First anniversary

With the exception of two long stays in to BR, we have been in our house here a year this week.

So like the little golden book "A Year on the Farm"   I have blogged through all the seasons and what they offered in terms of challenges, chores, entertainmen; in other words, a description of living in Vermont.

Having completed the four seasons, I think it also is time to complete this blog experience.  This will be the last entry.   I hope readers have enjoyed reading these random thoughts as much as I have writing them.

Garden Progress

The weekend rain was perfect to get the soil ready to plant. The first of the new garden is planted.  for quick start I now have cucumbers, squash, and lettuce bedding plants.  Also have onions onions and parsley.  Next comes seed for carrots, more lettuce, and  what else???

 I also redid the fence to give me more room to work around the box without actually getting into it.  In the end it made 6 close-together rows and 2 wider rows for spreading plants.  The tomotoes on the deck havent grown because it is too cool, but then they haven't died either.  That is success in my culture.

Garden is prepared and ready for planting.  The deer fence is up, composted manure is stirred in and the rain this weekend is a perfect soaker.  I'll be ready to plant by the middle of this coming week.  All the deck furniture is back on the deck, and most of the flower boxes on the deck rails are planted. Today was the first mowing of the season, so spring is officially here to stay.  I think I have successfully rigged a bearproof bird feeder.  I'll load it with seeds soon and we will see if the bear comes over the mountain.

In other home front news, I had to buy a new dishwasher this week.  The old one,(3 years is apparently the new old), a top of the line Kenmore, had stopped draining.  I was not sorry to see it go.   Everything else on it had half stopped at one time or another over the past year.  The new one, a Bosch, does everything automatically except load and unload.  Hope it outlives the service contract!  May have to make one more home repair purchase soon, the water pressure is getting low and erratic.   Probably a new pressure tank will be needed.  I hope to get a personal call from Ben Bernanke or Obama thanking me for my personal contribution to the economic stimulus program.

Where is spring

We have been back in Vermont for two weeks tomorrow.  When we got here, about 1/3 of our yard was still snow covered. It melted off last week when the temps went into the 70's.   The storms that crossed the south and midwest last week have been here this week, and with the rain and northerly fronts, it is back down into the low 40s during the day.  Below freezing is expected tonight, although only for a couple of hours.  Snow is also a possiblity but won't stick.  We gave the dogs their summer cut before leaving BR, and now they are so cold they don't want to stay outside at all.

So where is spring, anyway?   Well, there are a few signs, some natural and some man-made.   The duck pond down the hill from our house has had a small contingent of Canada geese for the past several days, and others can be seen flying over.  Grass is greening up quickly now that the snow is gone, and the neighbor's crocuses are in full bloom. Man-made signs include changing the implements on the tractor from snow throwing to grass cutting, the grill  and the hoses are out of storage. 

Weather permitting, this weekend I'll finish the box garden I started before the rain came earlier this week.  It is a 9' x 14' box, and it will be the largest garden I've ever had- approximately twice the size of the one I had in Baton Rouge.  I am anxious to get it completed, even though it is risky to plant seed crops before Memorial Day.  That gives me about three weeks to decide what to plant and how much of each.   We also will have several new window boxes this year for flowers, leaving the larger deck planters for tomatoes of some sort.

The spring floods here are significant, although they have not made the national news like those in the South and Midwest (or those coming to Louisiana).  We are on a hill several hundred feet above the nearest rivers, so are not in danger.  The melt off is still racing down the ditches and little brooks, into the many low areas in the valley, but we are actually pretty dry here on the hill top.

Back in Vermont. 4 days on the road... 40 degrees cooler, $0.40 more for gasoline, and still snow patches on the ground.  Still it is good to be back. 

Southward bound

Phui on the groundhog.  After three months of winter, pat and I are ready for our trip to BR, so winter will be over in a week or so.  We also are ready to see Kathryn Adelle and other folks there.  So once again, the Vermont blog will be suspended for a few weeks.  When we return, it will be the middle of mud season, the Vermont version of spring everywhere else.

Scenes from last weeks snow storm

On a cloudy day, only three colors are visible to the camera... white, grey and black.  The barn in the last picture is really a pretty bright red.  And the evergreen trees are just as green as a christmas tree, though it doesn't show up here.  These were made on a road trip to Littleton NH, 12 miles away.  The road is maintained by the town ow Waterford.  It is much like a parish road in LA or a county road in Arkansas). Despite appearances, this is an easy to travel roadway.  snow is graded down to hard base and it is sanded at least twice daily.  The snow berms are about 3 feet high