Chicken aprons and tomato cages

It seemed like a good idea when I read about it on the Internet. We’ve had trouble with some of the hens pecking the others. Four of the hens, Nadia and Gracie among them, have featherless backsides, sometimes with wounds.  This is bad because chickens are cannibals and can peck a hen to death once they see blood.  I looked on a couple of chicken websites and found that there are chicken aprons that cover the back and prevent damage. They are designed for rooster-related injuries, but will also work with pecking problems. They were also very cheap. Hilda ordered some.

The chicken apron is a rectangle of a sturdy but lightweight fabric with two slits. The concept is to slide the wings into the slits and position the apron over the back. We figured our best chance of catching the hens was in the morning. Chickens don’t see well in the dark, and I preferred going out early to staying up late.

On Saturday, we went out at 5:45. We caught the chickens that didn’t need aprons one at a time and put them in the run. We got an apron on Nadia without too much trouble and tossed her over the fence. Gracie is usually pretty friendly. We did her second. When I put her in the run, she couldn’t stand. She is such a spaz. The 2-ounce apron was enough to throw her off balance, and there she flopped on her side.

Nadia and Gracie in their (white) aprons.

Charity is not part of the chicken world view. As soon as the hens sensed Gracie’s predicament, they surrounded her and went in for the kill. I rushed into the run, shooed away the bystanders, and adjusted the apron so Gracie could stay upright.

I caught Chloe next. She was having none of this apron stuff. I finally put one hand over her eyes, which settled her enough for Hilda to get one wing through the apron. She took over holding Chloe’s head while I did the other side. And she went into the run.

We gave up then, leaving Cleopatra with a bare backside. Chloe spent the better part of the day in the coop. On Sunday, I found her apron in a nest box. Gracie had wriggled out of hers by this morning. We are going to cut off Nadia’s apron if she still has it on tomorrow. The new plan is to let the chickens out of the coop sooner in the morning, based on the hypothesis that the pecking occurs while the hens are awake and cooped up, so to speak, from sunrise until 7:00, when we have been letting them out.

It’s been a hot week here in the country. We have finally gotten the garden planted. Every year is the same. First, you put in the plants you want. Then you spend a month pulling out the plants you don’t want. After that, the harvest begins, and you spend more time standing at the kitchen sink than playing in the dirt. I enjoy surrendering to this seasonal rhythm.

There are many things about getting the garden planted that are a literal pain in the butt, as well as the hamstrings, knees, shoulders, and hands. The extra effort on the front end pays off generously as the summer progresses. We lay down landscape cloth between the rows to block the weeds. The tomatoes get a landscape cloth grid followed by newspaper around the plant. Then there’s the drip irrigation. I whined extensively about that last year, so I won’t repeat it. I will say that the hot weather made getting the air out of the lines less unpleasant, although unpredictable squirts of water in the face are never on the list of the Top 10 Things That Are Fun. With all that done, we put the tomato cages on. We planted all 36 tomatoes in a day, which was brutal. The tomato cages have a foot of chicken wire at the bottom, and I feared that if we didn’t get all the way to the tomato cage installation, the rabbits would eat every plant by morning.  I did the first three rows and laid out the fourth row while Hilda had lunch with a friend.  Hilda finished planting the last row.

Tomatoes in their cages

The next day, we put in the peppers. In the course of the morning, Hilda casually mentioned that she had planted 4 Supersweet 100’s and only 2 Sun Golds, which she thought was peculiar since we preferred Sun Golds.

“That’s not right,” I said. “I’m sure I laid out 4 Sun Golds and only two Supersweet 100’s.”

“I didn’t look at the map,” Hilda replied. “I should have asked. “

Sure enough, the map showed 4 Sun Golds and two Supersweet 100’s. The tags showed one Sun Gold, 2 Supersweet 100’s, another Sun Gold, and two more Supersweet 100’s. How does this happen?? I looked right at those tomato labels and put the wrong ones in the tray to bring to the garden. I got the two Sun Golds from the green house, took off the cages, drippers, and newspapers, dug up the wrong plants, and replaced them with the right ones. And the newspapers, and the drippers, and the cages. Grrrr. I hate it when I make extra work for myself.

