Farmer’s “To Do” Lists

So the seedlings are chugging along in the grow room, loving the grow lights, and so far nothing has died.  It gives us confidence that we can do anything.  Yes, I know….. it really can’t continue.  Life generally finds a way to keep us humble and for Owl’s Hollow Homestead that beat down comes in the form of a couple large boxes with a greenhouse inside. We are smart people… truly we are!  AND we all have put together IKEA furniture at some point in our lives.  We totally get how to follow a pictograph to put things together.  We have ratchets and screwdrivers of every description, hammers and mallets and washers galore.  Need thingamabobs?, we’ve got plenty….. oh sorry! Still haven’t shaken off the songs from the 5,000 viewings of the Little Mermaid when the kids were young.  Anyway….. the little pictograph on the front of the box shows 2 men and a clock indicating 3 hours….. ya right! With the 4 of us it took 6 hours to get it together, with some of that time being used up to un-layer our clothing as the temperature swung between 5 degrees in the morning to 22 degrees in the afternoon, only to plummet again as soon as the sun crested the mountain.  Your pretty much go through all four seasons every day here right now!  But tada! We have a greenhouse.

But it doesn’t end there…. no, I am learning that each item you tick off on your farmer to do list, that very action creates another action that needs doing!!  Maybe 6 other things.  Since the nice weather was working for us we decided that we should get the interior of the greenhouse prepared – so that soon as they are ready, we can get our lovely plants out of the bedroom and into the ground in the greenhouse.  Farmer to do item #1 was complete the greenhouse, that led to a) remove the top soil in the greenhouse, b) dig down and form pathways through the greenhouse, c) find a way to till the new ground, d) determine the size of beds needed and create them.  Just from that one item!! I am not a stupid girl – so I know what is going to happen after we get to the “create the bed” part of the work….. and it means more work! But ya gotta do what ya gotta do.  We scrape, and we dig, and we till – completely by hand – all of the areas of the greenhouse.  I tell ya – it looks great!  Just waiting for some plants to house!

All those lovely green plants in the bedroom are making us itchy to get some more of our seeds planted in the ground, but the potatoe incident has made us cautious!   So since we can’t do any more planting until we get past that elusive “frost free” date, we turn our attention to the trees and shrubs that we currently have on the property.  The previous owners of the property were elderly and have not been able to look after these for many years. Out come the pruning shears and snippers ( yes we have those too! ) and Chuck takes to the fruit trees to cut them back and help them give us some great fruit this year.   I eyeball all the lilac bushes that we have growing around the property – I love lilacs! I take the same approach to them as Chuck did with the apple trees – hack it back so that we can get more flowers right!??  Did I read anything before I did this?? Nope!  Where does this leave us – Poof! Naked trees and not so bushy bushes! Now what have we done?  Fallon puts money on the certainty that we’ve killed them.  Uuuhhmm maybe? I guess only time will tell!

Is that the neighbours we hear?……. Laughing????