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Our asparagus continues to come in almost faster than I can harvest it.
I missed one day in cutting it and look what happened. Stalks two feet tall!
Our apple trees are finally blossoming. Some in full bloom and some just starting.
This is the third year for this dwarf Chestnut Crab Apple. Last year it bore heavily and the apples were the best eating apples we had. (I didn't know crab apples could taste so good.) They were bigger than the average crab apple, a bit over 2" across, and we each ate one a day, sometimes two.
Since we were so enamored with the flavor of this crab apple variety, we ordered another one which we planted this spring. Look at the blossoms on this skinny, little stick of a tree. Impressive!
We have several Honey Crisp dwarf trees that are in their third year. With luck, we may get some tasty fruit from them, too.
Late blossoming this year, yes, but at least they didn't do it before one of our many late frosts. Maybe they knew what they were doing.
I mentioned a post or so ago that Papa Pea has been doing a reorganizing and rearranging of our poultry yard.
For years we've had an apple tree in that area that has been on its last legs. (Last branches? Last roots?) At any rate, we decided it would be best to take it out, get it out of the way.
When D, our good neighbor, brought us a load of fill to even out an area that Papa Pea's been working on, they discussed the tree and D said he could come over with a piece of his equipment and pop it out, roots and all, if we wanted.
You bet! And that he did.
For an older, smaller tree that was half dead, it had quite the root system and we shuddered to think how long it would have taken us to grub it out.
Up, up and away with the gnarly old thing.
D even took the tree away with him. Can't beat that kind of help!
We made the decision last summer that we were no longer going to take the time to cut and split the firewood that heats our house. We would order it cut, split and delivered and all we would have to do was stack it in our wood sheds.
We've always used all the wood from trees taken down on our property and, in the past, ordered loggers' cords of wood delivered in 8' lengths. If we figure the cost of the 8' lengths, the expense of using our chainsaws and fuel, and the time we both put into processing the wood, we came to the conclusion we'd be ahead to pay and order our wood cut and split.
So we did.
This past winter, we used all but this small amount of wood left in our big shed.
Ah, but don't get the idea we have no seasoned wood in reserve because we do.
This smaller wood shed is stuffed full of wood we put up last summer.
As is this make-shift wood crib we cobbled together and filled then also. Both of these areas together equal more than the big shed holds.
Oh, and we also were gifted these logs by our good neighbor recently. He has a heavy equipment business and often clears land for construction. In the past he's given us untold $$$ worth of wood and we're so very grateful for it.
So it's not that our wood working skills will become rusty by now ordering the main part of our wood for heating.
This is the first load of four that was delivered yesterday. Each load is a cord and a half which means there will be six cords to be stacked in our main wood shed.
Annnnd . . . this is what four loads looks like.
Papa Pea is currently involved in the reconstruction of our poultry yard, fencing and building a new composting system (one heckuva big job) so I told him I'd stack all the wood myself.
Eeeep! WHAT was I thinking??
I was working in the garden this afternoon when Papa Pea came to find me and announced he needed my help.
"What's up?" I asked.
He replied, "I got the Gravely stuck in the edge of the pond."
"How'd that happen?" I asked.
"I was watching a duck," he said.
Although this picture makes it look like the mower is tangled up with the electric fencing, it's not. Papa Pea had folded back that section of fence so he could get in by the pond to mow. (Looks to me like said duck is wondering what's going on himself.)
Off we went to fetch our old, faithful Samurai which Papa Pea chained up to the Gravely which did, indeed, have one wheel very much stuck in the mud.
Happily, it didn't take a lot to get it unstuck, and he was soon off and mowing again.
Seems to me he got stuck in much the same spot once last year, too. Wonder what he was watching then?
This is a partial glimpse of the asparagus patch. This is it 24 hours after I harvested all the big enough stalks just yesterday. I'd like to have a time-lapse camera set up to see just how fast the stalks grow.
The cold frame over this lettuce and miscellaneous salad greens is due to come off very soon. I had to replant in a couple of spots and there are still some itty-bitty plants that may not make it. Replant, replant.
