Now it is finally beginning to feel, look and smell like spring. It even SOUNDS like spring, as the chickadees are singing their spring tune, and the robins have arrived.
Have spent several hours every day in the last few days trying to clean up perennial flower beds, and feeling almost defeated. It’s already too much, too much, too much. I don’t know how the quack grass gets so rampant so quickly. I’m going from practically hibernating to pushing myself, but I get frustrated that I feel so weary when the day is still young. I’ll just keep digging away at it, literally. It’s hard to be blue, however, when the flowers start blooming. The pulmonaria and crocusses are both showing themselves:
Yesterday I worked down in the vegetable garden, which is where I sunk dozens of pots of perennials and shrubs last fall. I’m thrilled to see that almost everything has survived… it’s a head start before I receive the perennial roots and pot those up. This week I’m going to venture down to the wholesale nursery (7 hour drive each way) for my order of new trees and shrubs, and that will add to the variety which has overwintered in the ground here at home.
Some friends who sell annuals have collaborated with me on our “opening day” for the season. They really just have a one day sale, but we felt that people would get in their vehicles and visit both places on the same weekend. Opening day is early this year, and I’m nervous about plants looking good enough in their pots by then, but I’m excited too. This year I have the second greenhouse, and it will be helpful in getting things lush in due time.
It has been an interesting week. On Monday I landed a little “jam” contract… a tourism business wants the assurance of a supply for their guests who come here for helihiking and heliskiing. They’ve already been buying jams and jellies from the Beanery, and lucky for me, their favourites are the easiest for me to have available.
Yesterday was odd on a couple of levels. While I was taking care of dogs, I devoted an extra bit of attention to our elderly American Eskimo dog. He seemed to have a matt on this neck, so I took him into the grooming shop to investigate. Under his thick fur, I found an ugly lesion that was like an overgrown mole on a narrow “stem”. I phoned the vet right away, and made an appointment for two hours hence. I put little Buddy back in his kennel, and when I returned to check on him, he had completely scratched the growth off, leaving a small, flat wound which, I decided, didn’t need any veterinary intervention!
Earlier in the day, I drove to town to attend a couple of garage sales. It turned out that I was one day late for one sale, and a whole week early for another! That might have saved me some money. En route, I drove past what I believed was a black cat dead on the highway. When I returned home, it was no longer there.
While I worked in the gardens, I started thinking about the body on the road, and was convinced it was MY dark tortoiseshell cat named Fiona. She had spent the whole winter in our snug hay shed, and I had seen her on some days, since the snow left , hunting in the fields. I got back in the truck, drove to the dark splotch on the asphalt, and searched the ditches. All I found was what appeared to be…. GROUSE feathers. Had I seen a dead cat or NOT?
For the rest of the day, evening and most of today, I frequently checked the hay shed for Fiona, and gave up. I was about to write a “farewell” to her in this blog. However, Gary just came inside from feeding the horses and called to me… Fiona is back in the shed, purring away and 100% well. Evidently, at 90 km. per hour, I can’t tell a flattened grouse from a flat cat, after all!
Other things are just as they should be. We have boarders Ryder, a yellow lab, Jade, a Pyrenese cross, Pritchard, Molson, Roxie and Bodhi. My “blue” mood that I’ve had all week is lifting.
Hope you are all well, my friends. Thanks for stopping to read this blog. ~ Ann