Putting news papers between the peppers for weed control

We planted 7 rows of various seeds and two rows of Coles (kale, cabbage, Brussels sprouts). I couldn’t for the life of me make sense of the drip lines I had left and had to completely refigure one of them.

Kale, Brussels sprouts, and cabbages with newly configured drip lines

The final step, completed this morning when the breeze was relatively low, was row cover over the Coles and the beans. High winds earlier in the week made the task impossible. The row cover decreases predation quite a bit. If the bugs can’t see the plants, they don’t bother them.

Row cover to hide the plants from things that would otherwise eat them

And then we started weeding.

A walk in the prairie

What a glorious day! Jane and I took a road trip to the Chiwaukee Prairie just over the Wisconsin border on Lake Michigan. She had been there before and remembered fields of shooting stars, one of my favorite flowers. We guessed when they would be blooming by the progress of my few specimens, thinking that it might be a little slower by the lake, where the temperatures are cooler well into the summer.

When we got to the prairie, Jane was initially disappointed. We didn’t see many shooting stars from the road. There were some by the entrance, but not as clearly visible as she remembered. We postulated that they had not burned the prairie this year, and the dead stems of the taller plants obscured the view. Jane pulled the car to the side of the road—there was no real parking lot to speak of—and we got out to walk the loop trail.

One of the first flowers we saw was wood-betony, which I did not know at the time.

Wood-betony

There was also lots of hoary puccoon, which is a pretty little orange flower with a funny name.

Hoary puccoon

And there were shooting stars. The farther we walked, the more we saw. Thousands of shooting stars! Jane felt better about driving all that way.

Shooting stars....

By the thousands!

We also saw birdfoot violets.

Birdfoot violets

Blue-eyed grass

Blue-eyed grass

Silverweed, which I thought at first was a buttercup (Ranunculaceae) but was actually a cinquefoil relative (Potentilla).

Silverweed

We had a nice walk. Jane is doing so much better since she has lost weight and started exercising. We were almost back to the car when she said, “You have a tick on your leg.”

Well. When there’s one, there must be others. Before we got in the car, we checked as well as we could, picking several more off our jeans where they were trying to burrow into the seams. If we’d thought of the possibility of ticks we could have tucked our pants in our socks before we started out.

We drove north to Kenosha, periodically checking our hair and various spots where we were sure we felt something crawling. We stopped at Culver’s for lunch where I got a FREE kid’s meal with my 10 coupons from previous kids’ meals. Thanks Pat S. for teaching me about Scoopie meals at Culvers! (Actually, when I did the math, that “free” meal cost me about $56 in previous meals).

As we waited for our burgers, I felt something crawling on my neck, and this time it was not imagined. So here I was at a table in Culvers with a live tick between thumb and forefinger. If I’d had my little knife, I could have cut it in half with the tiny scissors. But my keychain was in the car. “Go to the bathroom and flush it down the toilet,” Jane suggested.

As long as I was in a stall, I checked my legs and peered under my shirt. Nothing.

Back at the table, the food had arrived. While we were eating, I looked over to see a tick crawling over the front of Jane’s hair. I picked it off and held it in my left hand while holding my cheeseburger in my right. Jane got one of the empty bags and put the tick in there. As she was rolling it up tight, a tick appeared on her hand. Same or different? She unrolled the bag to verify that the original tick was still in there, and added the second tick.

That was about the end of it until after a stop at the mushroom farm in Slades Corners, when Jane found a tick crawling on the window of the car.

The previous day Jane had discovered that Hershey Almond Fudge was going to be the flavor of the day at the Culvers in Lake Geneva! It seemed like fate that we should cash in our Scoopie meal coupons there since it could be construed as being on the way home. We got there just in time for every Little League, softball, and baseball team to finish their games and go to Culvers for custard. We were able to escape the noise by snagging a table outside.

All in all, it was a most excellent day. Except for the ticks.

