Happy Earth Day, 2014

 'Tis a glorious morning out there. Sun is shining, birds are singing, and a light breeze is ruffling the trees.  The honeysuckle is growing back after being frozen nearly to death and so are the blackberry vines. For the very first time, we have this :

Flowers on the pear tree !!  I am ecstatic.  We planted all 5 trees at the same time (cherry, pear, apple and 2 peach trees). The other 4 have been fruiting and flowering for several years. Never a sign of anything but leaves on the pear. We had just about decided to give up, take it out and replace it with something else.  It is a grafted tree with 2 kinds of pears, and there are only flowers in one part of the tree, but still...FLOWERS !!  lol  (It doesn't take much to make an old lady happy on Earth Day !)


 All the fruit trees are beginning to flower or at least have lovely buds on them. The blueberry bushes seems to have survived nicely. We've started working compost into the garden beds, the spinach in the cold box is ready to harvest, and there is definitely the feel of spring in the air.  The weather is still going up and down...high seventies one day, mid fifties the next. Today we're looking at 67 for a high. We'll take it. 

Can you see the tiny pink buds of the apple tree ? Beautiful.

A peach blossom.

Look at all that rich dark compost on those garden beds, would you ?  Beautiful.

  You can see the grass is greening up. The trees are slowly but surely leafing out. We just had a lot of rain again too, so everything is looking good.  Here's a bad shot of the box with the spinach...

This is from seed I put in last fall that didn't help us out through the winter since it was unusually frigid.  But it sure came back now. That box also contains, kale, chard and purslane, that wasn't all up yet when I took this picture, but is now. 

And..hallelujah !  The chives are back !!  Regular chives and flat leafed garlic chives. Love 'em !!!  I use them all year long and then dry a bunch too.  I have some perennial garlic and perennial green onions to get in the ground--not sure what they really are, lol, as I have never planted them.  But, the Egyptian Walking Onions are back and looking great too.

  I have high hopes that it will be a great garden year. My pantries are starting to look a little bare, as we've done a really good job of eating out of them all year. I'm excited about some new additions to the garden, as well as all the old favorites. I'm a little excited and a lot anxious about planting all the seed I saved from last year. Don't ask me why...there's no reason all my seed shouldn't be viable, but it's always a gamble...that's part of the fun. And the faith. And the mysteries of Mother Earth.

  On a different note...

 Yesterday I went back to the ortho doc. The bone in my wrist is a thing of beauty. Healed nicely. Everything good.  But I have so much pain and weakness in my right hand and arm, and he said it's all soft tissue damage and may take UP TO A YEAR TO HEAL. I said  NO.  I have too much to do. lol  He has ordered physical therapy (I started yesterday). The grip strength in my right hand is ZERO. This is bad. So, we started working on it and I will go twice a week and do exercises at home in between. I had ice on it all evening and it is yucky today.  So...it's the old brace for quite awhile as I need to wear it to alleviate the pain and fatigue in the hand/arm.  Dang. But--I can do this. I have been through way worse than this. The bone is healed. That is cause for celebration. 

  And so the foray into spring begins.  Before long, my backyard will look like this:

...with yummy things growing beautifully and the earth singing it's song of love back to us.


 Singing it's song of love...



Namaste.