After two years of drought Joyce told herself unless we got decent moisture this winter she wasn’t going to bother with a garden this summer. Without some help from Mother Nature it is just too hard to get things to grow you see. Well that’s easy to say in August or September but then comes along a mild winter day to undermine one’s resolve. So, yesterday we fired up the chipper and finished the garden cleanup started some weeks ago. It’s unusual to have that chore done this early. I want to redo the rows by replacing the metal edging with 2X8 treated lumber. Last winter we made the mistake of letting the chickens in the garden. We could have hardly done otherwise since we didn’t have it fenced off. It was a treat for the chickens but they scratched a lot of the dirt out over metal edging which sort of defeated it’s purpose. Also, the edging has a tendency to get pushed out by the dirt and in places it lays so flat it doesn’t keep the dirt in or the grass out. The 2X8s will stand up considerably higher and keep things a little more orderly, just in case someone does decide to plant a garden and having the garden cleaned up early will give me more time to work on that project before planting time, not that anyone will do any planting.
Abigail had a game Friday evening and two Saturday. I went to the Friday game and the early Saturday game but missed the afternoon tipoff. Between the Saturday games, Abigail got a new pair of basketball shoes. She had been wearing just running-type shoes which caused her to slip and slide on a basketball court. She came down to the shop to show me the new shoes. They looked like a big improvement. It’s fun to watch the games this year. The girls are another year older and the games are more basketball and less rugby scrum. They even pass the ball now and then. The Abster sticks her nose in there and comes down with some rebounds now and then and does a good job of getting the ball out to a teammate rather than having it taken away from her.
Over pizza Friday night Chris told me all his bees were dead. I asked about them since we’ve such cold weather since Christmas. Saturday he went to clean the dead out of the hive and found that there were still some live bees. I’m relieved to hear that because I like the idea of having some bees and they aren’t cheap when you have to buy them.
Chris bought a compound bow and showed it to me Friday evening. It’s an impressive rig and it was not easy to pull it back. I wasn’t around when he tried it out but he said it has tremendous force and I don’t doubt it. It may be a bit much for just target practice. A friend of Kari’s suggested he bring it out to their farm and shoot coyotes. Seems they are thinning out her flock of chickens. The drought over the last two years has probably reduced their normal prey and hunger is driving the coyotes to bolder action.