9. It's April, Fool!
Around here, anyone with eyes and a driver’s license can tell it’s time to plant, as our rural roads get clogged with gargantuan tractors, manure spreaders, and other farm machinery that makes traffic pile up.
It’s spring!
With the warmer temps and momentary break in the rain, I have set up another 40 beds (120 in total), and plan to do another thirty in May, or sooner, to direct seeds a couple varieties of corn. I guess the big issue, then, aside from whether or not these seeds will grow, is where I will sell this food.
The pandemic has halted lots of face-to-face activity, and with May around the corner (the typical month to begin markets), it’s still up in the air whether markets will open as they have in the past. As with all things, time will tell.
I’m having a hard time getting my hands on baby chicks because you lunatics out there think the world is ending, and have begun impulse-buying day-old chicks. This ridiculousness has even made The New York Times.
I have some news for you hoarders and new dooms-dayers: you cannot last-minute prepare for the apocalypse. It doesn’t work that way. Your piles of TP collecting dust in the garage will not make you safe from whatever is coming (and what the Hell? If you’re at home, wash your ass, don’t freak and buy all of the TP. And milk, and flour, and sugar, and rubbing alcohol, and bleach. People will find out you have those things, and in the event of a real emergency, they will come for you, and they will not be happy…speaking of which, guns sales are at their highest since Sandy Hook. Well done, America), and your new-found hobby of backyard chicken keeping will not protect you, either. Plus, you’ll find in a couple of months that these poop machines are not so cute when they are stinking up your beautiful suburban yard, digging up your landscaping, their feed and bedding attracting mice and rats, and the big hens will come pecking your plump children.
Will you look at that; I have opinions.
In lighter news: things continue to be beautiful and quiet here in the country. Starlings have tried to nest on my propane tank; our dogs are very comfortable here. Even old Mr. Wiggles, who we thought may not be too long for this world, has become startlingly rejuvenated: in the city, he slept all day except to creakily make his way outdoors to do his business, only to sit or lay down again once that was completed. Here, by contrast, he is loping around, hopping up stairs, letting out delighted yips to the neighboring bovine herds at sunset, when the breeze shifts and he can smell that they’re just right over there. I guess he’s enjoying his retirement. Our other dog, Goose, loves that she can magically smell things that are under the ground: moles, mice, voles, bunnies, and maybe even a groundhog at the far end of the property. We haven’t seen him, yet, but the holes are very large and deep (leg-breakers). Goose busies herself with digging for subterranean rodents at least once a day, fulfilling her terrier nature.
Nestus interuptus
Finally, I’ve been upping my painting game, and trying to get some of these started projects finished: behold! One room, fully painted!
Top: blue wall finished, mauve, patched wall needing a thick coat of something
Bottom: mauve wall painted a light gray (“blizzard fog”), so light, in fact, that some shade of white is a better descriptor.
So all in all, everything is hunky-dory here. The husband is talking about knocking down the rotting ceiling and putting up ship-lap (go, hubby, go!), he replaced a floor joist last weekend (only three or four more to go), and I guess I’ll just keep on painting and planting.