The first few warm days after winter are rough on old folks.  We spent the entire day working and tomorrow, probably neither one of us will be able to move a muscle.

Vince spent a little while this morning working on the new water line on the side of the house, then he tilled up one side of the garden and made some trenches for me to plant a few things.  Then he moved the grapes that were in the garden and tilled up that area. Bless his heart . . then he dug the holes for the new apricot trees.  I planted about 400 onions . . don’t ask me why . . and then I planted four packs of sweet peas.  Then I dug some carrots for a neighbor while she picked some chard and lettuce.  Then another neighbor came over and I dug some carrots and picked some lettuce for her.

You know what’s funny?  In the past when I’ve lived in neighborhoods, I’ve never had neighbors who visit.  Here, my one neighbor that I see often lives over half a mile from my house.  Today, she came over three times!  I love hearing her little RTV coming down my driveway.  First they came over because they had gone to town and had picked up our apricot trees.  The second time she came over was to bring an onion planting gizmo that makes holes in the ground for planting my 400 onions.  She had just finished planting 600 onions . . don’t ask me why!  And, she was making a cake and needed whipping cream and neither of us had any but I thought she could use Half & Half will a little sour cream.  She did and that worked and the third time she came over was to bring cake and home grown peaches!

Cake & Peaches

And, I forgot that today Vince also cut down a bunch of cedar trees and piled them up to dry for a few days so he can chip them.

Vince Working

Tomorrow . . hopefully we will not work quite so hard but it is very nice to have accomplished so much today.

Of all the things I love . . cooking, knitting, quilting and gardening . . I think gardening is my very favorite.  That’s what I’m saying today when it’s about 65º and sunny.  In July and August, when it’s 110º and the sun is beaming down  . . I’m betting gardening will not be my favorite hobby.

Tilling for the Peas

Today Vince is out tilling the unplanted spots so I can get peas, onions and brussels sprouts planted.

The soil in the garden spot is so amazing.  Yesterday when I was in town I bought some apricot trees but couldn’t get them home in the Highlander.  We were going to go back in the pickup and get them this morning but our neighbors were going to town so they said they would bring them home for us.  They had owned all this property before selling it to the folks we bought it from and they couldn’t believe that we hadn’t done anything to the soil here . . it’s just like we found it.

Soil

Having good soil makes such a difference in the life of a gardener.  We would have to work so much harder to have a decent garden if we didn’t have good soil to start with.

I dug some of the most beautiful carrots for the neighbors this morning.  Vince said he wanted some to munch on so I’m going out to dig more and wash them for him since he’s working so hard! 

Lettuce

Just look at that lettuce!  It keeps producing and everywhere I find an empty stop, I plant more lettuce.  It should make well til July or August and then by September, I should be able to start planting lettuce again.

Lettuce closeup

It’s real hard to buy grocery store lettuce after having this good stuff.

The neighbor is still trying to get a witcher out to find them and us a spot to put in a garden well that we can run off a solar panel.  I’ll be so happy to get a second well and take some of the stress of our current well, which we’re using for the garden and all the fruit trees.

Back out to the garden I go . .

After reading through the comments last night about the TV, I want to say that I have no agenda.  I am not advocating that because we’re turning off our Dish, you should too.  It just plain doesn’t matter to me if you have it or not!  If you love TV and feel like it’s a good use of your time and money . . great!  There are plenty of things we do with our time and money that other folks would think weird or a waste.  Whether you have zero channels or 10 channels or 1,000 channels . . if it makes you happy, you do not need to justify your position.  For us, this has nothing to do with money.  Yes, we’ll be saving $900 per year or we’ll be spending $900 per year on something else.  The money isn’t going to make a lot of difference in our budget.

As far as us having Netflix or TV, it’s something we’ve decided to try . . no TV but yes, we’ll have Netflix.

On this blog, I tell you just about everything we do; everything we cook; everything we plant; every quilt I make; every quilt I think about making.  Why should whether we have TV or not be any different?  I’m simply saying what we’re doing.  I’m not asking for your approval.  I’m not asking you to do the same thing . . I’m merely stating what we’re doing!

We’re not taking our TVs out and chopping them up with the ax.  If in 5 days or 10 days or 2  years, we decide we’d like to have it back, we make a phone call and they’re here to re-install it . . simple as that!

I will continue to report on here about how we’re making it or not making it without TV.  It’s going to be a challenge but it’s a challenge we both are willing to take.