Today I spent 5 hours going to an Italian Catholic funeral. I went with my husband and inlaws. I really wanted us to drive seperately so we could skip the meal and run some errands, but my husband and his siblings don't like their parents to drive places by themselves, and the brother who normally does that for them didn't want to go. So we did the deed. It was my husband's sister's husband's family. They are good people, and I sort of felt like the kids needed us to be there. I am a Scottish/Irish/English/Welsh Protestant, and I was the tallest woman there. There were about 3 men who were taller than me. I don't do the cross thing during prayers, which was done about 100 times throughout the funeral and dinner. I did finally figure out that you go to the left first when you do that.
When we got home, it was the most beautiful sunny day we've had so far this year. I cleaned out the duckling cage, and put the duckies in a bigger cage outside to enjoy the sunshine and a pie pan full of water. My husband put a bigger dog dish full of water in and took my "little" pie pan out. He discovered that when duckies are startled, they all get into the water. It was so funny, that we startled them several times. But when you put food in the cage, they get back out of the water.
Then I walked up on the hill onto the long ridge of our farm to dig up some cut-leaf (evergreen) blackberries to transplant near the house. I tried doing it last year, but they died. Someone in a forum told me that now was the time of year to do it, and that it was best to dig up cane ends that had tipped into the soil before they leafed. He told me how to tell the different kinds too, but when I got up there, last year's dried leaves were still on the cut-leafs, so it was easier than I had thought. I couldn't find any tipped ends. But I found several plants. I tried digging one of those up, but the tap root was HUGE, and went all over the place, and I ended up breaking it in several places. So I walked down into the woods on the other side of the hill, where coyotes and deer live, and 3 bad bulls roam when they get out. I was looking to see if I could maybe find a small wild dogwood tree to transplant instead. I didn't find one, but I had fun.
I didn't know it, but my husband had come up to join me, had found my bucket with the broken tap root in it, with the briar snippers and shovel beside it, and had gone into the woods looking for me. He never called for me. When I came out of the woods further along the ridge and walked back towards my bucket, I heard a lot of rustling in the woods, and I was sure that it was the big bull coming out to see what was going on. I was trying to devise a good escape plan in case it might chase me, but it usually doesn't chase people. But then I saw the whitish cowboy hat, and my husband emerged with my Newfoundland dog on leash. I asked why he didn't call for me, and he laughed. He thought it was more fun to find me his way.
We went over to the pasture side of the ridge and hunted there, and he found a great big cut-leaf blackberry bush with a bunch of canes tipped into the dirt, with nice, small roots. I snipped them off a few inches up the cane, dug them up and filled up my 5 gallon paint bucket with dirt balls with canes sticking out. Then I had to carry it back. My husband helped by carrying the shovel - he had the dog leash in the other hand.
When we got back to the house, I planted the blackberries in the far end of the garden, and some by the front porch, between the iris'. My husband raked the turned over dirt in the garden, while I dug some beds for the fruit shrubs I ordered. They haven't come yet, but I wanted to mix manure and dirt to get the beds ready. I have ordered paw paw trees, currants, gooseberries, red raspberries and rhubarb. I went to the manure pile in back of the barn and filled a wheelbarrow full of well-composted sheep/goat manure. The goats can never figure out why I'm taking their poop when I do that - they just watch and tilt their heads sideways. My husband had to help me get it up to the garden. After we got all the manure into the beds and the garden, I planted where he had raked. I planted greens (lettuces, mustard and watercress), turnips and radishes from very old seed packets. The mosquitos are very thick this year. I will have to remember to put some insect repellant on next time I work outside!
My daughter fixed kielbasa for supper while we worked. It was very good. Now there is Farm Bureau meeting tonight. My daughter is bringing the duckies back in. I'd better get out of these clothes and into something nice...to go complain about the state of farming in this country with some of the neighbors who still farm. It has been a good day.
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