The Beauty of a Story

Spring is busy. Don’t believe me? Go listen to the trees, chat with the birds, converse with the bugs, they will all tell you the same thing. At the same time we are making our list of spring tasks to get done before growing season begins the plants and animals have their own list. The trees in our area are attempting to bud and flower in record time to get their pollen in the air. Which makes many of us sneezy, but ensures the trees will live on in their offspring. The birds are busy building nests, finding mates, and planning for the babies which will come soon. Or, like my chicks, they are busy eating and resting and growing as fast as they can. Compared with all this activity around me, I feel rather slothful. Here I am, only trying to build a few garden beds, which is next to nothing compared to the industry put out by the apple trees.

Even though my productivity does not match the busy bees, we did get quite a bit done over the last week. A few tasks checked off the list, much to my relief. Though who added more to the list when I wasn’t looking?

First, we moved the chicks to their permanent home. They recently discovered they could jump, with a little help from fledgling wings, out of their brooder box. So we moved them to the ‘big coop’, and have not had a single escapee since. Phew! As the chicks get bigger, which is every day I swear, the maintenance for them gets a little easier. I no longer have to worry quite so much about tiny little fluff balls. They are half covered in feathers, and mostly require a ridiculous amount of food. And how do they get their water dirty so quickly, I would like to know?

Second, I got the grape vines all pruned and weeded. When we bought this property, five grape vines of various sizes came with it, a huge bonus. Last year with hardly any work we got buckets upon buckets of sweet yellow grapes. This year I am excited to see what will happen when they are properly cared for.

Third, garden beds were built! Not all of them, but at least two thirds of them are built and ready to be filled. Hooray! I applaud the hard work of my husband and in-laws. I promise I helped, kinda… I am very, very excited for growing season now. Hopefully one more Saturday of garden bed building, and we will be ready for planting! The reason this is such a huge project is because all of our beds are raised beds made out of cinder block. The cinderblock will hold up for, hopefully, most of our lifetime, and so this is a big project that will pay off richly in the years to come. If we can get them all built…

We had some rain (yay!) and wind (ugh) move in this week, so we will see what work we can get done this weekend, or if it is a ‘work on the house’ type of weekend. Or maybe even a ‘laze around the house’ type of weekend. We will see.

How are your spring projects coming along?

Shaina Merrick