The Season of the Elusive Balance in Life

Well, bunkerpoo!  Why even strive for a balance in life this time of year when most everything revolves around gardening and accomplishing those outside tasks that can be done only in good weather.  You've heard of making hay while the sun shines.  Not that we're making hay, but we do have a darn good-sized list of projects that need to be done during our precious spring/summer/fall seasons.

As far as the balance of life concept goes, we can plan our days to the extent of what we realistically can and can't do.  (And every now and then that even works!)  However, we have less control over Mother Nature who has been throwing us curve balls so far this spring/summer.

Little to no moisture since our last snowfall way-back-when has created the very real threat of forest fire danger in our area.  Everything is d-r-y.

A couple of days ago, my daughter planted a bunch of summer bulbs and corms in one of my raised beds for me.  She was frustrated because the soil was so totally dry that when she tried to dig a hole of the proper depth, the dirt just kept collapsing in on the hole.  At the same time, I was finding I was actually raising dust making furrows in which to plant seeds.  Plus, I've been having to water daily which is almost unheard of this early in the season.

Then the rains came.  The fire danger went way, way down which is absolutely great.  

Now I've been standing inside looking at my raised beds quickly taking on the appearance of small rectangular swimming pools.  Yikes, I had just planted out three beds with Swiss chard, spinach, beets and dill seeds.  Another bed was allotted to miscellaneous salad greens such as mizuna mustard, scarlet frill, kale, arugula, Osaka purple mustard, wasabina and radishes.  And the bed of California Poppy seeds which want to be barely covered with soil . . . well, I don't have much hope for them.  Should I replant all these seeds or wait a couple of weeks to see if any of them survived the copious quantities of rain we've received in the last 36 hours?

My 4-5" tall lacy cosmos plants I transplanted after starting them inside got knocked flat by the heavy rains.  Today I had to carefully pry their ferny stalks out of the mud and tie the stems back upright to thin wooden dowels.  

I fully intended to harvest a nice crop of asparagus spears the day before the rain started.  Didn't get to it (yeah, too unbalanced again) until this morning when I put on my mud boots and ventured into the patch.  (Slip, slosh, squish, slide, sloosh.)

Some of the stalks were a full two feet high and 'bout big around as telephone poles.  Unfortunately, the lower several inches of these stalks were too tough to save.

This huge bowl of throw-a-ways weighed a smidge over three pounds.  Organically grown asparagus at our co-op in town is now selling for $3.99 a pound.  That means I lost about $12 worth of it.  Ugh.  Well, the poultry will get some nutrition from the tough stalks anyway and unless I had gone out during the last couple days of constant deluges, there was nothing I could have done about it.

This morning, in between sprinkles (yep, it's still fairly wet out there), I harvested our first greens of the season.  Those of you who have been readers for a while know how much we celebrate this every season. 

Luscious leaves of spinach, chard and a variety of lettuces.  So, so much better than anything one can buy.  (To start with, how much fresher could it be?)

Back talking about the balance.  Perhaps that means simply surviving from one day to the next just now.  Oh, posh and paddidily, we're enjoying ourselves and doing what we want to do in our good lives so there's no real complaint about our balance being a little lopsided these days.  I just wish when I sit down at night to relax before bedtime, the yawns that overtake me wouldn't be so big that my jaw cracks and my eyes water so that I can't see to read or knit.  The fact that my whole body has the tendency to tip over sideways on the couch indicates it's time to seek out the balance (!) of getting into my comfy bed.