Odds and Ends

I took this one night as the sun was setting. It was much brighter red but my phone just can't catch it. We have had such wonderful sunsets and sunrises this winter with so much rain and snow.

I am still in the throes of spring fever. I get my seed order today. I am so excited. This is a weird comparison, but when I was expecting a new baby, I lived in a state of excitement. When the baby moved, or in the dark, quiet hours when I was awake and felt the baby moving. Then the excitement of the arrival of the new baby. Then of course, finally meeting the new little person and holding them in my arms.Because the greatest gift I have ever had has been my babies.( Now that they are grown with children of their own, and the mates they have chosen and blessed us with.)  Well, all of that to describe how I feel every time I walk in and look at my new green seedlings, in the bathtub.

This is also weird, but I feel like I can conquer the world, just because I can grow some seeds.
I have always felt so garden challenged. I have suffered way more defeats than victories. I have watched bugs and heat and drought decimate my plants. Not this year though, I have read and watched vlogs and I have so many magic bags of concoctions to mix up. Blood meal, bone meal, magnesium. We have added gypsum to that wonderful mulch Ron has made. We fertilized fruit trees this weekend. Racing the rain and spring. Its been so cold here, nothing is awake yet.

We went to Tractor supply this week. I am going to try my hand at vertical growing this year. So I want 8 cattle panels. I wanted to look at them and I love the place where all of the feed troughs are and the wire and of course the T posts and panels. Walking back there was this area with fruit trees.
I went crazy. We were in Ron's car so we had to go back home and get my car.

We bought two Mariposa Plum trees.

 

 The tree in the foreground is a semi dwarf apricot.  Not a big fan of semi dwarf, but he is going to stay there. The Mariposa plums are green on the outside and purple on the inside. Best tasting plum I think.

Then we found a full sized Blenheim Apricot and a Key Lime. We also bought a Honey Crisp apple tree, but I don't hold out much hope for it as I think we are just too hot for apple trees.

I know its hard to tell what is what with just sticks and mud. But they are beautiful to me and make me so happy. I had another surprise. While we were out there Ron finally got to see the Wood Pecker.
I believe He is a Ladder Backed Woodpecker.

I only had my phone so this was as good as I could get, but I was so glad that I wasn't alone. I also saw my first robin that day.

 The Flickers are still here too. I am so glad the trees are still empty of leaves so I can see this wonderful birds. Not very good picture, but there he is. First one of the year for me.

 We have all of this glorious  snow on the foothills. The foothills are beginning to green up. Its been a lot of years that we have had this much snow in the foothills. I read a quote by John Stienbeck years ago in East of Eden. I think it says it better than anything else I have ever read about living in California.

I have spoken of the rich years when the rainfall was plentiful. But there were dry years too, and they put a terror on the valley. The water came in a thirty-year cycle. There would be five or six wet and wonderful years when there might be nineteen to twenty-five inches of rain, and the land would shout with grass. Then would come six or seven pretty good years of twelve to sixteen inches of rain. And then the dry years would come, and sometimes there would be only seven or eight inches of rain. The land dried up and the grasses headed out miserably a few inches high and great bare scabby places appeared in the valley. The live oaks got a crusty look and the sage-brush was gray. The land cracked and the springs dried up and the cattle listlessly nibbled dry twigs. Then the farmers and the ranchers would be filled with disgust for the Salinas Valley. The cows would grow thin and sometimes starve to death. People would have to haul water in barrels to their farms just for drinking. Some families would sell out for nearly nothing and move away. And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.” 

 

I think this year is a wonderful year. To have rain and snow and weather is incredible to me. Today my first order of seeds comes in the mail. I can't wait to sit and hold those seed packets and dream dreams of spring. Of growing food, and canning and all of that wonderful stuff that I love to do. 

The above picture is the reason I started blogging in 2008. Our first garden. I had no clue what on earth I was doing and we had so much food. I hope to grow lots of different things this year. If I am not careful it will be much bigger than this. 

Thank you so much for stopping by today. Its time to go out and take care of my chickens and walk around and look at stuff. I hope you have a wonderful day,

~Kim~

                                                  The Flowers

All the names I know from nurse:
Gardener's garters, shepherd's purse:
Bachelor's Buttons, lady's smock,
And the lady hollyhock.

Fairy places, fairy things,
Fairy woods where the wild bee wings,
Tiny trees for tiny dames---
These must all be fairy names!

Tiny woods below whose boughs
Shady fairies weave a house;
Tiny treetops, rose or thyme,
Where the braver fairies climb!

Fair are grown-up people's trees,
But the fairest woods are these;
Where, if I were not so tall,
I should live for good and all.

---Robert Louis Stevenson