We had a lovely, if windy, day yesterday. With the snow mostly gone, I found something interesting in the remains of the straw bale we got to cover our septic tank.
These holes in the straw were all around it. They don’t go very deep. Clearly, small critters were taking advantage of the shelter it provided, but whatever they were, they had no interest in burrowing.
I’m glad it got used by critters that way. :-)
Continue readingThis one is the last of the photos from March that I’ll be posting.
It’s nice to see the purple finches back!
Spring decided to take off, this morning.
The last couple of days have been very windy. I’d hoped to start cleaning up the fallen twigs and branches around the yard by now, but we’re not quite there, yet.
While putting out feed for the birds and deer, I thought I would do one thing, though. There is a bird house on a post outside our dining room window that has a tree growing next to it. The tree has a couple of trunks growing out of its base, one of which is growing against the post, pushing it aside. I figured this would be a good time to try and shift the one trunk to the other side of the post. This way, it might start pushing the post straight again.
That didn’t quite work.
It broke off completely.
As you can see from the stump, this is not the first time it has broken! Though the tree only put out 2 or 3 cherries – the only reason we figured out what the tree was – it was in full leaf and seemed to be strong and healthy, so it was a bit of a surprise to see how dry and half-rotted the base turned out to be. It makes me wonder about the one part that’s still there.
We shall see how it does, this year.
Before heading out to see my husband in the hospital, we had a new visitor.
Continue readingOne thing about the melting snow is that lots of seeds that were covered are now being exposed.
Which translates to feasting time for the redpolls!
Beep Beep on the platform bird feeder again.
Sometimes I think the main reason she goes up there is to keep her feet warm.
We have finally reached a point where enough snow has melted away, and the yard is dry enough, that I can walk around most of the yard.
At least while the ground is still frozen in the mornings.
Which meant I have finally been able to look for the base of the grape vine that got surrounded by spirea, next to the storage house.
I found it.
It’s still hard to see, so I put the arrow in. It’s hard to see because there is a spirea growing right up against it!
I’m going to have to be very careful, clearing that away.
Then I can prune it back and set up some kind of trellis for it to climb. I’m thinking of using the left over wire fencing I used to build the back gate. After that, it will be a matter of keeping the spirea from crowding it again. Hopefully, this will translate to better, bigger grapes to harvest this year. If nothing else, it’ll be easier to get to them! :-)
While doing my much extended rounds this morning, I had some delightful company.
Butterscotch does make it hard to walk at times. :-)
The Re-Farmer
One of the first things I do every morning is check the weather.
This is what I saw, yesterday morning.
Just so you know, 46C is 114F.
The error even stayed there for most of the day. LOL
It’s possible it was accidentally in Fahrenheit, which would make it about 8C, but we didn’t have a high of 8C the day before – we barely got above 0C – so that doesn’t make sense, either.
At least it was good for a giggle!
We’ll take what we can get! ;-)
Continue reading
The Re-Farmer 