the last flowers

Well, if Ed thought that I ought huff and puff more to feel on top of the world -- he surely had his way with me today.

We can't do much more with the raspberries until someone (we have a number of contenders) dumps a truckload of chips at the farmette. I suggested we survey our strawberries. We had thrown mesh on top of them to keep the animals away. It worked. But the mesh is now forever entangled with new sprouts and old plants and the whole thing is... a mess.

Still, this is not the time to transplant strawberries. One website suggests August or early September. Well now, I can't even pretend we're near that. Besides, I remind Ed that we have nowhere to plant new sprouts.

This is how we took it upon ourselves to clear a patch, right close to the sheep shed.

Clearing anything at the farmette is brutal. It requires pulling out trees, shrubs, weeds. And digging up fabric thrown down eons back in the hope of eradicating weeds. (It didn't and we decided it keeps worms away which is bad thing; fabric, therefore, must be dug up and removcd.)

So we heaved and pulled and dug and threw and panted...






Farmhouse to the south...






...sheep shed to the north






... the two of us in the middle, creating space for future strawberries.

And after three hours of this, Ed goes back to the farmhouse and  promptly falls asleep for the rest of the day.

Me, I sit down to do my school work and here's the remarkable thing: I meet my goal for the day. (This may be the only day in the entire semester where I meet my school work goal for the day.)

 So it was a good day, no?

No. It was a great day.

I'll leave you with the pics of the very last blooms of the year. These guys make me beam with pride.










See you in spring, you pinks and yellows, you... Rest up for then. I've got great plans for the next growing season!