The Kiss of the Sun

After a quick trip to the farm store yesterday morning (still no chicks), I went out to the garden to see what needed to be done. I know there is advice circulating around social media not to clean up dead branches, etc., until the temperatures are consistently in the 50s so as to allow pollinators to emerge from their winter homes. The problem here is that we don’t have those conditions until later in the season, and there will be other pressing tasks then. I’m going to continue to work as I always have. Yesterday was a bright, sunny day and it got up into the 50s. I worked in a T-shirt and jeans.

I got out the clippers and went after the dead canes in the raspberry patch. Our raspberry patch got very overgrown, and cleaning it up has been a multi-year project. I’m also beating back the suckers that want to take over and slowly taking out the thorny variety in favor of the thornless one. The two varieties were interplanted when we put the patch in. Thankfully, the thornless variety is more vigorous and productive.

The patch looks much better now, with better air circulation between the canes and less cover for the ground squirrels.

It felt so good to be outside moving around! I wandered around the garden to see how things were doing. The rhubarb is just starting to put up shoots. And in last year’s row of lettuce, I found this:

A few plants overwintered! We may have greens sooner than expected.

I moved some landscape fabric around and put cardboard down to get ahead of the weeds. The husband will help me move the black plastic around this weekend. The potatoes need to go in soon, too.

I still have to finish pruning fruit trees and decide where the new ones will go. Susan grafted some apple varieties for me last year. One is from her Northern Lights tree—she says that is her favorite pie apple. I am not sure it will de-throne Duchess of Oldenburg, which is my favorite pie apple, but I’m willing to try it. She tried to graft a Duchess for me last year but it didn’t take. She’s also got a Westfield Seek-No-Further for me. That is an apple I wanted simply because it’s mentioned in one of my favorite books (the Wilderness Series by Sara Donati).

I’m going to give the farm store another week, and if I still can’t get chicks, I’ll set up the incubator. A couple of hens are taking turns sitting on a pile of eggs—of course, being birds with brains the size of peas, the pile of eggs is on the floor under the nesting boxes instead of inside them. I asked the husband to leave the eggs there—we have plenty—just in case they manage to hatch out a chick or two. I usually collect eggs in the afternoon when I feed the chickens, but he’ll bring in any he finds at night when he closes up the coop, so I have to let him know if I want to let hens go broody.

Gardening season is officially underway. I will still work on sewing projects here and there as I have time, but I’ll be outside as much as I can.

I quilted the inside section of the green and purple quilt the other day. I did loopy flowers in light lavender thread:

I still have to do the outer border. I’d like to do some kind of leafy vine in that area, but I need to practice, first, on some scrap quilt sandwiches.

The GFG blocks are almost done—I have six left to appliqué and then I can put the top together. That one may have to wait until next fall to be quilted, but at least the top will be done. This is my favorite block:

I love how Bertha fussy cut the little chick for one of the hexies. I plan to put this block in the center of the top.