Sweet Spring Days

Hello, friends.  What sorts of things have you been up to lately?  I spent several days working out doors last week, which was lovely.  I started filling up 5 gallon buckets, while I'm weeding, and adding it to the compost, which the chickens rummage through.  More of the Amish tomatoes were transplanted into separate cells, as well as several wintersown flowers, including calendula, Hopi red dye amaranth, celosia, and gazania.  The hay fields behind our land are sadly sprayed with herbicides these days.  As they're not fans of "weeds", I've been gathering dandelion seed heads right where our path comes out, bringing them back, and scattering them here and there.  They're pretty, a great early food source for pollinators, good food and medicine for us, excellent for skin, and you can make wine from the flowers.  Really, what's not to like?

There were a few cooler days last week, On those days, I canned lima and pinto beans, to restock our shelves.  A batch of cashew parmesan was made.  I shopped at Harris Teeter, after dropping off a soap delivery, getting the 5% senior discount, and picked up a few things at Dollar Tree.  I wish there was a happier update on the chicks.  We ended up losing 12 of 25, so almost half our flock.  The company finally responded, telling J they had shipped more, this time 20, which arrived three days later, on Saturday.  One looked poorly from the start, and didn't make it through the first night.  We hope to have a better outcome with this batch of chicks.  

If you've been around here a while, you'll have heard I like to thrift our sheets, and enjoy mixing and matching them.  I have bought some new sheet sets from a good brand in the past few years, but they really don't seem to hold up any better than the thrifted ones.  J has a queen sized pillow.  Our bed is a double, so I'm always on the lookout for larger pillowcases for J.  I almost always find king sized pillowcases, and found one last week, so shortened two of them for him on the sewing machine.  I went up in the attic, and J helped me get down my warm weather clothes and our summer sheets.  The first flannel sheets in the Fall are always welcome, but I'm looking forward to sleeping on crisp cotton sheets again.  One of life's simple pleasures, especially when they smell of fresh air and sunshine.

More compost extract was made, and a new round of plants were fertilized.  Once everything has been fertilized once, I plan to start over.  Ideally, I'll get to everything three times, helping to ensure all the good microbes take hold.  The plants I've already fertilized look noticeably healthier, so that's encouraging.  This weekend, I cut back the Virginia creeper and kiwi vines encroaching on the fence and fruit trees.  Little by little, I'm weeding flower beds, and covering them with wood chips.  Our oregano patch in the garden was totally decimated by moles this winter, and only a few sprigs remained of a patch in a mixed herb and flower bed, as the soapwort overran it.  The remaining oregano was transplanted, to a place I hope it will thrive.  Last Fall, I bought what I thought was oregano, but turned out to be marjoram, which turns out I'm not fond of.  Last week, I reported seeing the first hummingbird at the window.  I finally saw one at the feeder a couple times on Sunday.  Such magical creatures.  Wishing you a beautiful week, friends!