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We got our blast of cold for the week, right on schedule. Joyce decided she wanted to try to salvage the apple tree blossoms so she, Chris and I were out in the cold wind and drizzle wrapping it with some material she bought to cover garden beds. We were worried that our efforts wouldn’t stand up to the wind but they did. Time will tell whether it was enough to save the apple crop. I think some apple pie in a few months would be a just reward for braving the elements like we did but we all know life isn’t fair.
John Henry has been staying in the tractor, the poor hen-pecked thing. I’m not sure he minds. There is a loft in the tractor and he gets right up in there at night. That was a relief to Joyce because she now doesn’t feel the need to put a tarp over the tractor to give him some privacy. Wind made the tarp a hassle and wind is a common feature of our landscape.
Jill and her little women made the trip to Amarillo so she could participate in a training exercise with Kari. Joyce had to wrangle Vivian all day Saturday so I worked on the garden by myself. In spite of that, I finished dressing the last row. Hard to say who had the tougher job. Now all we have to do is figure out how to water the planter boxes.
Wild onions have taken over the pasture. We’ve been trying to keep them from spreading but it isn’t easy. Neither Roundup or Weed-Be-Gone seems to affect them. The only suggestions I’ve been able to find is to keep them cut off. This is the time of year they flower so now would be a good time to interdict their reproductive process. Joyce has spent some time cutting them off with the scissors and I’ve chopped with a hoe. That’s feasible for those in other parts of the place where there are just a few here and there but it isn’t for the pasture so I got out my weed whacker and had at them. In past years I’ve used the mower but while that is much faster and less work, it doesn’t cut them off at the ground, which I feel not only eliminates the blossoms and thus the seeds but limits the feeding of the bulbs so that maybe they prosper less. As a consequence I hope over time they’ll get discouraged and leave. The weed whacker worked pretty well but they area to trim was so large my arms were pretty tired by the time I quit for supper. I didn’t finish but I should be able to next time I get a chance to work on them. The question remains whether they will try to put back out and so require trimming again. They die back to the ground when warm weather arrives so to be successful we will have to keep them trimmed off until then.
Recently I watched a pretty good movie. The main characters were two eight-year old boys. It was a foreign flick, Hungarian I think, but it was in English. It was poignant but didn’t end well, I’m afraid. I would recommend it anyway. It was called The Boy In Stripped Pajamas.