Early in the week, the charging station for my car arrived. I got the charger that plugged into a dryer outlet. Perhaps someday down the line, Jane could put a dryer outlet in her garage, and I could bring the charger with me when I visited. No real rush there, however. It only takes 0.7 gallons of gas to complete the round trip, a great deal better than the 3 gallons it used to take.

I was eager to get the charger installed because a full charge on the 120 outlet took 16 hours or more. Also, there was the issue of having the cord across the garage floor where someone might trip on it, not mentioning any names. The charger came with a quick start guide and what appeared to be a key fob.

Mystery object that came with the charging station

Far from being the useless item I assumed it was, an illustration in the quick start guide informed me that it was the owner’s manual. How’s that for green? Why send out 33 pages of paper when a little flash drive will do?

Which was really the owner's manual in disguise!

Terry, bless his heart, started right in on the project. I had hoped he could easily run the wires from the box to the corner of the garage near the front of my car. But no. The box is under the stairs. Going straight up was “too much drywall work.” Instead, he ran the wires all the way around the stairs to the opposite corner of the garage and then up the wall, along the ceiling, and down the wall next to my car. Whew! Lotta wire.

Two days later, I was in business. I set the car for a 7:00 a.m. departure. It automatically back calculated when the charge needed to start, turning on in the wee hours. This feature allows the car to charge when we aren’t using much electricity, alleviating Terry’s concern that the system would be overloaded.

Charging station installed and powered up

We finally started in on the garden. We are late, late, late with the potatoes and onions this year, but dang, it’s been cold! Hilda started on the onions Wednesday when I was at a meeting. I finished up Thursday morning while she was at the doctor’s. My part included digging the trench for the leeks. Once they grow some, we fill the trench in so the leeks will have a nice long white part.

Garlic (planted last fall) on left, onions in the middle, leeks in the trench, right

We were all available Thursday afternoon for potato planting, which is a team sport. Terry digs the holes. Hilda cuts the potatoes, being sure each piece has an eye. I started by putting the potatoes in the holes, covering them, and placing a marker. You might not think that markers are necessary, but you would be wrong. First we need them for when we put down weed barrier on either side of the row. Secondly, we need them when we dig the potatoes in the fall, long after the plants have died and withered.

When all the potatoes were cut, Hilda took over putting the potatoes in the holes.

Terry digs holes; Hilda puts in potato

Filling in the holes was knee work, and since Hilda just had her knee replaced, I thought I’d better do it. I’d just like to mention that the clods of dirt around the holes were hard as rocks. Our soil has a lot of clay in it.  

Seed potato with little sprouts in the hole

I felt like one of those pilgrims who crawls to the sacred temple on his/her knees. When I inspected my knees before my shower, I discovered that they were not, in fact, bleeding, even though they felt like they should be. They are still sore today, but no longer red. I’ve had a day of rest. I’ll be ready to get back in the garden tomorrow.

Knee selfie after potato planting

Summer birds and spring flowers

May 15 is supposed to be our frost-free date. This year, Jack Frost got one in just under the wire. The grass was white with ice crystals when I got up Sunday. Some of Terry's trees were damaged. It remains to be seen if they will recover. The regional experts are cautioning gardeners to hold off planting until May 25. 

I moved the fence to the chicken run back to its usual position. It didn’t take long for the girls to start tearing up the grass. By afternoon, they were hard at work making a dust bath between the sun shelters. We’ve had some trouble with Isabel pecking at the other chickens. My research suggests that this can happen because of crowding, boredom, or plain spitefulness. It is my hope that the fresh grass and bigger area will cure the problem by giving Isabel something to do. If not, she could be in freezer heaven before her time.

Chickens eating the re-grown grass

All of our wild feathered friends are back. We seem to have more pairs Baltimore orioles than ever. When I hung up the hummingbird feeder, I grabbed a hanger to create a hook where I could reach it. I meant it as a temporary fix, but the hanger has turned out to be a favorite perch.

One male eating grape jelly; one on deck

We also have both male and female orchard orioles. The females have all yellow bellies. The first-year males are yellow with a black bib, strikingly dissimilar to the rusty-colored mature males.

