On one of our first warmish days in April, thebabes and I engaged in some impulsive yard work, which lasted about 4hours. I haven’t had a lot of experience taking care of gardens or leafy things – unless you count my green thumb with potted basil. On this day, I think there were a lot of tulip causalities as we heedlessly raked out leaves from flower beds – nothing was blooming yet. And there were those big piles of leaves we made in the fall for jumping and picture taking that, can you imagine, were still there after the snow melted. As we gathered them up, concerned for the grass underneath, we saw those little dears had been suffocating all these months. Lesson learned. I’m still building up courage to dot the area with all the nearby horse dung.
I say
we did all this because Desmond Jones was swinging that rake and hoeing out those leaves stroke-for-stroke with me. I’ve rarely seen Des so dedicated to work. He was just as engrossed as I was and methinks this is the beginning of a beautiful gardening partnership. Yay!
Zoe wasn’t so keen on the activity, she poked at the rake every once in awhile. Mostly she played and lounged about on the warm grass surveying our curious concentration.
My dear neighbor Diane has moved out of the apartment on the property – miss her – and so I now have full responsibility of the small animals – 3 sheep, 9 chickens, and a goat. This is a little fulfillment of a farm fantasy I’ve been cultivating since living in KZ. The sheep hear my voice and they predictably, “Baaaaaaa . . .” Sometimes I have to scold them when they “Baaaaaaaa” too much because, little greedy creatures, they always want the sweet grainy oaty-corny stuff. I’m restricting it to mornings only. Evenings they get soft chewy hay and during the day they graze in the green fields. Ahhhh . . . The chickens free-range too and can be quite harsh with each other. Certain hens are chased about and refused pecking rights to food. Oooo! Glad I’m not a chicken, cause you know, you also get your eggs taken away. I watched one stand up in her nest today and push out a big hard brown egg. Ouch.
Daffodils are all over the farm – we call them daffys – and we’re snipping so many of them and bringing them inside. It’s heavenly.
Oh, and this is a sad face because the tree swing has broken. All that friction finally resulted, while Zoe was up in the air, in one big fall and tumble. I know I must find a way to fix another one up again.
{Will consult brilliant neighbors soon.}Happy spring!
