Category: The Seasons

Signs Of Life

It has stopped raining long enough for me to tend to the trees and the plants. Everything is thriving with all the rain, but of course since it is not currently raining, this meant I was out spraying the fruit trees once again. Please pray that we don’t have a lot more rain because if we do, I wll end up going out and having to do the spraying all over again! Oh woe is me!
Actually, there is a great sense of accomplishment when you are out checking the fruit and the plants and you see that your sprays have kept the bugs and fungi off your fruit and they are growing beautifully. Yes, MY peaches, and MY apples etc. all looked very good today!
Time for some Advil.

Rain measured in the last 24 hours!

Gala Apples & Peaches


Plums & Concord Grapes

Pears & Tomatoes

Cherries

I’m Getting Sloshed

I’m starting to think that my new occupation should be “Ark Builder”! It seems that all it does is rain! Now this is just great for my garden. All my squash, zucchini and cucumber plants are growing like crazy. The peas, it seems, do not enjoy the heavy rain and would like just a smidgen of sunshine!


It’s not that I don’t enjoy an occasional rain shower. There is nothing like it after a dry spell, but these continuous, cold raw days where is rains, no pours, is getting all too familiar and very old!
Hubby sent me out to see how much rain had fallen in the last 24 hours. Yes, it was still raining, and yes I was unhappy about having to go out in it.
I got my rain coat on and traipsed up the hill to the rain gauge. One and one half inches of the liquid stuff!
I sloshed my way back down the hill and into the house. Feet soaked and feeling none too happy. Hubby smiled and then his next words froze me in my tracks.
“If it rains much more, you’ll have to spray again.”
Then he hobbled off on his crutches to the sick room to sit with his blanket and watch another rerun of “Law and Order”.
I stood there with my mouth hanging open and with tears in my eyes. My poor aching body hasn’t recovered from the last spraying.
Oh well, when we finally get some fruit, it’ll taste awfully good.

An Easter Story

Easter. A joyous day of celebration.
I’d been working for two days on the cooking, so we would have just the right meal. I made the cake yesterday, baked the potatoes this afternoon so I could scoop them out and make baked stuffed potatoes and then fixed the ham to bake in the oven. I went back to check the ham and realized that the oven was getting cold. Strange that. I tried to turn on a burner and nothing. I tried to manually light a burner, again nothing. I hollered to Hubby, who was outside, to go check the propane tank.
Empty!!!
Worst of all, he could smell propane near the tank, and so we’re not sure if there is a leak or not. So, we called our propane provider. Guess what? They’ve gone out of business. So we called the people who “purchased” their customers. A company based in Canada! No kidding.
We’re now waiting for a gas man to get here to service the tank. Is he also bringing propane? No. Okay, so what’s wrong with this picture? No propane, means no cooking or using my clothes dryer.
I got out an old, and I mean very old hot plate. I cooked the asparagus and hollandaise sauce on that. I tried to carefully warm the ham in the microwave, but lets face it, the microwave just sucks out all the moisture and the ham came out terribly. What a disappointment!
So that’s my Easter Story.
No guts, no glory, no gas!

This & That Sunday

The lake “Iced Out” here today. A full two weeks earlier than it did last year! The wind was blowing fairly hard up here and that was just what was needed to break up the ice. I always love it when the lake goes back to being alive after the long winter months of being frozen solid. It’s not really that the lake seems dead in the winter, but in the spring when the ice goes out and the water is moving again, it’s a form of rebirth!

The sun was shining today and I photographed Greta in her favorite spot on the back of the sofa, looking out over the lake. She will sit there for hours soaking up the sun and watching everything going by. I really love to watch her, and the way the light plays across her little face.

It’s Spring!

It’s spring! The sun is shining, the birds are singing and I was able to get outside and sweep our patio, and bringing out our table and chairs for the summer. Oh, I know, we could still get a little snow, but I chose to be optimistic! It’s going to be sunshine and warm temperatures from now on!
I got Hubby out to enjoy the sunshine, and the dogs were not far behind. They came bounding outside with their balls in their mouth, ready to play with their Dad!
They loved it. The dogs and Hubby! They spent about an hour out there soaking it all up. It was so good to see everyone out there enjoying themselves.
Yea! It’s Spring!!!