First-year male orchard oriole

Mature male orchard oriole

Mrs. Cardinal is a newcomer to our feeder. I hear cardinals quite often, but I have not seen them by the house much.

Female cardinal foraging for dropped sunflower seeds

We have several pairs of rose-breasted grosbeaks.

Male rose-breasted grosbeak

The goldfinch males are in full summer plumage, including their little black berets.

Goldfinches plus a downey woodpecker (or is it a hairy?)

Before the last mowing, the lawn was full of dandelion seed heads. Terry thought that something surely must eat dandelion seeds, but what? A: Yellow-shafted flickers. This one came right up to the patio.

Yellow shafted flicker eating dandelion seeds

I got all excited when I saw this bird, thinking it was something new. I think, however, that it is either a female red-winged blackbird or an immature male.

Female or immature male red-winged blackbird

Three chipping sparrows have been showing up in the early hours. Mostly they feed on the ground. Here is one on the bird feeder.

We saw the indigo bunting once. It was a brief visit—no time to get the camera.
I checked up on the tadpoles. I saw more in the pond than I had before, perhaps because the shrinking pond is concentrating them. No sign of legs yet. I am worried that they won't reach metamorphosis before the water dries up.

Growing--and legless--tadpole

I was happy to see that the white trillium came back again this year.

White trillium

There was one red trillium by the garage. I don’t recall seeing one last year and had given it up for dead.

Red trillium

The Jacob's ladder that I transplanted is doing well.

Jacob's ladder

The first shooting star has bloomed. The others are budded.

Shooting star

Driving on sunshine!

Solar panels + electric vehicle = emission free commute to work!

I have had a deep commitment to ecology and conservation for a long time. I was both alive and sentient on the first Earth Day in 1970. Two months shy of my 11^th birthday, I was at an impressionable age. My parents had sent us to day camps at the Kalamazoo Nature Center during the summer, and I took to it. When I was old enough—13 sticks in my mind—I worked as a junior counselor and continued to spend my summers there for most of the years up until I was 20. I have had a long association with tree huggers.

In recent years, I have gone all in for raising my own food, making my own yogurt, baking my own bread, mulching my kitchen scraps, reducing, reusing, recycling, and otherwise trying to leave the smallest possible carbon footprint. And I was well aware of my Great Hypocrisy—I burned through almost two gallons of gas a day just getting back and forth to work. Hybrids had just come on the market 10 years ago when it was time for me to buy a new car, but there were two problems. First, they didn’t have all wheel drive, which I needed when we lived at the Girl Scout camp. Secondly, my Subaru’s transmission was about to go, and there was a 6-month wait for a Prius. I bought a Toyota Matrix instead. It got 30 mpg, which was pretty good. You will always take a hit on mileage with all-wheel drive. I rationalized the emissions by remembering that Terry didn’t commute at all. Still, it rankled.

At first, I was skeptical of electric cars. It seemed like a simple displacement of CO₂ from the car itself to the generating plant. A few years ago, Terry and I watched a program on electric cars. I learned that the amount of fuel used to make electricity was less than the comparable amount of gas to power a regular car. One of the last statements on the program struck me—the longer you have an electric car, the cleaner it will become. But there were still problems. I drive 26 miles to work. The early electric cars had ranges that would not get me back home. I worried about getting stranded with a dead battery. The Chevy Volt had a certain appeal with the gas backup, but the range was still well under my round-trip commute. And I wasn’t ready to get a new car.

The first Volt stood the test of time. The reviews were good. The reviews for the 2016 Volt were even better. I thought I could get along without all-wheel drive if my parents were willing to let me drive their Subaru when the weather was terrible. They readily agreed that they had no business on bad roads at their age. Also, we live on the milk truck route now, and the road gets plowed early. I was ready.

Alas, the 2016 Volt was not available in Illinois. I would have to wait for the 2017 Volt, which was supposed to be available “in early summer.” I left my phone number at the Chevy dealers in Woodstock and Crystal Lake. They would be happy to order one for me. I didn’t want to order until I had driven one. They promised to call as soon as they got one in. And I waited.

