Spring?

This has been an interesting spring.  With the exception of a warm period in January, it has been kind

of average.  In recent years the weather has warmed up very quickly, like it was a race toward summer.  I was glad this year was looking a little more sane - mid-March and I just started to think about warm season vegetables.  But then something happened.  Since my posts about warm weather and last frost dates, it has turned cold - not bitterly cold temperatures, but a constant cold, with lows in the 30s and 40s.  It's enough to put a damper on spring for some of us.  In addition to the weather, a minor back injury has kept me from getting out in the garden.  Let me tell you what I'm missing in the garden.

One of my top priorities is raking - I know it should be a fall chore, but, when you have a live oak, it is a spring one.  Our grand oak holds onto its leaves all winter and then drops them in early spring.  It's not as bad as it seems - a few years ago I made a shade garden under the oak, so I would just have to rake the leaves into it when the time came.

Get the lawn mower started and mow the weeds - every spring I wonder if the mower will start.  Every year I tell myself that I will do the right thing and run it empty or buy some fuel stabilizer.  I also tell myself that I will change the oil and air filter too.  It wasn't starting earlier this spring, but I added a little fresh gas and it started right up.  Now to do what I always say I'm going to do.

Plant warm-season vegetables - this weekend finally looks like the end of cold weather, which means that I can really start to think about planting corn and squash and beans without worrying about it getting too cold at night.  Some of our coneflowers are even starting to bloom!

Hatch some chicks - now that nighttime temperatures are a lot warmer, it's safe to hatch some chicks.  I haven't completely decided what I'm going to do, but I have two broody hens that want to raise some chicks.  I thought about using some of our eggs again, but I also thought about getting eggs from someone else, so we could have completely different chickens.

I've been a little busy (and hurt) during the past few weeks, but I've got some more posts making their way down the pipeline as we speak.  Stay tuned.

Garden Injury

TO DO LIST:
Trim Trees
Work on the Pond
Plant Ferns
Work on Raised Bed
Cut Grass

These are some of the things on my list of things to do this weekend. I've been collecting concrete blocks for the raised bed vegetable garden. Originally I planned 4 x 8 raised beds using cinderblocks. The blocks would also give me additional planting holes. I started laying out the bed this week and 4 x 8 is too big if you factor in the extra eight inches of the blocks on each side and the ends. Unfortunately the bed will have to be smaller for me to be able to reach the center comfortably. On the plus side, I won't need as many concrete blocks.

Last week, maybe longer ago, I bought several hardy ferns from Lowe's on clearance. I've never seen them on sale before, so I felt I had to grab them. I've been meaning to plant them, but I just hasn't happened.

Recently I noticed a small but steady loss of water in the pond, more than I thought there would be with just evaporation. I noticed a constant wet spot on one of the timbers lining the bog. I figured out that it was probably water running over the liner not where it was supposed to go. I disconnected the pump to the bog until I could get around to redirecting the flow of water from the bog.

I had plans to trim the two massive trees in our yard. One is a large Magnolia behind the garage where, if I can trim it back enough, I'd like to put a chicken coop in the not-too-distant future. The other in the old Oak tree in front of our house. We're starting to get some low-hanging limbs and I wanted to cut those back. They were beginning to get in the way of power lines, cars and us.

Friday afternoon, I decided that the Magnolia could wait and I wanted to start on the Oak. I got the ladder out and a few tools - handsaw, tree saw and loppers. There was a lot of dead stuff in the tree, so I began by pulling most of that stuff out - I tried the loppers on a few branches, but they were two big, so I got out the tree saw. I would hold the branch still with my right hand and saw with my left. I successfully cut a couple of the branches before the accident happened. The part of the branch I was holding was lower than the part that I was cutting. When it slipped out of the groove I was cutting, gravity and the force of pulling on the saw directed it down the branch where my hand was - dragging the saw across the back of my hand. It didn't bleed much, but it looked pretty gross. I cleaned it, put some antibiotic ointment on it and a couple of band aids and we left to go to the doctor.

WARNING - GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS

Once there, Dr. Morgan saw me fairly quickly. I'm not sure if they realized how bad it was then, but after they got a look, they were disappointed that their students had left for the day. My injury was actually two deep cuts very close together with a thin strip of skin between them. He said I would definitely need stitches and that I was lucky that it wasn't any deeper or I would have nicked an artery. Dr. Morgan proceeded to numb the area and once that was accomplished, he pulled out the needle and thread and started sewing me up. To this point I wasn't queazy at all, but when it was time to do the stitches, I decided not to watch. I got over that quickly and tried to see what was going on, but his hands were in the way for the most part. It was fascinating that, with just six stitches, everything was pulled back together. My biggest disappointment about this whole thing - besides feeling like an idiot for getting hurt - is not getting to be in the yard doing the stuff on the list.