Beautiful spring day. I went over the hill  to tend to some business and hit the grocery store. On the way back I spotted a column of smoke at the end of Derrick. I thought it was someone burning brush. Could have been, I guess, but a bit ago I got a call from a neighbor saying it was a one acre wild fire and that both volunteer fire companies & the USFS were there in force!  That’s sorta good, but it left no personal or vehicle when an accident call came in, so the highway patrol ended up sending a chopper to that ‘event’. the fire’s over the hill from us and as today is a not too hot, still green, and a still day I expect they’ll get ti down in a short time.

Meantime, I’m getting the garden planted and the early flowers are starting to bloom. My prettiest iris has put up a second stalk!

And my little tomato experiment has succeeded beyond my best hopes! I wasn’t able to find a ‘cherry’ tomato at the nursery so I saved a small yellow and a small red out of the basket I bought at Costco some time ago. I think there are maybe more ‘plum’ than cherry, but they’re small. Some years ago we kept heirloom seed and we were told to ferment them so I kind of applied that to these. I’ve had them come up in the garden from dropped fruit so I  filled the pots with a combo of potting soil and dirt and smashed each tomato into a pot and covered it lightly with soil, watered it, and put the lids on. Several days later I checked and there was every sign that fermentation was going on! 🙂 Sometime later with the lids only partly on to keep the soil moist, I spotted green! There were several in the red pot but only one in the yellow. But that’s okay, I really only need one. But guess what?!  I am unable to kill these little baby plants so I am going to have to find a lot of friends in need to tomato plants! Red on the left, yellow on the right.

As for weaving and knitting, well, not much these days of getting the garden ready. Did I say the alpaca project was a bust? I got about 8″ of ribbing done and decided to try it on. Nope. There is no way a human being could wear that garment. It was not only huge, it was just weird. So it goes into the frog pond. I’ll find another use for the squares but the ribbing was a lot of wasted effort. Except I guess I learned something, not sure what just yet but I’m sure it was something! lol I’m knitting on my Tee, It’s top down and I just got past the vee neck so there are at least several months of knitting left! It gets a row or two during the evening ball game on the radio.

We have a huge population of birds this year and have had some we’re not see before. One that says, “kitty, kitty, kitty”. I’m told it’s a titmouse but they dont’ seem to be in California. At least the one that sings like that isn’t. Anybody know what it might be? Lots of gross beaks and tho they do “sing”, they just never shut up so it’s very noisy around here. I’m hoping that’ll change once the nesting season is over. The Robins have taken over one of the Jays nest sites. There was a bit of a confrontation over it but the robin won. The jays are losing out all around. They have been nesting here for some 30 years at least, but they lost the ‘discussion’ with the gross beak in the rose bush the other day, too. I don’t think they  wanted her nest, I think they just thought she was too close to theirs.

But my Super mulch garden seems to have worked. At least when I moved the mulch back this week, it is working with earthworms. The tomatoes and peppers I planted look quite happy out there. I’ll probably plant beans this next week, too, unless it does get cold as they seem to be forecasting. Not cold enough to have to cover, but just a little chilly. Himself planted his corn (I think it’s a waste of space) but he’s got a Plan. He planted it and covered it with black plastic, says it would heat up the soil. He checks it daily just in case any green shows up. He and dog have gone up to check the water in Treasure Creek and see what the beavers have been up to!

Well, I guess that takes care of chatter for today! I hope you’re having a lovely warm spring. Unlike Denver, where the Giant and the Rockies played baseball in a snow storm yesterday!