sallymomsprouts

Yesterday was the 5 month anniversary of my first real blog post dated Halloween. I like the idea of having Halloween as my anniversary. And so today I begin my 6th month. It's hard to remember a time before blogging. It began as a means to keep Jerome a part of what I'm up to here without him. And the side effects have been a grand surprise. I've really enjoyed it, and I've met such lovely people as a result.
It's been a long while since my last entry. Not having access to my computer while Anne and I traveled over her birthday meant I wasn't really able to blog in the way I would have liked. And coming and going rattles my brain, not to mention my emotions. Worse yet, the spring "mental tornado" season has had me in its grip and it's been hard to shake free.
This morning we woke to Mother Nature's idea of an April Fool joke. I really love snow, believe me, but I was completely ready to put it all behind me for a nice long while.

Fortunately, by late afternoon it had all melted.

Yesterday we worked all afternoon on preparations for our new orchard. That meant raking and clearing a large portion of meadow along the southern border of the plot we had marked, hauling all the rakings to our brush pile, staking and running a string along the borders to the 4 corners. Next we remeasured and marked the potting shed garden, to be a place of herbs and flowers and whimsy.
We also began sowing vegetable and flower seeds. Here is Anne preparing the little pop up  "pots" that will allow us to handle the sprouting babies without disturbing their roots.

And here is a shot of our new grow light arrangement.

There are two stands each with 3 shelves 48 inches wide. The lights are hanging shop light fixtures each fitted out with a cool and a warm spectrum T8 energy efficient tube. The entire system is on a timer, totaling 16 hours of light. So as not to overtax the fixtures, the timer shuts off the lights for a half hour break twice, and 7 hours of no light during the night. The lights hang from chains which will allow us to raise them as the plants grow. Each tray holds 50 "pots" and we have completed 8 trays so far!

Needing a break from "farming" we each took time today to work on other things. Anne has been painting and I assembled a new pussy willow wreath with cuttings from my city garden.
Before:

And after:

The wreath is destined for our new front door. All 4 of our new doors are finally scheduled to be installed next week, weather permitting.  I can't wait to share them with you.
Happy April, no fooling.