Busy days with lots to write about

I follow Leigh Tate's blogs 5 Acres & A Dream and Leigh's Fiber Journal. Her last update of the first one had lots of updates and no photos. Point taken. One does not have to share photos, as much as one may like to. Since transferring photos still isn't possible, I decided to follow Leigh's lead, as much for my own record-keeping as for you. So here goes.

On May 23 I shared the photos I took on Mother's Day, partly out of frustration that I couldn't share the photos I took on the 23rd of Adelman Peony Gardens. We went with friends on a perfect Sabbath afternoon and it felt like being in the Garden of Eden. 

Rick's sister and younger niece flew in Sunday night, May 24. They stayed with Rick's mom, but we all spent Memorial Day together, first enjoying fresh strawberries over waffles at my MIL's, then going to Schreiner's Iris Gardens. We mentioned needing to get hay in our barn, and bless their horse-lovin' hearts, the visitors offered their help. So the next evening the four of us unloaded two trailers full of hay; Rick and I got a third load of hay in the next evening, and the last half-load in today.

And where was Brian? Taking it easy inside. On the 21st he punched a door and both broke and dislocated bones in his hand/wrist; he had surgery on it last Thursday. 😒

Between Friday, May 22, and today I got our garden in. Rick was going to amend the garden soil with compost but I got tired of waiting. I purchased some starts (six tomatoes, two sweet peppers, two eggplant, two six-packs of assorted salad greens, three basil, two curly parsley), was given some starts (two cape gooseberries, two cherry tomatoes, five assorted cucumbers), purchased some seeds (Detroit Dark Red Beets, Tendergreen Improved Bush Beans), and used seeds from my stash (Scarlet Nantes Carrots, Armenian Pale Green Cucumbers, Long White Zucchini of Palermo, Tricolor Zucchini, Butternut Squash). The salad greens and herbs went into the stock tank on the east side of the house; the rest into our little garden plot on the west side of the house. Oh, and Rick finally planted my poor potted fig tree up in our 'orchard' – and he's even watered it a couple times.

Recently one of our hens died after acting poorly for several days. One of my older ewes has also been ailing; I'm hoping the antibiotics we have her on now will turn her around. In spite of the medical problems the humans have racked up, all has been quiet with the animals' health (other than Lance's asthma flare-ups) for the last year and a half at least. Guess it couldn't last forever.

That's the update, sans photos, from . . .

Retreat and advance

Blogging time has been getting away from me this spring. I don't think I have anything to post about and then look behind me to see things piling up, like the annual women's retreat last weekend and today's agility match.

We couldn't have had nicer weather at the coast. It was windy Friday evening when I headed out for my first beach walk, but I keep a headband in my jacket so was fine. We had the same house that our women's ministries likes to rent every year, and my room, with three roommates, was quiet and comfortable. We had good food and a good speaker. I walked on the beach several times and took as many walks through the neighborhood, where I could wear my sandals and give my infected toe a break. I collected a bag full of 'holey shells' for wire-wrapping, and took lots of pictures. I even played ping pong Saturday night!

my bed was on the right in the back

Friday evening

Saturday morning

a flock of brown pelicans were fun to watch

looking over the neighborhood from the coast-most dune

zoomed in on our house

SO many singing white-crowned sparrows!

At home there have been pretty skies and rainbows, flowers and a feline – and an impressive gopher snake Brian found while strimming (trigger warning for those who need it):

it was hiding in this fallen birdhouse

doing its best pit viper impression

Today's agility trial didn't have a photo booth and it certainly wasn't much to write home about; I think it was our worst ever. Poppy had uncontrollable zoomies in the first two classes; we managed to Q in the last two. And in the first class, while I was trying to get her back on track, I slipped and fell, landing in a vaulter's position with one leg straight out in front of me and the other bent back – more than one of my knees has bent in quite some time. I had to have a lot of help to stand up and hobble out of the ring, but was able to walk it off and run three more courses. I did ice it when I got home, but I think it's fine. I hope things go better in two weeks at our next trial!

That's it for now from . . .