Fence Panels and March Weather

March came in with bitter cold temperatures and indeed high winds of 40 MPH plus.  I know you folks in Kansas think that just a gentle breeze but here in Nebraska that’s a hefty wind.  With a high of 29 degrees that day, the wind chill was brutal. I awoke again this morning to howling winds and snow covered the ground.  The temperatures will be 31 for the high today and slowly warming with a high 57 on Thursday.  All this is typical March weather for Nebraska and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  It just makes Spring that much more enjoyable when it does actually arrive.

I have managed even with the typical March roaring lion weather to work on my fence panels. This was one of the nice warm 50 something days. I now have 30 feet built.  That’s one side of the 30 foot square area that I’m building a fence around.  This is just one panel of that side.  The very next day it started raining and then last night snow.  It puts a kibosh on any progress on that project for awhile.

Yea, the first day above 50 degrees came three days ago and made it a good time to begin the painting.  The primer is Kilz exterior primer.  I knew the wood in pallets would be really dry but it looks like one gallon of primer will cover just one eight foot panel.  Of course that’s both sides and a double coat.  My free fence panels just got expensive.  I decided that I would paint a background color of grass green before painting the name of the gardens, Terra Nova Gardens across the top of the fence and paint grass blades across the bottom of the panels with a lighter color green. At twenty dollars a gallon it will take $80 to buy just the primer for one side of the fence.  The green paint is about $30 a gallon but hopefully after sealing up the wood with primer, it won’t take so much of the green and green only needs to be on the front side of the panels.

Here’s my little shamrock babies.  I took them outside in the 50 degree temperatures for a couple hours to let them enjoy the fresh air.  There’s a couple tulips coming up in the background in the very grassy flower bed.  I really need to do spring cleanup of all my flower beds.  I lost track of which side is broccoli and which side is cabbage.  They all look exactly alike at this stage.  They are still looking really healthy.  I just might actually produce some cabbage and broccoli.  That would be a first for me.  If the cabbage does well, it will be made into sour kraut.  That’s another first.  If the broccoli does good it will be frozen for Bradley to eat during the summer. This year is filled with first time things.