The Wind Was VERY Annoying Today

When I woke up this morning I was happy.....I had gotten quite a bit of work done outside in the past few days and I was looking forward to hitting the garage sales before I went to work again. But then, I sat up in bed and looked outside......and I did not like what I saw....ALL of the row covers were off the beds!

All of that work!!!! All those little tender seedlings, exposed to the wind!!!! I was not a happy camper!!!!!
So instead of going garage saling, I put on my gardening gear and crawled around in the garden for 2 1/2 hours covering things back up and bulking up on weights to hold the row cover down better.  FYI, the pots of rocks didn't last 15 minutes....

What worked best was buckets of water, and, we all know they will stay full!!!!  The ducks will like mucking around in them too...they'll probably be full of dirt and water by the time I empty them.

The only thing good about today's irritation is that it happened while I was home....too many times it happens while I am gone and the garden-sitter has to do it. The wind is expected to keep blowing for a day or two....how will I get things done?

Fresh Spinach

I had fresh Spinach from the garden yesterday....no really! .......I't's true!!!!

It's transplanting time....

All the seedlings are getting tall and leggy, and they're just screaming at me to put them out....trust me....they are....I even hear them in my sleep.

So yesterday, I transplanted the Lettuce and the Spinach....it's a very labor intensive job. As I was planting the spinach I was tidying them off by removing the cotyledons.

cotyledon

 noun    (Concise Encyclopedia)

(Top) Monocotyledon (internal structures of a corn seed with stages of germination). Nutrients are …—© Merriam-Webster Inc.

Seed leaf within the embryo of a seed that provides energy and nutrients for the developing seedling. After the first true leaves have formed, they wither and fall off. Flowering plants whose embryos have a single cotyledon are grouped as monocots, or monocotyledonous plants; embryos with two cotyledons are grouped as dicots, or dicotyledonous plants. Unlike flowering plants,gymnosperms usually have several cotyledons rather than one or two.

It's very difficult to pinch off those tiny leaves when you have gloves on...I was afraid of breaking the fragile plants in half...but then I got a great idea.....

Just EAT them off!!!!! It worked great.....and they were SO YUMMY!!!  The first fresh spinach of the season!!!

I'm going to need more pants..........

Duckscapades

The ducks have been feeling their wild oats lately....they're not being terribly naughty, just funny and annoying. They are everywhere, underfoot, and into everything!  And I'm their absolute favorite person....when I show up with a shovel or a bucket or a tool, they just come running, because everything I do in the garden is FUN!!!

One day they noticed that I had the net gate open and they ALL charged out and attacked the coveted inaccessible rhubarb patch.....

Yum, Yum.....fresh diggings....

Eventually they wandered way too far from the garden...excited about new territory.  It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye, so.....back in you go!

If I leave anything.....and I mean anything, out in the garden, they are into it...

But I forgive them, because they are laying LOTS of eggs!!!

16 hens laid 16 eggs, 2 days in a row!!!!

Most of them are laid conveniently in the hutch......although, what is with this nest formation?

 Some of the sneakier ducks are still waiting until I let them out and then they try to hide their eggs from me...

Every day is an Easter Egg hunt.

And someone is being especially accommodating... although I love the colors of their eggs, I've always wished that they were brown.....so someone started laying brown eggs for me!

 -Well, brownish anyways!

Silly ducks.

The Boat Work Is Over.......

For me it is, anyways......but for poor Mr. Adams - it never ends!  The groceries are on board, the bunks have clean bedding, the paperwork is in order (I think and hope), and last week we hauled the boat out of the water for annual maintenance. Fortunately, Ron and my father-in-law Lyle helped with the haulout this year, so I didn't have to work as hard as I usually do.

Check out who's running the haulout yard now....

It's Carl !!!! He was on the swim team and went to school with Levi....What is the world coming too?
Would you let this kid pick up your boat?

YES!! We would!!  Carl is an alright guy.....very competent and good to work with. Thanks, Carl!

My official duty during the haulout this year, besides meals, was to help dry and mask the waterline for painting.

Now, you may think that is an easy job, but if you've ever hauled out a boat in Sitka during the month of April, you'd understand how difficult it can actually be. It almost ALWAYS rains or snows on us, which makes painting a real challenge. 

First, we dry a short section with a towel, then we dry the same section completely with a hairdryer (while still holding the towel in place to catch more rainwater as it runs down the side of the boat), then we run a line of masking tape about 3 inches above the area to be painted. We put a crease in the masking tape lengthwise so it's stuck to the boat along the top edge, but not along the bottom edge. The creased tape then forces the water to run and drip off the edge of the tape into the air, leaving the boat dry.

(In case you attribute this ingenious technique to me as my own idea.....it's not....I saw another woman do this in the yard years ago and it blew my mind, so we have just copied her amazing idea ever since.) Once the tape is channeling the water away from the boat we can dry the hull more fully with the hairdryer and apply paint. The hull dries quickly because it's fiberglass...if it was wood it would take much longer.

It's interesting to note that our hairdryer has never actually been used on our hair.......

Now that the boat work is done I'm all about planting the garden........There's tons to do, but that's okay....I'd rather work in the garden for a week than one day doing boat work.

The Big Town Of Juneau

Recently, Mr. Adams and I made our annual jaunt to Juneau to load up on supplies. We took the ferry over with the pickup and stayed in a hotel. You see, Sitka does not have a lot of big stores to shop in....one big store in Juneau like Fred Meyer has more merchandise in it that our entire town has in all the stores combined! Shopping is hard work for people that aren't used to it....

Sometimes we would just have to take a break....

And pretend like we are trying out the furniture....

It was fun.......but once we got home......it took 2 days to unload the truck!

The good news is that we have enough supplies for another year!

The In-Laws

Lyle and Lorene are visiting us for 10 days!

It's always wonderful to visit with them....and, as we do with all of our visitors, we immediately put them to work!!!

We've done some fun thing too....but Spring has sprung and there's lots to do!

Hello Kitty

Kitty's winter coat and mane were getting quite impressive...

It was so long that he was getting ice dreads when he was out at night....

So, it was time to do the deed......."Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty......sorry, but it's time....."

Oh dear, the shame.....

Don't worry Kitty, you'll soon be happy we did it...

Really, I promise....

Unforgiven....

 Goodbye, Kitty.....