Spring Comes To Those Who Wait. And wait.
A local Snowshoe Hare, patiently waiting for more green grass and the garden to be constructed. They are having bunny races around the yard, which can only mean one thing. Pretty soon we will have herds of babies grazing on the grass.
Our big project for this year is building a garden and a greenhouse. The gravel pad for the greenhouse was the first step, since the heavy equipment operator would be here anyway removing some of the old garden posts and pulling out trees and bushes.
Snow falls and the heavy equipment operator calls to say, ehhh, will be there next week. Just wait.
Our friend Jack came over, chainsaw in hand, and cut down a few trees which were in the way of both the garden and greenhouse space.
The heavy equipment operator brings in a couple of loads of gravel and dirt with which to build the greenhouse pad.
Several dump trucks arrived and left piles of "work" near the garage. And then it snows again. Heavy equipment operator company calls and says, ehhhh, it's snowing, let's wait. Tomorrow, ok?
So the next morning dawns.
What's that we spy with our little eyes? 'Tis only a few mere snowflakes, which will surely disappear soon.
Or, maybe not. Swirling snow fills the sky, and the world turns fuzzy and out of focus. Or is that our eyes? Maybe we need more tea?
The phone rings. It is the fair weather heavy equipment operator saying, ehhhh, it's snowing, let's wait.
We are beginning to sense a theme.
A small backhoe and a very large guy, who barely fits in the cab. He's very talented, a deft touch, and if we have to have somebody here with this sort of equipment, he's the guy we want driving it.
The piles of dirt and gravel disappear and become a pad on which will (someday), grow a greenhouse.
Ran out of gravel, and while we are waiting for the dump truck to return with another pile of gravel, down to the garden site goes the heavy equipment, and out come the trees, bushes, and fence posts which we were not able to remove manually. It takes a surprisingly short amount of time before all is cleared away.
Dan removing debris pulled up by the backhoe, and stacking it up to the east of the garden space.
Visualizing where to place the fence posts.
The dump truck delivers the last load of gravel. Progress!
At last, all the ground work is completed, and we can begin laying out the fence boundaries, and staking things.
Employing high math skills we staked out a garden space which is 50 feet by 50 feet square. More or less square. Nothing on our house is actually square except the two rooms we added so we don’t stress too much about having things totally square on our garden space.
At least it has stopped snowing. Spring must be here! The Daffodils are almost ready to bloom.
Daffodils have a good sense of humor, for a plant.
We woke up to a few inches of heavy wet snow. And this time it stuck to the ground, trees, bushes, sidewalk. All we could think of was, thank goodness the heavy equipment operator wasn't supposed to come today!
We took the opportunity for rest afforded by the snow and prepared a planned planting location for the various trees and bushes we have ordered. The plants haven’t shipped yet. More waiting.
The bottom of the picture faces south.
Walking into the garden through the fence, we will walk through a rose arbor. We have planned some paving stone paths through the rose arbor, around a circular herb/flower bed, and into the seating area under a grape arbor, with more paths heading east and west, then bending around and heading south, along the front of the bramble beds. We haven’t decided if we will actually get around to putting down the stone paths. This garden is going to be a many years project to get to its final result.
A couple of days later, the snow has melted (again), and we head down to the garden space to begin the work of digging post holes for the posts to live in, and we discover relatively few really large rocks. The garden space is blessed with at least two feet of dark black soil. The deep soil explains the presence of so many pocket gophers, but that’s going to be another story.
Our Polaris Ranger finally has the snow plow attachment removed, and it has proven to be extremely useful for hauling heavy posts down to the garden space.
A few days of hard work, and all the post holes were dug, and posts set into their new homes, tilting a bit hither and yon waiting for dirt to prop them up straight.
As each post has dirt filled in and tamped down firmly, they stand straight up, theoretically. There's only so much we can accomplish with uneven ground, and me on the level.
Taking a break, sitting in the Ranger, and trying to visualize how it will all look once it is completed.
We set about half of the posts and called it a day. We will have to finish that part of the project another day.
The gate will be here, someday soon. We just have to wait until we get all the upper and lower 1x6 pine boards affixed to the top and bottom of the set fence posts. But we're getting there!
Fast forward many days, the boards are attached to the fence posts, the wire fencing materials have been stapled in place, and a gate has been built and installed. Let the digging begin.
Sounds fast, but this took many days of hard work. We built the garden fence in the garage and carried it down to the garden. Disaster struck while we were carrying it down. The ground was saturated with water, and muddy spaces were in our path, and last years’ grass is long, and laying closely on the ground, and is slick. I fell, and the gate landed on my knee. I was concerned when I could barely walk that night, with a knot on my knee which was swollen and tight, but it was a shortlived injury and already I’m back to normal. A couple of weeks later, we have resumed our walks down along the river.
While I was laid up, we have employed the help of our neighbor’s son to help Dan with digging in the garden space. The work is going to be hard and long, but eventually it will be completed. Our trees and bushes haven’t shipped yet, but our seeds arrived, and this weekend we will plant some of the cool weather seeds, like cabbages, radishes, and spinach, and lettuce. It will be exciting to have something planted.
Daffodils are blooming and this morning they were standing up straight. Amazing what a few dry weather days can do to perk them up.
They didn't seem to mind a few weeks of freezing weather, snow and ice.
The forecast today is for thunderstorms.
The day started off with a rainbow. I missed it, but Dan took a picture for me.
I love it when the sky has that peculiar green tint, like being under water.