Just a quickie

First and most important, today is Garf's first day with a new company. He'll be team driving, at least this first time. I don't think he's happy about that part. He's not a good passenger lol. I think it's just this first trip though, and it should only be maybe three days at most, so he'll survive it.

Lots of little stuff around here.

- There is a patch of wild strawberries growing near our fire pit. I'm hoping to encourage them to spread. Add that to the Chanterelles that I discovered last year, and I'm happy. I like free food. 

- Mama hen hatched out five chicks. She was still sitting on 8 eggs. Overnight, she was disturbed by some falling straw and quit her nest for the night. She moved back onto it when we cleaned up. The next day, one chick disappeared overnight, 4 eggs went missing, and she wasn't sitting on the eggs that were left. So, I guess I really shouldn't have counted those chickens before they hatched. I'd sure like to know where the eggs disappeared to. Mama and babies are now safely contained where no one can get lost or hurt.

- Barn has finally been cleaned up after the winter. That took a full day. 

- Garden has been tilled. We got cucumbers, carrots, peas, beans, tomatoes, peppers, hot peppers, onions, and beets planted. Still a lot more to go. We're way behind. Such a short growing season, but we can pop up some tents later in the year if we need to just to get a little extra time and hopefully harvest enough. The real trick will be me getting up some energy to either can or freeze what gets harvested. 

-The grape vine is doing nicely, and out of the 8 sticks we stuck in the ground, it looks like 5 or 6 have new growth. So in the next couple of years, we should have far more grapes than we'll ever need.

-Cherry and pear tree are showing up with some pretty flowers. We've air layered 3 branches on the cherry and 2 on the pear. In another couple of weeks, we should have roots and that'll give us 5 more fruit trees.

-The remains of my strawberry beds are looking nice. Quite a few of the plants have their flowers already. It's not the 60 plants that I started with before the chickens ate everything, but it's more than I had when I started splitting and replanting in the fall. So it was a bit of a setback, but it'll be better next year.

-The mint, oregano, and chives are expanding nicely despite the grass taking over that bed. I'll be digging all that up, splitting and spreading around this year. That's the plan anyway.

-We planted 8 asparagus crowns a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure they were gonna make it. When they were delivered, we were just so busy with everything else that we didn't have time. I left them in the box for a couple of weeks, then opened it when I thought we were going to have a chance to get them in the ground. We didn't. It was about another week. It wouldn't have been a surprise if they didn't grow. The other day, we all swear it was a bare garden bed. Yesterday, there's about a foot of growth. 7 of the 8 are fine.

- Finally, finally, finally, the collection of junk (washer, washer parts, the big stuff) got picked up by garbage collection this morning, along with 2 full cans and who knows how many bits and pieces of other stuff, like one office chair. This stuff has been sitting in the back for about 2-3 years. Garf just keeps adding to it. And while I like to have the junk yard because you never know what you can use, the mess of it was getting to me and I ordered it gone. He sorted through everything yesterday. 

- I now have a hose that stretches from the house ALL THE WAY to the back garden. No more lugging buckets and watering cans.  

Okay, that wasn't as much of a quickie as I'd thought.