20,000

 Working in the garden, I get quite a few steps.  By the time Amy and I went for a walk this afternoon I was over 9000 steps.  Our walk was over four miles.  Today marks the eighth month in a row that I have achieved my 10,000 step goal every day.  To celebrate, I doubled my step count for today.  

Other happy things for the day:

• My friend, Amy, visited and we went for a walk.  The weather was spring-like with temperatures in the mid to upper 60 degree range.  We may get snow at the end of the week which is also spring-like around here.

• We had breakfast for dinner.  Keziah spent a few minutes looking for maple syrup before stating that we would need to be frugal with our syrup usage tonight.  To this I was able to respond, "No, we don't".  Then I went up to my bedroom and found my emergency maple syrup stash.  Doesn't everyone have one of those?  
• I dug and added soil and watered and planted two different kinds of peas in the garden.  Fingers are crossed that this year the garden will produce better than last year.
• Peppermint stick ice cream.

Sunset.

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Currently listening to: Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer.

Stay safe.

Bluet

 To my pleasant surprise, some of the zinnia we planted the other day are already sprouting.  I'm hoping that this year the things I plant will grow better than last year.  

Just two or three so far.
Trust me, they are there.

Other things I am happy about today:

• This gorgeous tree is out by a nearby art school.  

It might be a magnolia,
I'm not sure.

• Cats are adorable as they sit by the door watching the birds go by.

• On Saturday we noticed some bluets were out.  I found more today.  If my memory is correct, Mom and her sister used to call them pissabeds.

• Sometimes walking through the back property I see something and notice something new about it.  There is a rotting stump that I am sure has been there all along but today it looked different.  The angle I saw it from maybe gave it a different appearance.  I decided to take a closer look.  It turns out that it was once part of a fence.

It was the different shapes that caught my eye.

Getting closer I realized that it was not
 a completely natural formation.
It is possible that it is a fence pole or
a tree that grew around the parts of a fence
or a tree used as a fence that grew around the parts where the wire is.
There is wire coming out of it and it is 
rotting in interesting ways.

• Soon there will be more green.

☮

Currently listening to: Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer.

Stay safe.

Tap

 It was eleven in the evening, I was sitting down trying to put together my thoughts to write this.  Suddenly I realized that I hadn't reached my step goal yet for the day.  It was midnight, my step goal reached, I had a beginning.  Tuesday, if I can continue to reach my step goal, will mark eight months of reaching the 10,000 step goal every day.  Other things that I am happy about from Sunday:

• Zed and I went shopping today and picked up mulch and replacement light bulbs for the cellar seedlings.  Most of them are doing well, the bulb going out was a surprise.  I'm thankful that I remembered to go into the cellar when I did or they may have been without the light for much longer.  

I planted more geraniums on the sixth
and they are already sprouting!

• On the porch this morning I noticed that the petunias are starting to bloom.

• The roses have been pruned and I spread some mulch around them.  

This is what they looked like a few days ago.

Today they are a bit neater looking.  
I think the green coming up by the forsythia might be hyacinth.

• Late this afternoon we all went for a long drive.  I don't remember the last time I was in Massachusetts, but we went there today.  A friend rented out a movie theatre and about twelve or thirteen-ish of her friends went, socially distanced, and watched her DVD of Singing in the Rain on the big screen.  The movie was fun, I don't remember the last time I saw that movie... it might have been when we still had a black and white TV.  It was Gideon's introduction to tap dancing.  He seemed to enjoy the movie too.  This was another small step at getting used to being social again.  I'm fine with just one or two people, but more and it is hard.  Being in a theatre with only a few people was good.  I should have taken tap dancing when I was a kid, oh, well.

From the ride... a lake.

A solar farm.

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Stay safe.

It is after one in the morning... maybe I should sleep...

Daffodils

 It turns out that staying up late playing Minecraft with TF last night and spending most of the day outside today makes me very tired.  Just when TF and I were getting ready to close up our games for the night, an opportunity presented itself and we ended up playing for about another two hours.  It was fun and happened after midnight, so counts for a happy thing for today.  Other happy things are:

• The daffodils and forsythia are blooming.

• A person we know from the SCA came over today to give us a consultation on some of our plantlife.  She showed us the best ways to prune the fruit trees and then we had a lovely walk on the property and visited for quite a while outside.  She may have convinced Zed to get rid of most of the autumn olive trees and some of the Norway maples.  A few others as well.  She agrees that the witch tree is most likely an oak.  

