This time last year I had corn up. This year farmers are over two weeks behind due
to all the rain and a bad cold spell we had the end of March with snow
flurries. April 10, the temperatures were in the eighties. Tennessee
River Valley
weather forecasters have a fit trying to guess what the weather is going to do.
The redbuds and dogwoods, two wing
silverbells and yoshino cherry trees are blooming. The daffodils are finishing up and the iris
is just starting. This time last year my
peonies were in bloom. This year they are up about six inches.
Last weekend I watched
a fertilizer spreader tractor raising dust as it went across the field in front
of my house. A couple of hours later it
was pouring down rain as a planter rushed across the field until the rain made
it too gummy to continue.
Eastern Bluebirds are making their nests. I replaced two boxes the wild woman on a John
Deere knocked off with the finishing mower last summer. Right after I installed them, I noticed a
couple checking out the new digs.
Wednesday of this
week, the temperatures were in the eighties.
I plowed up my garden and planted a short row of corn. My hairdresser asked me the next day what my
definition of a short row. Twenty four
feet is a good short row for me and he agreed.
He said his Dad used to tell him to go hoe his short rows and they were
a couple of hundred feet long. A long
row was all the way across the field and back.
Thursday storms rolled
through and I had another 1.77 inches of rain. We lucked out and the severe weather hit east
of us. I don’t know if my corn will come up through standing water now. I’ll probably be replanting later. Friday’s
temperatures were over twenty degrees lower. Here it is the middle of April and I’m cranking
up the heat.
The Hooligans fear of
thunder since they were shot hasn’t gotten any better. While I was at work during the storm, they
went through the screen on my screen porch, tore out a window screen on the
house and on the fench doors trying to get in the house. I’m surprised that they didn’t set off the
bugler alarm. The cruel things that
humane do to a dog have lasting effects on them. I’m still accessing the damage. I give them a melatonin pill when I’m at home
to calm them down.
Locally Saturday we
had our Earth Day Festivities and Master Gardener’s garden tour of nine
gardens, a wildflower walk and historical walking tours in Florence,
Sheffield and Tuscumbia. The
walking tours are running each Saturday in April and are good for educating
about our historical structures in the area, which we are blessed with. I decided to do the garden tours and go to
the Earth Day festivities when finished even though I needed to do some serious
weeding in my flower beds. I finally mowed the yard Friday afternoon after
work, picked up the hay and hauled to the compost pile to make me feel better
about going on the tour. Then I worked on weeding my flower bed along
the driveway between the front walk and house. By dark I had a pile lying on the driveway large enough to make a bale
of hay. Patches used it as a bed for a
couple of days until I hauled it off to the compost pile.
I set up on the back
steps and got a few bird pictures and heard my first hummer until the Hooligans
came thundering up and scared everyone away. I left the house at 9:30 and left
the last house at 6 PM. Needless to say
since the Earth Day celebration ended at 5 PM, I didn’t make it. I needed to pick up some old windows to redo
my greenhouse.
Levi was glad to see
me get home; somehow he had gotten his front leg under his collar and was
hopping around on three legs. I talked
to Mom after I got home and she said that Patches was lying on the driveway
close to the house most of the day and thought it strange and wondered if she
was sick. I told her she was taking
advantage of the pile of weeds and was taking a nice snooze on it. I guess it’s like sleeping newly mowed hay patch.
