I Been Busy

I hope all ye lads and lassies had a glorious St. Patty's Day.

While the weather was fantastic here at the Aerie (again!), we are still looking down the mountain at brown and not green fields. Hey! At least they aren't white!

Yesterday I raked some of the leaves from the yard where they had drifted up into the corners of the foundation and the hillside behind the house. There's still quite a bit drifted up here and there but the really large piles are gone now. I searched the hillside where we planted bulbs last fall but they haven't begun to sprout yet. However, there are a few bulbs coming up in the raised bed up front where they were planted in behind the strawberries. I also spent some time picking stones from the flower bed that runs along the driveway. The stones got there from the driveway during the process of blowing/shoveling snow. Terry spent the day up in Big Flats, NY at an EGA (Embroiders' Guild of America) meeting and then doing some shopping for today's corned beef and cabbage dinner.

We received our federal tax refund in the mail yesterday. It's always nice of the government to return the money you loaned it during the year. Too bad they forgot the interest...again.

Today we stopped down at the bank to put most of it into our savings account to help pay the property taxes up at the Bolt Hole that will be due next month. Heh, easy come, easy go. We kept a little out to help stimulate the local economy. While we need an area rug for the bedroom (it's amazing how little noise a solid pine floor will block) we spent our money today at Agway where they had a 10% off sale this week. We purchased four 50lb bags of black oils sunflower seeds for the birdies, 30 bags of top soil (40lbs each) for the beds, half a pound of onion sets (trial size since I've never had much luck with onions), and packets of cucumber, zucchini, beans, lettuce, marigolds (deer and rabbit deterrent) and other vegetable and herb seeds.

This afternoon we tried to get some additional fill soil for the large raised bed from the bank cut directly behind the house. We haven't had any rain in several days yet the soil on the cut was extremely wet and, being a clay/stone mix of approximately 50-50 proportion, did not screen very well. Even worse, it got wetter as I dug down. I guess it should not have been a surprise since this cut is at the bottom of a long slope. All the snow melt is probably still in that soil. Three wheelbarrows full were about all we could get before calling it quits.

I turned the shovel on the compost heap in hopes of getting soil out of there and found it much easier. Except, deep inside the compost--which hadn't been touched since last fall when we dumped apple cores and tomato skins from our canning operations--were thick, solid chunks of ice. At first I thought they were stones, but then I unearthed one that was almost as clear as the ice cubes in the freezer. Aside from the ice--which I left exposed to the sun and air--the compost will end up in the raised bed tomorrow along with three of four more wheelbarrows of screened soil from the cut.

Also tomorrow--while Terry goes off to get a check-up and blood work--I will turn the soil in the beds in preparation of planting the onion sets. I'll hold off getting any seeds started indoors fro a few more weeks. There is some snow yet in the 15-day forecast at AccuHunch and the last frost here may not occur until late May/early June.

In any case, it was good to be outdoors (with a hat on!) and getting my hands dirty again. There's something about the aroma of wet earth in the spring that just raises the spirits.

I stood outside and watched the sun sink behind the hills to the west and listened to the robins, red-wing blackbirds, cardinals and other birds. But I didn't hear the one I wanted to hear. There was no "peent" from the woodcock. Any day now, I expect to hear one either in the field on the other side of the road or just on the other side of the property. They've been there each of the last two years, the only two we've been here and the fields are perfect for their mating flights. I'm sure to hear them up at the Bolt Hole as soon as the snow mostly melts, but I really want to hear one here. Soon.