• After she left I took a nap.
• I walked around the property again later by myself.  This time I walked the two loops for about a mile distance.  It is almost time to bring the lawn mower or weed wacker back there.  I had the GoPro with me and took a short video with some distant birdsong and traffic.  
• Two more friends visited in the evening.  It was great to see everyone.  

This was supposed to be the skyline, 
but there is the bonus of one of our visitors.

• During the day some of the tree buds opened.

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Stay safe.

Small bits of Productivity

 My brain or body isn't where I need it to be to get up early to get outside now that the weather is getting warmer.  I still want to stay inside until I think it is warmer.  By then, it is way warmer and the first part of my day has not been productive.  Tomorrow we have someone coming by around ten.  That means I have to be motivated, right?  The productive things that kept me happy today are:

• The roses are now more raked out.  I'm going to have to get in there to pull out a bunch by hand.  That is an early morning job with long sleeves.  Oddly, I am looking forward to it.  I'll prune the roses at the same time.
• Gideon helped me, for a few minutes, in planting some zinnia seeds.

• I cleaned up another six or eight feet of the area beside the garden that I have been working on.

Before.

After.
It looks much better in real life.
If we get that far, this will become a 
pathway with grapes growing over it,
like an arbor.

• There was a nice walk (about two miles) to finish my outdoor time.  

☮

Currently listening to: Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer.

Stay safe.

Planting the Raspberry Bush.

 Yesterday's attempt at using the axe to cut a branch was more than what my body was prepared for.  My list of things to do today did not get completed because I took many breaks.  Breaks are important though, as was the nap I took.  Other things I am happy about:

• Keziah put the swings and hammocks up today.  Gideon has a new swing, just for him.

• I took a piece of earth, dug a hole in it, added some things (like manure, fresh potting soil and water) and then the raspberry plant.  This took most of the day because of breaks, but it is done!

Untamed earth.

A hole that is larger than needed.
I wanted to loosen up the nearby soil
and remove some weeds and rocks.

That stick will hopefully become a raspberry bush.

• Zed and I went for a nice walk.  We are working out a plan to get the trails a little more manicured on the property.

We walked a little over a mile.

• Keziah and Zed got their first covid vaccines today.  

☮

 Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Stay safe.

National Walking Day

 This afternoon my friend, Amy, let me know that today is National Walking Day.  Thank you, Amy.  This was after I walked from home to Home Depot and logged four miles.  At Home Depot I got the poles I need to fix the post hole digger that we got last year at a Habitat for Humanity Restore.  There were a couple other things that we picked up, which is why Keziah came to get me.  Rather than walking home from Home Depot, I got a ride and was able to put more time into working outside this afternoon.  The four mile walk and the following are my happy things for today:

• There was one intersection that I was concerned about crossing on my walk this morning.  It was the one closest to home that has no walk signals or crosswalks. Thankfully it wasn't as bad as I anticipated. 
• Most of the walk was on a busy state route.  The prettiest part was going over a small river, the Soucook River.

• There were some budding trees that I did a quick walk-by picture of.  I don't know what they were... maybe I should have looked closer.

• After getting home and having lunch I decided to sharpen the axe.  It never got as sharp as I wanted it.  I got through about half the branch I wanted to cut and gave up.  Tried sharpening it some more and then decided that I needed to find some different tools for the job.  Sharpening axes and using the axe to cut branches (and not firewood) is a new thing for me.  Even though the result isn't what I hoped, I still feel a sense of accomplishment.

Before sharpening it was pretty rusty.

This is just a little bit of sharpening.

After sharpening I started chopping the branch off 
one of the fallen trees.

This is as far as I got before deciding the axe
needed more sharpening.

• Then I tackled the post hole digger.  Totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product.

• I also moved plants around, planted tomato seeds and marigold seeds, and weeded around the blueberry bush and strawberries a little.  I didn't do too much around the berries because there needs to be mulch or some other cover for the ground.
• Keziah got home from getting groceries and told me to go look at the sunset.  Apparently it was prettier five minutes earlier.  

Sunset.

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

   -- Learning about planting trees.  Did you know that nut trees can kill evergreens?

Wash your hands.