A Happy St. Patrick's Day

Hello, friends.  Last week, there was one huge football of a sweet potato left over, and it was calling me to make pie.  Tuesday was cold and rainy, so that seemed a good day for it.  J had requested baked ziti for dinner, and it was made using our tomatoes, herbs, garlic and onion.  I used a promo code for an order on Vitacost for 15% off the order, got another 8% back through Swagbucks, and bought just enough to get free shipping.  A pot of sweet little daffodils purchased at the grocery store had finished blooming, so I planted them in the ground.  Quite a few of the zebra hollyhocks were up, but all of them were outside the flower bed, so most were dug up and returned to the bed, and a new spot got the extra three.  The new spot is across from the workshop window where I'll be packing orders, so I hope they do well there.  

I picked daffodils, forsythia and a hellebore for a bouquet one day, and more daffodils and forsythia another day.  On St. Patrick's Day, I harvested a cabbage, and made colcannon and Smitten Kitchen's Irish soda bread scones.  I made the cake flour it calls for, using her instructions of 1c flour and 2 tbs corn starch sifted twice.  I wandered the homestead, looking for a 4 leaf clover, and found a 5 leaf!  After dinner, J took me to our new local wine bar, to have a drink to celebrate the 14th anniversary of our first date.  There was only one other person in there, so social distancing was not an issue.  On the trip to Asheville with my SIL last year, I gathered four fruits of the kousa dogwood, which had fallen where we had parked.  They'd been in the refrigerator cold-stratifying ever since, but I got them planted over the weekend.   I've been wanting one of these for quite a while, and hope some of the seeds germinate.

A clump of red sorrel/bloody dock was divided in 4 and transplanted.  The thornless blackberry and raspberries were pruned.  I took 3  blackberry cuttings, used root hormone, and am trying to propagate them. While wandering the woods, I came across a cluster of plants along the creek.  I thought they looked similar to heuchera, and the LeafSnap app indeed came up with heuchera americana, or alumroot.  I'm thinking I found another cluster of them in a different spot last year, along the creek bank as well.  J put the ceiling insulation in the workshop.  I assisted him in putting up the ceiling sheetrock between painting orders. He got all the potatoes planted, and planted lots more than usual.  Our recent harvests have been pitiful, so we're hoping we'll have plenty of potatoes this year.  He amended the truck tool box we use to start seeds in, and planted 9 varieties of tomatoes, 3 peppers, and 3 eggplant.  I made name tags by cutting up old mini blinds.  

My sister asked me Saturday morning if I'd like to go to an outside event that afternoon, where they closed off the street, so restaurants could expand outdoors.  We had a fantastic meal, and supported a local business.  Plus, I brought home a piece of their yummy strudel.  It was a lovely way to celebrate the first day of spring.  Sadly, we lost a hen last week.  They all seemed fine when I let them out in the morning, but by early afternoon, one was struggling to breathe.  I made up some Vet Rx and put it beneath her head, but J found her dead when he went to close them up that evening.  That's the fastest we've ever lost one, besides predator attacks.  The grape hyacinths have just begun blooming, adding a bit of purple to the yellow and white blooms.  Happy Spring!