Meanwhile, MCC installed two charging stations in the parking lot with reserved parking for electronic vehicles (EV). On April 28, Nissan representatives brought a Leaf to MCC for test drives. I was in class, so I missed it. The buzz after the fact was extreme. So fun to drive! So affordable! Range of 107 miles in optimal conditions! Tax credits! Educator discounts! When I mentioned to one of my co-workers that I didn’t think I could get home from Elgin after visiting Jane, he wisely suggested that I could plug in at her house while I visited.

Thinking that I would never, ever be able to get a Volt, I did some searching on the Web for Leafs (Leaves?) and found a dealer in St. Charles. I scheduled an appointment for 1:30 on Friday, May 6. Maybe I could make it work. I could rent a car if I went on a road trip. Kate (who went to the test drive on campus) said that there was a “quick charge” feature that took 15 minutes. Jane researched charging stations, which are few and far between around here. She also told me that the home charging station Nissan recommended was $1000 DIY, $2000 if professionally installed. I looked up the distance to Jane’s house and found it to be 45 miles. Would the Leaf make 90 miles if you also ran the heater or air conditioner?

I was on my way to a doctor’s appointment in Elgin on the day of the Leaf test drive when she called me. “There are 5 Volts at a dealer in Glendale Heights and one at Biggers in Elgin.”

“Glendale Heights?” I asked. “Isn’t that where Jesus left his shoes?”

“It’s not that far,” she replied. “It is on the same road as the Nissan dealer in St. Charles.”

I was done at the doctor’s office in record time. I called Jane to tell her to start cooking lunch. We ate as soon as I got to her house. It was 11:30 when I started calling Chevy dealers. Biggers had sold their only Volt the previous day. Sunrise Chevy in Glendale Heights would be happy to have me test drive one. I said we’d be there at 12:30. We took Jane’s car just to ensure that I wouldn’t impulsively buy a car that day.

We met Craig, a very nice young man who was Sunrise’s Volt specialist. I drove the car. I loved it. It was the car I had researched and dreamed of owning. But I still felt I should keep my appointment at Nissan. At 1:10, we told Craig we had to leave, but we’d be back.

The woman at the Nissan dealer was not very eager to sell me a Leaf. I told her right off the bat that I lived in the country and was nervous about being all electric. From that moment, she was trying to sell me the Jute, which was “comparable to the Matrix.” She also told me that there was no mechanism for charging the car from a regular 120V outlet. I would have to install a charging station before bringing the car home and have no mechanism for charging at Jane’s house.

I took a brochure and the woman’s card just to be polite. We went back to Sunrise and gave Craig $1000 to find me a red car with heated seats. So much has changed since I last bought a car. I had saved up a lot of money in anticipation of having to pay for a package of things I didn’t want to get one thing I did want, sort of like buying boxes of stuff at an auction. When I bought the Matrix, I got a moon roof and 6-CD player that I didn’t care about so I could get the all-wheel drive that was essential. But all I needed to pay for this time was the heated seats and the red color (which was $395—if it had been $2000, I would have had to think about it more). Plus, the salesmen at Sunrise don’t work on commissions, so it was all very low key. Craig found three cars that met my criteria. The car would in in Monday or Tuesday.

Craig called Tuesday to say I could pick up the car Wednesday. I took off from school as soon as I had the final exam grades posted. I picked up Jane and got to the dealer at 2:30. I surrendered all three keys to my Matrix with more than a little sadness. It was 10 years old and had 164,000+ miles. I am certain it had 200,000 miles in it. It was a great little car. Never gave me a moment’s trouble. It was hard to let it go. I hope that someone will love it as I have loved it until it gives out. Also, it was really a good red, which could not be said of the Volt. The “Siren Red” had looked redder on the website. In reality it was more of a maroon. I’ll get used to it.

Farewell, little Matrix. Such a good car, such a good red

It took an hour and 45 minutes to sign the papers and write the big check. Unlike the big checks I wrote for the solar panels, this big check was my own money. Paying cash for a car made me feel like such a successful grown up.

