Saturday

My older girl and I are strolling through the Farmers Market downtown. I turn to her and ask -- do you notice anything about my nose?
She looks at me. It's crooked.
In what way?
It's sort of tilting to the right.

I give it a moment's thought. Maybe she's joking. She can be such a tease. I glance at her, but her mind's off and onto a different topic. She's not teasing. Damn.

Well, I suppose a nose can self correct. I've smashed my nose before -- on the ski slopes, when I was an adolescent, doing stupid things on the T-bar. This time, I wasn't being teen-silly. I was mowing the prairie fields out back with the tractor (see yesterday's post) and I had to duck a tree. I managed to avoid the first branch, but the second one slammed me in the nose so that my teeth tingled.



In other news -- it was a brilliant day...






...with a brilliant breakfast...






...and brilliant chickens keeping us company at every turn.












Okay, but what turns did we take? What did we do on this day?

As I noted, I zipped down to the market, where I met up with my girl...






It's so good to shop for produce that doesn't originate in a greenhouse! The asparagus is exploding at the moment and new potatoes make their first (to my knowledge) appearance.






By the time I return home, it feels warm. Very warm. Flowers-are-drooping warm. The plants I had divided and planted by the sheep shed? Wilted. I carry buckets of water to give them hope.They revive, but only after several bucket runs. Ed asks -- should we trench a hose down here?

We'd already buried a hose (last year) and ran it to the new orchard. Should we run another one toward the sheep shed? I'm planting and dividing so much in this area! Bringing water down would make maintenance quite a bit easier!

And so this is how we spend our evening. Digging, watering, trenching.


 


Oh, and packaging raspberry canes. We have a trickle of buyers. Our dense raspberry islands are being whittled down somewhat, shared with others.

And that's a good thing.

 I have to end with a flower photo. A true mark of full spring is the prominence of blues in your garden. Did you notice it in the picture just above? My favorites today had to be the "butterfly" iris. This is the flower that, once established, will always show its cheerful face, straight up, without a waver or a falter. It doesn't last for a very long time, but when it's here, you can't help but love it with all your heart.