Here's half of a bed of five different kinds of radishes before the second thinning. We love our radishes.
This is our rhubarb plant on steroids with comfrey on either end.
See my wiggly-waggly leaves of garlic? What's with that? The bed has bush zinnias under hot caps on either end. I do believe the started zinnias have gotten smaller since I set them out.
Six green pepper plants under hot caps. They need to have a cold frame set over them (and the hot caps removed) as soon as I can get someone to help me do the job. By the by, we've never had so many dandelions. They were all mowed down by the mower three days ago. I feel like they're a super-breed and may take over the acreage.
My cauliflower plants look good and healthy at this stage.
I planted an eight foot row of cucumber seeds from 2014 and I think every one of them germinated. I'll thin them down to just four plants which will give us all the slicing cukes we'll need with many to give away.
These are my shell pea trellises. Can you see the pea sprouts? No, me neither. I just planted them two days ago.
Our haskap berry bushes are lush and chock-full of blossoms. Looks to be a good year for them.
The strawberry plants have blossomed early this year. If all goes well, we should get a good crop from them.
No picture but I have two zucchini plants under a hot cap that are just bursting to get out, but our temp is possibly going down to the mid-30s tonight so I didn't want to chance letting them out of their little hot house quite yet.
I still have most of the warm weather crops to plant, and had to spend the afternoon weeding in the blueberries and strawberries (the 3/4" of rain we got this week did wonders for the growing plants and, of course, the weeds) so I don't feel like I made much forward progress in the garden today. Unless you count the weeding . . . which does count for a lot since once you fall behind on that, as all you gardeners know, it's really, really hard to catch up.
In an effort to maintain what's left of our frazzled minds during this pandemic period, we've had a couple of "social distancing" outings with friends during the last two weeks. Good gracious, it felt good to leave the property for more than a short time to pick up essentials (mostly at curbside) and talk with real live people we've not had contact with for what seems like ages.
Our public library sent out notice the first week in May that one could order books, DVDs, audio books, etc. online and one would be called when the requested items were available for pick-up at a pass-through window at the library. Oh, how I've missed the services our wonderful library provides for us, so I immediately placed my order and waited to be notified I could pick up my selections.
Weeks have passed with no word. Yesterday I made a call to the library and spoke to one of the very nice clerks who explained the situation causing the delay.
When the pandemic restrictions and closings started back in March, many people had library materials in their possession and were told they wouldn't be charged any late fees because of the library's closure. Therefore, getting all the materials back has been a jumbled mess.
A request for any item not available locally but in other libraries in our library system is usually delivered to our local library within a week's time, at most. To make this long story short(er), I found out delivery of materials (some of those I requested) didn't start until day before yesterday and many materials have not been returned yet since no fines are being issued. Then when materials do arrive in our local library, they are "quarantined" for 7 days before being given out again. Sigh. Life is not functioning the way it used to.
Still no much needed rain here. Fire danger is listed as high (and scary). The forecast teases us with the possibility of some rain over this Memorial Day Weekend. We're all keeping our fingers crossed.
In the meantime, I'm working on getting the garden in as fast as I can. I'm tired at the end of the day, but my first-of-the-season body aches and pains have all but disappeared. After placing starts or seeds in the garden, I've had to water regularly since the soil is dry as dust.
The grass is growing despite lack of nourishing rain so Papa Pea got out the lawn mower for me a few days ago, and I started the attack on the too-high growth. A back wheel immediately disengaged itself from the mower and that ended my efforts. Papa Pea has been busier than the proverbial one-armed paper hanger on his own projects and hasn't had time to do the repairs on the mower, so the grass grows on.
We both keep bumping into the fact that if you're doing one thing, you can't do the other. ('Magine that.)
I'm missing doing any handwork because of the time spent on outside tasks, plus when I come to the end of my day, I'm so pooped I can't stay awake when I do sit down to pick up my handwork. Ah, yes, to everything there is a season.
And for those of you who may ask (wisps of words -- cough, cough), I haven't spent the desired time in the hammock yet. Not yet, but it will happen!