Despite Jane’s statement to the contrary, Glendale Heights is indeed where Jesus left his shoes, at least relative to where I live. Plus we got done at the dealer’s just as rush hour was gearing up. I hardly ever drive in heavy traffic anymore. Doing so in a brand-new car was nerve-wracking. I had a quick dinner with Jane and headed home. I ran out of electrical charge 14 miles away. The car seamlessly switched to the gas generator. It took 0.33 gallons to get me to my garage.

The charging cord stretched easily across the two-car garage. I plugged in at 7:00 p.m. The car told me the battery would be fully charged by 2:00 p.m. the following day. I left for work 12 hours after getting home and had enough charge to make it to campus where I finished charging it.

Reserved parking at the charging station

I will get a charging station put in soon, which will decrease the charging time to 6 hours. EV charging stations are available from Amazon at half the price of the one Nissan recommends, and Terry is willing to try to install it himself.

I’ve been about 200 miles so far and used less than half a gallon of gas. And our solar panels are offsetting some of the electricity that I’ve used. Driving on sunshine, baby! Pretty awesome.

Mother's Day

The most exciting thing that happened this week was the arrival of the ComEd bill for our first month of solar energy production. The total was $14.84, considerably less than the usual $300. “And it was cloudy!” Terry remarked. When we have more sun, we may break even or better, although by then it could all get used up by the air conditioner.

Our first ComEd bill since putting in the solar panels. Note remarkable difference in the size of the last bar on the graph.

Gracie got broody again and had to spend a couple of days in isolation. The nights were too cold to leave her outside.  We set up the rabbit hutch in the greenhouse. She was back with the flock by Wednesday.

Gracie does time in solitary

Thursday morning, Hilda heard a ruckus in the greenhouse when she went to open it up. There was the lonely pheasant, whom Terry has named “Bertie.” He didn’t know what to do and flew around knocking over the plants (including Hilda’s best pepper seedling). Hilda went around the outside to open the other door, through which he made his escape. Bertie hasn’t been around so much since this little misadventure.

I finally got the hummingbird feeder up Saturday morning. Moments later, a male hummingbird was on it, as if he’d been waiting. I didn’t see him again until early the next morning.

First hummingbird on the feeder

I was delighted to see the white crowned sparrows were back. They don’t always stay long. This year, we have a group of 5 hanging around.

Five white-crowned sparrows, two of which are having an altercation over something

The 13-striped ground squirrels visit the feeders also. Goldfinches are seemingly picky eaters and throw 10 sunflower seeds to the ground for every one they eat. The ground squirrels stuff these seeds into their cheeks until it appears that their faces will pop. Then they run off to cache the seeds in their dens.

Ground squirrel packing his cheeks

The apples are in full bloom. Terry has been anxiously watching for pollinators. Bees are most active on sunny days. If the apples bloom during a cloudy spell, there will not be as many apples. Yesterday was beautiful. The trees were humming with insect activity. Some were the size and shape of honeybees, but the color variation makes me suspect that there were several different species represented. I saw a bumblebee also, but it was camera shy.

The apple orchard and the fifth oak

A bee with pollen-packed leg baskets.

I haven’t seen any tom turkeys around lately. I mostly see a solitary female. She has made a dust bath beneath the fifth oak. When I first saw her out there, I feared that she had dug up the native perennials I had just planted. She had left them alone, taking advantage of a spot to the west where I had loosened the soil by pulling up the dandelions. I tried to get a picture of her in the dust bath but was not able to sneak up on her. Here she is walking away from the dust bath (through dandelions that I had mowed three days previously).

A turkey leaving her dust bath

And here is her dust bath.

Turkey dust bath at the base of the fifth oak. The shadows of the branches obscure the contours.

Hilda has had a hankering for spanakopita. She used to be able to get big boxes of it at Sam’s. They haven’t had any in stock for some time. She and I looked everywhere we normally shop to no avail. I suggested that we make it for Mother’s Day.

As I was searching the frozen foods at Meijer looking for fillo, I saw a box of prepared spanakopita. I persisted in my original quest because it would be a fun activity for us to do together. I didn’t take any pictures of the process because working with fillo is always nerve-wracking. You have to move quickly and keep the unused dough covered with a wet towel, but not too wet. We developed a system in which Hilda would separate the top sheet from the rest and lift. I lifted from the middle to the opposite end, and then we both moved the sheet to the cutting board.

