Spring Work

The sky was so clear on the drive home from work tonight, with the waxing moon high above. The past 2 days have been beautiful! Such an odd change to be at work in a hospital after a few days off.

Yesterday, I cleared raspberry canes from the flower bed beside the house, around outbuildings and under the sweet cherry trees. I made a big burn pile in the garden, where we burned some brush last year. I broke apart a big, old apple tree that had been laying in the brambles under the cherry trees and put it on top of the brambles. Then I took a mattox and dug up a few rotted tree stumps from long-gone fruit trees, to make the lawn easier to mow, and added them to the pile. We are going to have to have a cook-out now. I got the riding mower out, and mowed everywhere I cleared, plus over the asparagus beds. I can't believe how much better it looks! I was so busy the past 2 summers that everything got so overgrown, the place looked almost abandoned.
After that, Bruce and I drug used lumber from the ante-room (milk room) we disassembled with my brother's help from the barn last fall, that has been leaning against the barn and hay bailer all winter, up to the delapidated chicken house, and set up shop to pull nails there. The roof and 2 walls are the only good parts left of the chicken house. I removed the 3 windows that were still intact, and put them in the barn.

We ordered 25 Rhode Island Red chicks that will come in April. If that isn't motivation to fix up the chicken house or rebuild a new one, I don't know what is.

Well, this morning, after all that work, I found I could barely move to get out of bed. But I did, and I even made it through a night of work. I didn't know clearing brambles could cause that much aching, but Bruce reminded me that I had been dragging trees and stumps across the yard.

The problem with doing work like that is that you see how much more there is to do. For instance, I have not cleaned my gutters out for 3 years. There are small trees growing in them. The springhouse needs dug out. I stuck to the brush-clearing, but I did drag a ladder to the porch for the next sunny day. Maybe if those are sugar maples growing in the gutter, I'll transplant them...