees, and then covered that with mulch. The area is now very clean, making for an attractive walk around the lake.

Now for what everyone really wants to hear about, the baby chickens. Our next generation of chickens began a month ago when we harvested 20 eggs from the coop and placed them in our incubator. Then, to assure that we would have a good yield, we ordered almost 50 various hens from a mail order supplier. To our great delight almost all of the home grown eggs have hatched, providing us with a beautiful mix of White Silky (our rooster) and Road Island Red (great egg laying hens) chicks. Then came the mail order and surprise they sent us our order plus another of equal size accidentally. Now we have 110 chicks and still counting. Not all of the eggs are hatched but we’re already scheming about giving chicks away as souvenirs to hostelers. Good news is they are all healthy and energetic. They rang from all sizes and colors of chicken. We even have that weird looking naked neck variety. They are so cute! We need lots of hostelers to come and help us play with them so they stay people friendly. It’s a tough job I know but someone’s got to do it.

See you soon…and May the Forest be with You

The Hostel Staff