April 21, 2022

It's windy out here, and dry.  This will be a common theme among residents of this area and this blog.  It's hard to get outside and remove garden trash in the high winds we are having.  Yesterday was a quiet day in the wind department so I cleaned out the second iris patch.  I was out earlier this morning and as it was nice I was determined to do another iris patch clean out.  That was a job!  When the wind was not gusty, I could put dry iris leaves in my garden cart, but when it was, I would watch my efforts blow across the lawn. Eventually, I put my jacket over the trash to keep the dry vegetation inside my cart, and then the jacket blew off.  Thankfully, not much blew out before I put the jacket back in place and moved the trash to the compost pile.  I'm hoping for the best that that loose pile of dry stuff won't blow from here to kingdom come after all. 

Here is further proof of our windy weather.  The wire holding this birdfeeder up has given out, or worked itself off.  Jim found it blown onto it's side, and it is now residing in the shop waiting for this windy season to be over.

Here's our first mess of asparagus. I had a little white chicken gravy we had on biscuits so I cooked this up, put it in the gravy and we had it for breakfast on toast.

Jim has planted more potatoes.  There are two full rows out there.  He also planted spinach, lettuce and swiss chard.  The soil is dry as a bone so we are letting them just hang out there until we have time to attend to constant watering. 

 

April 2, 2022

 Some days it acts like spring.  My scilla's are ready to bloom, the daffodils are starting to bloom and my white hyacinth next to the front stoop has three blooming stalks.  Today was a perfect day to work outside and I dumped two cartloads of garden trash.  Jim planted onions.  We are using only white onions this year.  We have onion fungus running rampant in our garden.  I looked up information, and it stays in the ground for years and the yellow onions are infected more so than the white ones.  He planted potatoes last Saturday.

We are in desperate for some moisture around here and many other places in the state as well. We had a little snow a few days ago.  Nothing much, again. It looked white out, but didn't cover all the grass.

Jim fixed the sprinkler system that broke because it didn't get drained and turned off in the fall  That caused a flood in the basement that included one bedroom, the laundry room, under the stairs and a little water leaked into the furnace room closet. We had been gone all day and Jim went out to hunt deer at the farm after we got home. Later, a neighbor told us water was shooting from the side of the house.  Thankfully, I know where the water shutoff is.  I didn't know what to do.  The big shop vac was at our business.  I couldn't get a hold of Jim, no cell service. Fortunately, we have good neighbors with a big shop vac. I called Jim several times so he would know there was a problem at home and our neighbors started slurping up the water with the vac and I started hauling things off the floor.  When Jim got home (without any deer) he took over.  After getting up all the standing water everywhere except the carpet, and some towel mopping, we dragged the carpet outside to get it dry.  That was quite the experience, since water soaked carpet is HEAVY.  Jim rolled it and then it was 1, 2, 3, HEAVE, stopping to breather, rest and regroup and heave again. Adding insult to injury, it rained so when I tripped over the carpet and fell into the rain wet grass, getting more of me wet than the bottom few inches. The next day, Jim hung it over the chicken fence, and after it dried, rented a carpet stretcher and reinstalled it. 

So, now it's all fixed and watering the lawn. Jim has to fix a few sprinkler heads every year.