The final product was good. We used up the whole package of fillo and filling made from two packages of frozen spinach. There are plenty left for the freezer.

Spanakopita

Jane joined us for dinner. She took a picture of Hilda and me because “someday you’ll want it.” I’m just so grateful that Hilda is still with me, still with it, and still engaged, interested, and independent. I have so many friends who are orphans now. It was a good Mother’s Day.

Mom and me on Mother's Day

This is May?

My old friend Mac used to say there were six seasons: summer, fall , locking, winter, unlocking, spring. We are still unlocking. Lovely, mild (almost hot) weather last weekend; cold, dreary, rainy this weekend. On a day like this, last Sunday’s weather seems like a cruel tease. Hard to believe it’s May. Terry was eager to finish his seventh heeling bed (where trees are “heeled in” to grow to market size). He needed my help to hold the 8’ tall roll of deer netting while he wired it to the posts.

 It was not clear to me how I would get everything done this weekend. I had a haircut and an evening event at work Friday. I spent the morning weeding the asparagus, finishing the two short rows. One long row to go. After my haircut, I spent the afternoon before the event in my office getting things ready for Monday.

Game night was Saturday. I was afraid I would not have time to get my shopping done before 3:00, when game night was schedule to begin. Therefore, Terry and I tentatively planned to put up the fencing Saturday morning when I was done baking the first rhubarb pie of the season. (When told Pat we planned to do fencing, her first thought was that we were going to get out the foils, masks, and leather gloves. Once a P.E. teacher, always a P.E. teacher.)

The first rhubarb pie of the season

By the time I had the pie out of the oven and the ham in the slow cooker, about 10:00, a big green blob on the radar was headed straight for us.  Fencing was out. I took a quick shower and headed down to Trader Joe’s to speed shop in the rain. I got my groceries and was back home by 1:15. Plenty of time to finish getting ready before the guests arrived. The rain kept up all afternoon.

We had a lovely feast. Here is a roasted beet and feta cheese salad that Nancy made.

The beet salad with its slightly sweet dressing went perfectly with the ham (which Jane provided). When I mentioned this to Nancy, she told me that she had found the recipe by Googling “salads that go with ham.” I would not have thought to do that.

Roasted beet, feta, and pecan salad

Hilda made Marilyn’s hot potato salad, a classic ham side dish in our house.

Marilyn's hot potato salad

Spiral sliced ham (not a water-added product)

We played our usual 13 rounds of Mexican train, and I won not even once. For the first four rounds, I drew the double one and was never able to play it. Not my best night. Tons of fun, nevertheless. We do have some good laughs.

Terry and I were both ready to start the fence at 9:00 this morning. It wasn’t raining exactly, but it was 42°F with a wicked and mist-laden wind blowing from the northeast. It took us a few minutes to remember how we did it last time. We soon had the system down and proceeded efficiently. Terry didn’t bother completely securing the fence, as that involved tape, which was never going to stick to wet posts. He put two or three wires on each post, and we moved on. When we were done, Terry told me it had taken one hour and 37 minutes. He’s quantitative like that. I hadn’t even bothered to put on my watch.

The new fence

I returned to the house to finish my food preparation for the week. By early afternoon the temperature was edging up to 50°F. I took my camera out to check on things. In spite of the thermometer reading, I was not uncomfortable in my winter coat. I saw four tadpoles in the puddle by the willows again.

Chorus frog tadpole--still tiny, still no legs

There were snipes by the willows as well as at the south end, which flooded again with yesterday’s rain (“sixty-five hundredths” according to Terry).

Jack is now officially visible in his pulpit.

Jack in the pulpit

The clouds are a bit higher now, but I have decided it is too muddy and cold to try to finish weeding the asparagus. The weeds will undoubtedly take off when it warms up tomorrow and Tuesday. I won’t have time to get back to them until next weekend. Such is the working life. (I’m the only person in my house who is not retired, you know, but I’m not bitter….)