The March Garden

 The best part of March is daffodils.  For each of the first seven years that we lived here, I planted a big box of 500 daffodils on the ranch.  So, now there are thousands of them.  There are daffodils in the garden beds, in the front planter, flanking the bridge and zig-zagging along the stream.  I suppose I have an obsession with daffodils.  They are just so dang easy — plant them and forget about them.  They come back — and multiply — every year.  They are the first flower to emerge in early spring, they are beyond cheerful and smell great.  The perfect flower.

The fruit trees are starting to blossom with the promise of summer fruit.  There were a couple of bees busy in the pear flowers a few days ago.  

The green house is overflowing with plant starts.  There are plants for my garden, of course, but the vast majority are for the Master Gardener Plant Sale in a few weeks.

I have eight varieties of tomato. 

There are three varieties of eggplant and four varieties of peppers.  

And zinnias.  Two varieties of zinnias.  They will not go to the plant sale as it is just veggies and perennials.  These zinnias will be planted in the raised beds with the vegetables.  

Out in the garden, I have a few vegetables just starting or recently transplanted.  There are sugar snap peas because they are so good for snacking when I’m working in the garden.  I also have carrots, beets, chard, and lettuce just poking out of the soil.  

Flash thinks all this working in the garden is crazy.  His idea of spring is napping in the sun. 

Skunked

 Kersey is a very sweet, affectionate and obedient lab.  But she isn’t very smart and she isn’t very fast.  She’s getting up there in age and arthritis has really slowed her down,,, but she was never fast.  Most often, I use two nicknames with her: Old Lady and Dumb Dumb.  Affectionately, of course, because she is looking at me with her big wet brown eyes and slowly wagging her tail from side to side. 

Before we go to bed at night, we take the dogs out to pee.  They normally do their business and then come right back in, ready for bed.  Sometimes, Sage will take off barking at something but she’s never gone long.  Kersey just sniffs the grass, does her thing, and comes back up onto the porch.  A couple nights ago, Sage took off barking in the direction of the compost piles — and Kersey followed.  Sage usually runs off towards the front gate or barn which means she is probably chasing deer.  The compost piles are not a good place — skunks love the compost piles. 

Sage came back pretty quickly and headed for bed.  Kersey did not come back, despite me calling and calling and calling.  Brett came outside and took a turn at calling.  Then he got a flashlight, put on his boots, and headed off in the darkness to find her.  Which he did...by the compost piles.  He brought her into the house and called me over, “take a look and see if you think she got skunked.”  Um, yes.  She had rolled in the compost after getting hit with the oily spray so she was a lovely shade of black where the compost had stuck to the oil.  

We took her to the barn and gave her a bath.  This is the third time that she has been skunked.  She was very pleased with herself.  Thankfully, a mix of baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and dish soap works really well to remove the oil and odor.  I rubbed it onto the top of her head, around her eyes and muzzle, down her back and her left side — she was very thoroughly skunked.  Luckily, we have warm water in the horse wash stall in the barn.  And, I have all ingredients for skunk wash on the shelf because, like I said, she isn’t very smart and this isn’t the first time she’s been skunked.  It didn’t take too long to bathe her, but was not my preferred thing to be doing at 11pm on a cold night. 

And, yes, the house reeked from the brief time Kersey was inside before her bath.  We kept a window open all night and it was cold in the house in the morning.  

Fish Emulsion Mistake

 When I start seeds, I add a bit of fertilizer as an ingredient in my seed starting mix so I don’t worry about feeding the baby plants when they first sprout.  There is also a bit of fertilizer, some compost and worm castings that are added to my potting mix when I move the seedlings up to 4” pots.  Some of these plants will go to the Master Gardener spring plant sale (our big fund raiser for the year) and some will go in my garden.  Regardless of where they end up, I want them strong and healthy with a mass of white roots filling the pot.  So, after the plants have been in their pots for a month or so, I give them a little drink of fish emulsion.  

This morning was the day.  I fertilize on the 15th of the month — I have to pick an easy to remember day otherwise I forget.  Tomorrow, the 15th, we are expecting snow so I did it today.  I put a couple tablespoons of fish emulsion in my watering can and filled it with water.  The lovely smell of fish emulsion filled the greenhouse.  Think tuna.  Both Sage and Acorn appeared at my feet, noses twitching as they tried to locate the fish.  When I watered the little pots, both dogs stood under the bench and licked up the fishy water that leaked through.  

I still had some of the mix in my watering can so I took it out to the garden bed where I have parsley, turnips and bok choy growing.  The dogs were eyeing the planter bed with interest so I made sure they came with me when I left the garden, closing the back gate behind me.  

A few minutes later, I was busy mucking one of the pastures when I realized that Acorn was no longer with me.  I looked over at the garden and there he was — standing in the raised bed, digging like mad, trying to find that fish.  He had gone around to the front gate which was closed, but not latched, and let himself in.  One of the turnips was half-way out and the other plus the bok choy were flung to the side.  I stuck them back in the ground but I don’t have high hopes for their survival.  I think he chomped the roots.  Dang dog.  And stupid me for not latching the front garden gate.

Tex in 2021

 It’s been awhile since I’ve given an update on Tex.  The big red dun still owns the biggest part of my horse heart.  ...funny how so many people and animals can crowd into one heart without it feeling crowded at all.  

Some of you will remember that a number of years ago, when I first started working with Tex, when he became mine, I did quite a bit of liberty work with him.  We even spent a weekend in Sonoma County learning from a renowned trainer there.  At the time, Tex wouldn’t come near me and he was dang hard to catch.  Even with a bucket of treats, Tex was reluctant to come near.  And put on a fly mask?  HA HA HA.  No dice.  

Over time, he’s learned to accept a fly mask and he will come to me in the pasture to be caught.  I’ve made sure that most of the time getting caught means wandering around the ranch with me eating grass and carrots that I’ve hidden.  Its our scavenger hunt and Tex loves it.  In the past couple of years, Tex has come to enjoy being groomed and will stand quietly to be saddled and for the farrier.  When we (rarely) ride, he is relaxed and I always want to stop before he does.  We’ve come a long way.

Tex shares a pasture with Lucy and Luek.  When I am cleaning the pasture, Lucy follows me around begging for attention.  She loves having her withers scratched, or her butt, or her back, or her ears.  She’s big on hugs too.  Tex has always kept to himself.  He wouldn’t run off when I walked by, but he didn’t follow me around either.  

I used to get up at the crack of dawn and race around the pasture, flinging poop into the muck cart, and then racing back out the gate to get ready for work.  It’s taken me awhile to relax about chores, but since retiring I muck after breakfast when the sun is up and has taken the edge off the morning chill.  I enjoy the birdsong, the sunshine, and lingering with the horses.  In the past few weeks, after months of making a point to spend a little time scratching Tex’s withers and rubbing his neck — whether he wanted it or not — Tex has decided that he likes the attention.  Now, he is first to greet me and he follows me almost as much as Lucy.  A couple of times in the past week, he has walked over to me and stood at my shoulder like we used to do for liberty work.  We walked up and down and around a couple trees a few days ago and he never left my side.  He definitely took a bigger chunk of my heart that day.