Good Weekend

I spent time on my day off (Sunday) working around the yard. Filled the garden cart with downed tree limbs and burned some of them. The ground had thawed and I was able to get into the far garden and work the soil. After pulling up the fence and leveling out the soil a bit - projects that should have been done last year - I could not resist getting the Troy-bilt out and tilling the soil.

I made tentative plans for that little plot this year to be my winter squash garden. Hopefully it is large enough. I am going to try growing potatoes in one of the larger raised beds, and less of them.

It was a good thing we've had some moderate temps, above freezing anyway. The large pile of manure that has been accumulating in the paddock thawed which allowed me to move it. I decided to spread it across the lower third of the paddock and will continue to do that until the spring. Guapo rarely spends time in that end so my plan is to rope it off with temporary fencing and try to grown a pasture blend of grasses and other plants for Guapo to munch on over the summer.

I spent a little time with Guapo, too. In fact he made it mandatory. He loves to have his belly and crotch scratched - places he cannot reach - and if you happen to be standing or working in the paddock around him, he carefully positions himself very close until he gets a scratch. If he gets nothing he inches closer until he's got his flank against you. He's very gentle about it and I trust him to not kick or suddenly buck. Still, I move him away if I feel he's too close or I cannot pay attention to what he is doing. It's rather funny to watch and I do ignore him just to see how close he will get.


Snowy Monday Morning

We went to sleep on Sunday night with light snow falling. A nasty storm out over the Atlantic was backing in to the west and driving snow down from the north. I was a bit surprised to be presented with a solid coating - 2 or 3 inches - of heavy, wet snow.

I did a little bit of shoveling knowing that it would likely all be melted off by later in the day. Though it was heavy, slushy snow, I did take a few minutes to enjoy the sounds of a spring trying to rush the season despite the snow cover. Red-winged blackbirds, one of the true harbingers of spring, have returned. I was greeted by a chorus of the konk-a-reeee song at the kennel on Saturday and the songs of dark-eyed juncos, chickadees, titmice, and most notably Carolina wrens are taking on that spring sound.

Still, we have sudden reminders that, though close, spring is still a little way off. Getting in the garden on Sunday did me a world of good. My plan for the near future is to construct a cold frame over a part of one of the raised beds to experiment with cold crop greens. Hopefully this weekend. I added a load of compost to the bed on Sunday. It still needs one or two more loads.

Snow is poor man's fertilizer, loaded with nutrients and quite good for the soil. The garden will wait. Until such time, I will try to take stock in being alive to enjoy anything that Mother Nature throws at me, no matter how foul. There has to be something beautiful in a day that I was allowed to wake up to and be a part of.