April Showers and Christmas Stockings

The husband and I planted apple trees on Sunday afternoon. It was cool and rainy and Susan assured me that it was a good time to plant, so I went to her house and brought back six grafted apple trees. Having a friend with a master’s degree in botany and a love of apple trees is wonderful.

Infrastructure improvements continue. The husband is going to install a gate in the pig pasture so he can get equipment and trailers in and out of there. While he was at the farm store getting the gate, he also bought wire panels for a new-and-improved pea trellis:

I could grow a lot of peas on this trellis. I think I may use half of it for some cucumber plants or loofah vines or something.

After much discussion and negotiation, we settled on a design for the herb garden. This process was difficult because the husband wants a fully-formed idea that he can measure and plot out, and I struggle with producing the required fully-formed idea. (You know, because I can’t see things in my head.) I tell him what I would like and he then gives me five reasons why what I want cannot be done. We’ve wrestled through enough projects together that we come to a consensus, eventually, but it takes some effort.

I need to order the raised beds and weed blocker, and the husband will arrange for gravel and dirt to be delivered. I think it will be lovely when it’s done. The beds probably won’t get planted until June, after the row crops are in.

It rained on and off yesterday; we need the moisture, but it would be nice if the temps got above 40F. The propane heater stayed on in the greenhouse all day.

I did a podcast interview just after lunch, then worked on some store samples. I am teaching Gail Yellen’s serger/coverstitch Christmas Stocking pattern at the store here and also in Missoula. Both stores need a stocking to display—having a display really does help to fill the class—but I only have one stocking made. The pattern includes two versions, so I thought I would make up one serger stocking and one coverstitch stocking for each store.

Truly, the hardest part of this pattern is cutting the pieces and keeping track of what goes where. Each stocking has two sides and I am making two stockings. The “feet” are made up of five pieces flatlocked together, and those five pieces have to go together a specific way. I used a lot of labels and made sure things were laid out properly before I serged them together:

The assembly should go much faster now that the feet are done. I’d like to finish these today. We are struggling to get out of this cool and rainy weather, so I’ll be inside again.