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| Sunrise last week. |
The mild weather forecast for the week arrived as predicted. Although the nights were still cold, we had temperatures in the 50's during the day most of the week. It was so nice to go out without a heavy coat. The warmth melted a lot of the snow, but the deepest and most persistent patches of snow and ice remain.
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| Early in the week. |
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| Later in the week. |
I took advantage of the good weather to make another attempt at pruning the orchard. Wednesday afternoon the temperature hit 54° and it was sunny and breezy. I grabbed my Felco No. 8 and headed out. Although it had melted a bit in places, there was still plenty of snow in the orchard. In some areas it was still over two feet deep, but I trudged on, determined to begin. But the problem was not the depth of the snow. The sun shining on the snow was blinding. Even squinting, I could not see. Tears streamed from my eyes. I had to give up and go in again. I was busy with other things on Thursday, but I made another attempt on Friday. It was sunny, but the air was colder and there was a stiff breeze. The snow was mostly gone by then and I managed to prune all the parts of the trees low enough for me to reach without a ladder or climbing. Pruning the higher parts is when I miss having Josiah here.
On Tuesday work began on phase two of the front porch. Ervin worked all that day at framing the floor of the porch. On Wednesday he put in the floor boards and the ceiling beams. On Thursday I drove out to Bingham Center to pick him up and he brought his little four year old son Eli with him. That day Ervin worked on making the stairs, but the thick ice along the front of the porch prevented him from installing them. He also worked on the railing. He had another job elsewhere on Friday and Saturday was the big Amish Pancake Breakfast out in North Bingham, so he didn’t do anything those days. He’ll be back tomorrow and will probably finish by midweek. It’s great having a porch again and this new one is so much bigger than the old one.
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| Tuesday morning. |
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| Phase Two begins. |
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| Floor joists in. |
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| Where we're at now. |
Seeds have sprouted in some of the trays I started last week. Week two of seed starting took place yesterday as I planted a tray of peppers. I planted six different kinds – three bell types: King of the North, Sweet Chocolate, and Grand Bell, and three hot types: Early Jalapeño, Hungarian Wax, and Red Biquinho. The Red Biquinho peppers are something new. They are a Brazilian pepper that I read about in an article that raved about how delicious they are when they are pickled and I had to try growing some. Peppers are not easy to grow here in cold Gold. I have to grow them under glass to get them to mature. My glass pepper box suffered some damage this winter. Two of the glass panes on the front half broke, so I will have do some repair work before I can use it later in the spring.
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| Red Biquinho peppers. |
As if to prepare me for the spring flowers waiting to emerge out in the garden, my houseplants are putting on a floral display right now. The first of the clivias is blooming. And the potted heliotrope and pelargoniums I brought in for the winter are starting to bloom. It makes me happy to see their bright colors. Outdoors, more snowdrops have emerged. As the snow receded during the week, other green shoots immediately began to appear in the flowerbeds. Hundreds of tiny green shoots of crocus, daffodil, tulip, muscari, and hyacinth. By Saturday there were even yellow crocus buds peeking through. It makes me so happy to see them. But I know there is still some winter coming. This week on Tuesday and again on Thursday there is a chance for snow. But winter is waning. I can feel it. The earth is slowly warming, stirring from its long sleep.
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| The first clivia. |
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| The heliotrope. |
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| One of my pelargoniums. |
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| Future flowers. |
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| The first crocus buds. |
The bird world is showing signs of spring. Yesterday I opened the door on the chicken coop to let them into their yard. So far they have been cautious about venturing out, but I’m sure they’ll be scratching and dust bathing soon. With the snow mostly gone, robins finally appeared in our yard last week. We also saw our first chipping sparrows at the feeders on Thursday. And this morning there was a beautiful male eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis) checking out the birdhouses out in the garden. Unfortunately, the house sparrows are already trying to take over all my birdhouses. So the annual battle of the birds is already underway. The house sparrows (Passer domesticus), are a very aggressive non-native invasive species, and usually win the battle, forcing the bluebirds out at which point I evict the sparrows and close the birdhouses.
My musical adventure last week was a departure from my usual fare. I’ve never thought of myself as a big fan of country music. As a younger child and a teenager, it was never my first pick when I had a choice of what to listen to, but I knew some of it. There were those commercials on TV (mostly on Saturday afternoons when we were bored enough to watch pro wrestling and roller derby), offering record sets of country music’s greatest hits by people like Porter Wagoner, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, and Johnny Cash. We even used to watch Hee Haw on Saturday evenings back then. In the 70's and 80's, I only knew the country songs that crossed over into the pop charts. But during the 90's things changed. Back then, I had a long commute to work and the radio station that came in the strongest over all those miles was a country station. That two hour commute and that radio station happened to coincide with what I consider a great moment in country music. There was a group of performers whose songs were easy to listen to, whose songs usually told a story, and they were songs I could sing along with. It’s a great list – Garth Brooks, Clint Black, Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McIntyre, Randy Travis, Brooks & Dunn, Faith Hill, George Strait, Vince Gill, Tim McGraw, and so many others. For a while, country music became my first choice, at least while I was in the car. Later, country music took a turn in a direction I didn’t like and I stopped listening to it. It got harder and all the songs seemed to be about being a redneck, driving a pickup truck, and drinking beer. Now any song, rock, pop, or even rap is considered country if the singer has an accent, be it real or fake. I don’t listen to any of the new stuff. Last week, in a fit of nostalgia, I binged on those 90's country songs. I especially love Trisha Yearwood. I remember the first time I heard her sing The Song Remembers When. It was 1993 and I was driving down into the valley in the predawn dark and it made me tear up somewhere up on the Grapevine. And a few years later the same thing happened when I heard On A Bus to St. Cloud, which is still my favorite Trisha Yearwood song.
We turned the clocks ahead last night. I love and hate Daylight Saving Time. For a week or more I will wake up an hour too early and stay up an hour too late as my body clock adjusts to the change. I love having long evening hours of light, but I hate the dark mornings. I just have to remind myself that the long warm days are coming.
The Shilligs returned from a trip down to Florida on Friday. They went down to escape the cold and snow. It's so nice to have them home again, but they should have stayed till May if they wanted to avoid the cold. It will be our turn to go to Florida for week in April. Stacey’s boss is going down to visit his sister and we get to go along. This evening we are going over to Shillig’s house for dinner. Today is Pi (π) day (March 14th – 3.14). Julie will have pie for our dessert and Miriam made some pies – Tollhouse Cookie Pie, Lemon Chess Pie, and Peanut Butter Pie – to take over too. It will be like the old times when we had our weekly Sabbath Soirees.
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| Miriam's pies. |
Dan
