There was no school on Monday and the weather was perfect. Josiah and I spent the day working on items on The List. First we tackled the back porch and the woodshed. All during the winter things accumulate in those places, things we dump there because it’s too cold or we’re just too unmotivated to deal with them. We spent the morning sorting through those things using my Three Pile Method. One pile is for things to go to the thrift store. One pile is for things to throw away. One pile is for things to keep. I like the first two piles to be a lot bigger than the third. When we were done, we vowed never to let things get that cluttered again – until next winter anyway.
 |
| The front porch after tidying. |
 |
| The woodshed. |
After that, we moved down to work at the barn. We straightened sagging fences. We took out the fence around the turkey yard (we aren’t raising turkeys anymore) and used that fence to reinforce the chicken yard. Then we started on the inside of the barn. We expect to get new chicks the first week of May. We sometimes keep new chicks in the house for a while if it’s too cold outside, but I prefer not to do that. They are noisy and can get pretty smelly. If we get them late enough in the spring, we can put them right into the barn, but we can’t put them in with the older hens right away. We’ve sequestered the middle part of the barn to make a chick pen. The walls of the pen on two sides are made of chicken wire that was in bad shape. It was full of holes and wouldn’t keep chicks in or old hens out. Josiah and I tore out the old chicken wire and got things ready to put up new. We ran out of time before we could finish and haven’t had a chance to work at it again. We’ll work on it some more this week.
On Friday we had guests. My brother Steve and his wife Linda, and Linda’s father Varge Christensen and his wife Cecil were here. They were on the last leg of a cross country road trip. Varge and Cecil are going to serve a six month mission at the Palmyra temple and they decided to drive from California and brought Steve and Linda along. They visited church history sites along the way. They were only here for a few hours. We had dinner. Then they were on their way again. The visit was too, too short. We will see Varge and Cecil (actually Elder and Sister Christensen) when we go to the temple. We won’t see Steve and Linda again until next year at the family reunion.
 |
| The Howes, Shilligs, and Christensens. |
Saturday I did my weekly inspection of the gardens and the orchard. I found the first violets blooming, the first flowers on the honeyberry bushes, and the hyacinths at their peak.
 |
| The first violets. |
 |
| Honeyberry flowers. |
 |
| Hyacinths at their peak. |
With the arrival of milder weather and a day of soft rain, the fruit trees have burst their buds. It’s a happy and welcome sight to see those tiny green leaves and emerging flower buds. Now if the weather will just cooperate, it looks like we’ll have a good crop of apples and pears this year.
 |
| New leaves on the apple trees. |
While I was in the orchard, I found a dead tree swallow. The swallows have been back for a week now and have been busy fussing over the nesting boxes in the orchard. I don’t know what killed this one. It made me sad to find it. They are such lovely little birds.
 |
| Dead tree swallow. |
I found a happier sight in the asparagus patch – the first tiny tip of a spear has emerged! It’s one of the purple asparagus (I grow a purple and a green variety). So far it’s the only one, but soon there will be many and we will feast on one of the greatest delights of our garden.
 |
| The first asparagus spear. |
This weekend was prom. Josiah went with a date this year (last year he went stag). He took his friend (and fourth cousin), Sarah. This year prom was held at the Consistory in Coudersport. Josiah reports that they had a good time. The dinner was good. The dancing was good. After the prom, Josiah and his date and a group of friends came to our house for a post-prom party. We had an array of goodies for them to eat and they played some games. Everyone had a good time. They are a good group of kids. We passed another milestone - this was our last prom.
 |
| Josiah and his date, Sarah Morgan. |
 |
| The whole gang at the Morgan's house before prom. |
 |
| At our house after prom. |
 |
| The post-prom party. |
We are all tired today from being up later than usual on account of prom last night. I was pretty drowsy during church. Josiah slept through a lot of it. It’s a beautiful day, warmish and sunny. I think after lunch Josiah and I will set up our hammocks out in the woodland garden and nap. The week ahead looks like it will be mild and full of promise. We will work on more spring cleaning and try to check off more items from The List. I can hardly wait.
