Our big task last week was pruning the orchard. Josiah and I worked on it for several days after school. It was hard work. The deep snow covering most of the orchard didn’t help. We used small hand pruners, long handled loppers, and a pole hook to prune over 30 trees. Josiah had to climb into the bigger trees to reach some of the higher branches that needed to be cut. Most of the afternoons were cold, in the 30's with a stiff wind blowing. We haven’t finished the job yet. The two oldest, biggest trees are not done, but we’ll work on them this week. When we finish we have new identification tags to put on the trees (thank you Miriam).
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| Pruning the orchard in knee deep snow. |
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| Pruned branches waiting to be gathered and turned into mulch. |
I planted the first of my indoor seed starts on Wednesday – plants that take the longest time to mature and need the earliest start – celery, stevia, and lisianthus. This is the first time I’ve tried to grow stevia. I’ve read a lot about using it as a sugar alternative and thought I’d give it a try. Over the next weeks I’ll start more and more seeds and before long the upstairs bay window, where I keep my seed trays, will be my summer garden in miniature. The real garden is still under snow at this point.
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| Seed trays in the upstairs bay window. |
On Thursday afternoon Irwin Gingrich, an Amish friend, came by to look at our dilapidated barn. He took some measurements and we discussed some ideas for what can be done to fix it and make it better. If it works out the way I want it, it will be nice – a new metal roof with gutters and downspouts to collect rain water. If there’s enough money, I’d like to have a concrete floor poured. We’ll see.
Friday was the Vernal Equinox, the first official day of spring. I’ve always liked the word equinox – I think it’s the combination of q and x in one word that makes it so likable. Exquisite and quixotic are the only other such words I can think of and they are lovely words too. Official or not, the Vernal Equinox doesn’t mean much for us here. Winter, like a rude guest, never leaves when it’s supposed to. Just to prove that point, we had snow on the first day of spring. Three new inches. I wanted to scream. The next day the snow turned to a drizzling rain and made everything a muddy, slushy mess. There’s still a lot of snow on the ground. I think I can hear the crocuses crying to be set free under all that wet snow.
We saw our first turkey vulture on Friday. Like red-winged blackbirds and robins, they are one of the harbingers of spring. Though some find them repulsive, I like them. They are magnificent flyers. I love it when they show up in the spring and start clearing away all the deer carcasses along the roadsides. It’s a nasty job, but someone has got to do it and the vulture seems an elegant solution. I checked my records and found that all the birds, red-wings, robins, and vultures arrived a week later this year than in years past. They’re probably thinking it was too soon even so.
On Thursday we had a near catastrophe. Josiah and I had already left for school. Stacey was getting ready to go to work. Hannah was upstairs still asleep (last week was spring break for her and she was taking advantage of not having to get up early). Stacey turned the kettle on (we have a gas stove) to make some cocoa for her breakfast. Then, just as she was preparing the cocoa, her ride arrived. She dashed out the door and didn’t realize she’d left the burner under the kettle on. An hour later the kettle had boiled dry and was glowing hot and the house was filled with smoke. The smoke woke Hannah up and she dashed downstairs to see what was going on. We’re glad she woke up in time to avert a house fire. We don’t know why the smoke detector didn’t go off. It has charged batteries in it. We’re looking into that right away to prevent any future incidents.
Josiah was away on Friday and Saturday. He was part of a team from the high school that participated in a Model United Nations at St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, New York. He had a good time. Saturday was donut delivery day for the Boy Scout troop. They sell Krispy Kreme donuts every year as a fund raiser. Because Josiah was gone, Hannah and I delivered his orders. It turned out to be quite an adventure. One of the families that ordered donuts lives way out on a back road. We took the Shillig’s Yukon, which has 4-wheel drive, and even with that it was scary. I drove. The road was deeply rutted and the ruts were frozen solid and covered with snow. The tires of the Yukon would get locked in the ruts and with all the twists and turns and uphill and downhill stretches, it was hard to keep control. We only went 20 miles per hour the whole way. It was frightening. To comfort ourselves we ate donuts as we drove (from our own order). Hannah said that if we ran off the road in the woods, at least we wouldn’t starve to death with a dozen boxes of Krispy Kremes in the car.
So we’re back from church now. It’s a sunny day, but not very warm. We’re having bean and cheese omelets for lunch. We’re getting 16 eggs a day now and need to find creative ways to eat them. After lunch I might brave the glaciers in the yard and take a walk to look for signs of spring – even the green of a weed would be a welcome sight.
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| At least there are flowers blooming inside the house. |
