The view out the window yesterday and today reminded me very much of England! It has been cool, but not cold, and rainy since yesterday morning. It has been cause to keep a fire burning in the stove and to keep indoors, too!
The rain seems to be letting up for now, and is forecast to have gone by tomorrow, leaving only a little cloud, and green grass! I welcome it!
Just as the rain has been preparing the environment for spring flowers to blossom, I have been preparing the kids for a summer of gardening ease, with little to do for plants, and more to do with plant beds and the yard, and animals. While I look forward to a year off gardening, I feel a little empty already at the thought of growing nothing! Something should be in the ground and something should be beautifying the place! I try to console myself with the thought of getting the last trees for our orchard, and getting them started.
Our focus will be shifted from the gardens to the overall shape of our space, and hopefully updating ‘how we work.’ We have an expensive repair to do on the house in the next couple of weeks, and I plan to spend most of the summer paying that off. First, I did order a new laptop computer, because Missus and I like to play a particular computer game together, and that is our Friday night unwind, but my current computer, which is set up to be my weather station, is not configured for gaming. I also want the freedom to sit in the smae room as her, so we can talk back and forth, rather than having to stop and type or to talk via headsets. Yup, I’m 50, a hobby farmer, and someone who will be playing the same old video game I have since the early 2,000’s. Well, we have all got to have a way to unwind!
I also foresee the computer helping out with this blog, and with office type stuff on the farm, so no harm, no foul for buying it.
Our grandson will be visiting us through the summer still, but only on every other week, so I will use the odd ones to get firewood, starting this Friday morning with a trip down to scope out the situation where I get it. We are nearly down to four cords of wood, and need to start piking some up for the coming year, to get it split and dried as best we can in a single season. Then I can get to work in earnest on next year’s wood, and be a full year ahead, at last!
I had hoped to have a tractor in the yard by this year, complete with tiller and back-hoe, and a loader ready to lift gravel, hay, animal fodder, and firewood. The big repair has got to come first, so any hope of a Tractor is shot till fall at the soonest. There was so much I needed to get done this year, and it looks like it will have to be done by hand, or with the help of a neighbor, if he is willing.
I may have been confused in the clouds yesterday, but it looked like the mountain was almost completely clear of snow already, which is a bad sign for irrigation this summer. The western drought is very apparent here in southeast Idaho! It is a huge reason I am glad the rain has just picked up again!
The weather ought to clear up this week, starting tomorrow, and we are forecast to see low 70’s by Wednesday. I expect to find soem time to get some things done, provided I am not too distracted with a certain game machine.
This weekend we had a son over to visit, which was lovely. In addition to enjoying his company, he helped up to set up two new beds for our daughters. Their room is nearly reset in a way they should be able to keep better organized and clean. That meant the stuff they temporarily dumped into my den got removed! I have a nice little space that is almost all my own, except that it is also a passage from downstairs to the bedrooms, and sitting room upstairs. Some people have a “Man Cave,” I have more of a tunnel.