Super-Productive Day

Why can't every day be as productive as today was? If so, we might stand a chance of making it through our To Do lists once in a while. Nah, I think there's some unwritten law that forbids one ever getting to the end of a list.

Early today, I took off to run some errands. For a change, I had only four stops . . . instead of the usual 8 or 9 when I head for town. While I was gone, hubby took his chainsaw and spent some quality time with eight foot long maple logs back in the wood cutting area.

As soon as I returned, we had a quick lunch of apple slices and peanut butter and then headed out into the front yard. The "front yard" is a large area that's fenced in mainly to keep the deer out of the gardens but also so that our dog and occasionally visiting granddogs have a large area that they're free to run in.

You should know my dear husband is really good (I mean he is truly very conscientious) about regularly picking up dog poop whenever he sees a . . . ah, um . . . deposit. But today he said he was feeling a need for a thorough campaign (before the grass grows too high) to really clean things up. So taking designated pooper-scooper shovel and designated bucket for same job, we meticulously went over the whole yard area (in a grid pattern no less . . . hey, we were serious about this task) picking up any deposits that had been missed over the past winter. You can thank me now for not documenting this part of our day with pictures.

Then we took the protective mulch covering off the flower beds and picked up all the branches and twigs that had fallen into the yard over winter. Mulch was saved to be reused in the garden this summer but branches were hauled away to the burn pile.

I had pulled the mulch off the rhubarb plant several days ago, so we picked that up and hauled it away.

Rhubarb, beautiful rhubarb! The first fruit of the season. So, okay, it still has a ways to go/grow but it'll come along quickly now.

Then because we were seeing strawberry leaves valiantly trying to poke up through their heavy mulch, I decided it was time to remove their winter blanket.

We're still having temps down to freezing and a little below at night, but these guys needed to breathe some fresh air and let the sun hit them. (Why do the weeds grow faster and stronger under the mulch than the strawberry plants?)

While I was working in the strawberry patch, hubby ran the little tiller around the perimeter of the field garden to deter the sod in its quest to spill over its boundary into the garden soil. Zoey, the Wonder Dog, checks to make sure a proper job is being done.

Next we attacked the fruit trees that are in sad need of pruning. We only got three done (seven more to go) before it was time for me to go in to start some dinner.

But before going in, I had to take a couple of shots of the garden bed I planted last Sunday. Here in the left side of the bed you can see radishes (two rows on the far left), and arugula (on the right) coming on strong. In between are two rows of lettuce not doing much yet.

On the right side are two more rows of radishes and a couple rows of lettuce. The spinach has yet to make an appearance. As I've said, our night time temps have still been getting down below 32° so I'm very pleased with the job the cold frame seems to be doing of protecting the little sprouts.

Tomorrow? Hubby and a friend are going on a hike as soon as J gets here after church. I'll drive them to a starting point several miles away and they'll hike back through the woods. If they take the shortest route, they'll do 4.9 miles. If they are going good and decide to throw in another loop or two off the trail, who knows how many miles they'll rack up.

As soon as I get home from dropping the guys off, I'm going directly into my quilt studio and play there the whole time they're gone. Unless I decide to go outside to weed in the garden beds. Or make a batch of cottage cheese. Or bake a blackberry pie with some wonderful frozen blackberries friends gave us. Or make some necessary organizational phone calls for an upcoming event. Or wash a few loads of rugs. Or get caught up on my blog reading. Or take a nap. ZZZZZ-zzzzzz.