Very slowly due to a lack of April Showers.

Tulips

April 8

April 29 Tiger Lillies

April 15

April 29 Lilacs

April 8

April 29

We filled the garden bed up with clean fill which came from the Boscawen prison. The state sold it to someone who was selling it to the general public for $26.99/yard. We bought two. As soon as it was put into the bed, Francesca and Harley jumped in it and enjoyed digging around. Thankfully there was nothing planted in it.

The other day I saw a print that could not belong to either of my cats as it was bigger than their paws, so I think it may have been a racoon; the Manly Man thinks it may have been a fox. Wolf decided to make a chicken wire fence to go around the bed. He had some idea that worked well in his head, but not in reality. I thought he would build the fence out about three feet with a gate on it so we could get in and out, but he wanted to put it on stake and just slide it up and off when we wanted to get in. I didn’t think the idea would work.

Francesca provided the positive proof that it wouldn’t work so Wolf is going to build a fence around it like I suggested. He has three weekends to do it before the plants go into the ground. Actually, two weekends as the 13th is my graduation and the 20th is my graduation party. We also finished planting all the seeds into small containers on Saturday.

Tomatoes
Red bell peppers
Cayene peppers
Basil
Oregano

Playing in the dirt has left me with a wicked allergy head. I just don’t feel good today and it’s getting worse as each minute passes. The rain we got last week–well, two weeks ago–did little good. It wasn’t enough to wet everything down. We need a solid week of misty rain. If it rains to hard the topsoil will be all washed away. Generally I don’t like to do weather spells because one needs to be perfectly balanced to so as to not get too much of whatever one is spelling for, but I think I’ll have to chance it and do a rain spell as we’ve had so little.

The ground drinks in the rainwater. Trees, flowers, and other fauna are blooming.

Refreshed.

Moist.

Happy.

But cold.

Has been wetted. The rains have finally come.

I got an email saying that the comments were screwed up. This was because Wolf uploaded a word verification program at my request, but it wasn’t compatable with WordPress 2.0. Wolf deleted the program and now the comments should be working fine.
Please try and comment again.

Wolf is building compost bins today. The specs are cobbled together from Lets Get Growing: A Dirt-Under-the-Nails Primer to Raising Vegetables, Fruits, and Flowers Organically by Crow Miller and The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure Third Edition. The first was a $3 find at Lee’s Bookstore in Manchester and the second he read on the authors webpage.

He cleared an area in the back yard behind a row of fir trees for the project.

Tools for building the boxes

The wood he’s using is some sort of old fence that was left here by the previous owners. We’re not sure what (if ever) they used it for, but it was a nice treat for us. It’s awesome to not have to buy stuff and to use what’s available in our own yard.

He put a wall in the middle to create three bins.

The first spot, furtherest to the right (which you can’t see in this picture), will be for compost this year. The one for next year is at the left end, and the middle spot will be for hay and sawdust to keep the smell to a minimum and to aide in the composting process.

Each bin 5′ wide by 5′ deep by 4′ high

Wolf showing off his hard work, in the style of Wilson from Home Improvement

Rain, please come. It’s too dry here. Our plants need nourishing.