High tunnel delivered

Easter Sunday was a lovely warm day. I walked all around the property without coat, gloves or hat. Hilda told me that the creek bank had lost a chunk by the railroad bridge. I took a picture of it. Hard to say how long it will be before the tracks become unstable. Thankfully, that is not our problem.

A chunk of the bank, left, has fallen into the creek. Not too long before the pole goes in.

Looking the other way up the creek, washed out drain tiles are visible.

Drain tiles that have washed into the creek from our field

The grass by the fire ring is looking good. We have at least wrested that much of the riparian strip from the garlic mustard.

Grass around the fire ring

The box elder trees are starting to bloom. The pollen-producing structures shown here look like rusty-colored rice.

Male flowers of box elder

I finally got a good picture of a male cardinal.

Mr. Cardinal in an apple tree

I got all excited when I saw sparrows with sort of a white throat. They never got close to the house, and it was not easy to get a good picture when the grass was nearly as tall as the birds. (I will be mowing before long.) I thought at the time they were white-throated sparrows, which are usually only around for a single day on their way north. When I compared the picture with the book, I realized it was a chipping sparrow. I was still happy to see them, but they will be around all summer.

A chipping sparrow

The ground squirrels came out of hibernation when it was warm. When the weather turned cold last week, they had to fluff out their fur to stay warm.

A fluffy 13-stripe ground squirrel

A pair of robins has been hanging around the deck, but I have not seen any activity in the nest from last year. This robin at the bottom of the deck stairs seems to be guarding the area. I think Terry knocked the nest down in previous years. I wonder if one can prevent robins from nesting by leaving the old nest. If true that would be useful information. I’ll just watch and wait.

A robin stands guard at the bottom of the deck stairs

I made osso beefo for Easter dinner. I have a good recipe for slow-cooker osso bucco (braised veal shanks), but I use beef shanks which are easier to come by and taste as good if not better. Hilda made polenta, and the dinner was enjoyed by all.

Osso beefo

I also made some cinnamon swirl bread this week. It is very good with cream cheese. I gave one of the loaves to Hilda. She made French toast with it. I never thought of that.

Cinnamon swirl bread

The parts to our new high tunnel arrived on a semi Thursday.

The delivery of the high tunnel

The shipping weight was 1320 pounds, and at least 1200 pounds was in one 4’ x 9’ box. The other box fit easily in the Gator. The big box couldn’t be budged, so we had to open the box and unload it onto Terry’s pickup one pipe at a time.

Unloading the big box

In this photo, the first box is on the pallet to the left of the Gator with some of the plastic covering on top, and the contents of the big box are in the pickup bed.

The high tunnel parts to the left of the Gator on a pallet and loaded in the back of the pickup

After lunch, Terry and I laid out the pipes on the lawn by the site of the high tunnel, matching everything up by shape.

All the pipes for the high tunnel

And Friday it snowed.

Friday morning, more snow

The male goldfinches are almost all gold. This one is probably not too happy about the snow but is glad I finally got my feeder filled.

Goldfinch in the snow

By 11:00, the snow had all melted. It wasn’t supposed to get cold again, but it was 27°F again this morning. Nothing we can do about it except have faith that it will get warm and stay warm sometime.