Friday

Well, the yard is coming along.  I am still out there with the hedge trimmer trying to get the bunch grasses lopped off in time for the spring green up.

I worked on the drip system but I noticed that I still have a few leaks in the south or fruit tree zone so I'll be back at it again this weekend - if the weather holds out.

24 over night but 50 today.  Nice!!!!!!

Cleaned up the goat pen and the horse pen yesterday.

Hubby and I burned the weeds that have blown in along the outside of the fence.  We got a weed burner.  Boy, do I like that thing.  I might have to try it out on the green weeds as they come up this spring.  I'm getting tired of trying to hoe five acres.

Spring is coming at us like a freight train but I think we are doing pretty good.  Hubby got the grapevines pruned and most of the fruit trees.  He still needs to tackle the apple in front of the living room window.  I want to few the world from underneath the branches not through the branches:)

Our trees are still growing and, although a lot of them have a long way to go, it looks like they will put on some size again this year.  We have several pine trees that are hitting 6' tall.  That is progress.

Hubby trapped not one but two gophers out of the fruit tree area.  Those little devils.  I am wondering if a rabbit is in the yard since I see some sort of damage on my cute little popular tree near the goat pen.  I might have to get some chicken wire out there because that tree is only one years old and can't take much nibbling.

The Littlest Hitching Rail

Today has been a fantastic day for birds.

Mockingbird singing on the front fence.

A magpie swooped off the roof and landed in the Feather Reed Grass next to the back patio.  He snatched something and then threw it onto the concrete.  I finally figured out what it was.  One of the super ugly potato bugs.  The magpie was taking the legs off so he could eat it.  Good Magpie.

Meadowlark singing on top of one of the little apple trees.  He moved to the back and serenaded us from one of the goat pen corner posts a little later in the day.

Morning doves and quail coming through the backyard.  One of the quail is announcing that Hubby has come out.  Run my darling wife, run!

I guess we are mostly getting the M birds today:)

Now for the littlest hitching rail.

Isn't that adorable?  This hitching rail is conveniently located near his pen.  The shrub poplar in the background is about five years old and looking pretty good sized.  Yeah!!!

What's the Damage?

So far, the plants don't look too bad and I can't for the life of me figure out why not.  Looks like one more really cold night tonight and then a somewhat cold night the next night.

The biggest casualty seems to be the manifold for the veggie garden/hose complex of irrigation tubing and hoses.  One of the valves froze and then busted.  Fortunately, Hubby can fix that although I have to make into Home Sleezo to buy the part.

One of the forsythia looks a bit unhappy but it was the first to bloom so maybe its just done blooming?  Perhaps I will notice more damage from the big freeze when I get out there tomorrow.  We shall see.

I'll have to go to Carson City on Saturday.

The good news is that I haven't bothered to plant the veggie garden yet.  Peas can take a freeze but a freeze down to 21 would have wiped them out!  I am planning on doing some planting this week coming up.

My tomato babies are doing great.  I haven't been leaving them in the greenhouse overnight but I have put them out there several days so that they get as much sunlight as possible.  I am not really using the greenhouse to its fullest extent this year.  Last year I did annual flowers and it turned out wonderfully but this year I bought perennial flowers that would prefer to be direct seeded.  Oh well, I will simply have to use that greenhouse for fantastic lettuce all the way into winter:)

Bruce had some heavy duty freezing as well in Ohia.  Looks like Raymond had pretty sparkly frost.  He is in Ontario.  That is Canada, don't you know?  He is behind us on spring so I don't think this cold snap quite the agony that it is for Bruce.  Here in the barren desert, we are just starting to see spring so I am hopeful that it won't be a huge set back.

Last year was a minor disaster.  The trees were all leafed out and we got a dip below freezing and that set the trees back about three weeks while they regrouped and tried to shoot out some new leaves.  It took half the summer for some of them to recover.

We had a mild winter and it seemed like the trees kept getting fatter trunks.  I didn't realize that trees kept growing in the winter time.  Deciduous trees, anyway.  The pines, Barker cypress and Rocky Mountain junipers all did really well this winter.  Nice to see us finally getting to a point where we have visible trees.  We have been here 6 1/2 years after all.

Fall

Fall is well on its way in the garden.  The last of the tomatoes are ripening slowly.  It is amazing that we have any tomatoes left at all.  Usually there has been a good frost by now.

The maple trees have really turned a beautiful scarlet color this year in anticipation of dropping its leaves.  The green ashes are all very vibrant yellows.  The mountain ashes are a bright red.

It is quite satisfying to walk around the yard or pull up into the driveway and see the results of 5 years of hard work plainly displayed.  The shrub poplars on the edges of the property are a good 12 feet tall.  The green ashes went from miniature to about 5 feet tall.  One day we will be parking in the shade.

The Barker cypress are another foot taller and have filled out since two years ago when one side got burnt to a crisp in the winter.  Same with the Leland cypress which actually look pretty good although two of them died that fateful winter two years ago.

Several of the Austrian pines are as tall as I am.  That would be 5'8".  The rest of the pine trees have all put on at least a foot of growth.  The new guys out in front of the Secret Garden are alive and doing well [of course, I had to replace the one that was closest to the house due to accidentally not getting any water on it but the little new guy looks great and he's only a little behind his friends].

The Jeffries pines and Douglas firs all look fantastic and are growing like gang busters.

The hackberries have languished as teensey weensey trees until this year.  Now they are still very small but working very hard and have grown to aout 18 inches high.  I bet they put on several feet a year from now on.

All the mountain ashes look great and are 2 to 3 years old.  The one for the back yard is a bit slow to get bigger but maybe next year it will put some size on.

All the locusts [black and purple robe] have grown tremendously and really make the yard look like it has trees when you drive by.

The tree poplars have finally hit their stride and should be growing fast for the next few years.

The fruiting mulberries have been a real challenge.  Gophers got some of them.  We keep replacing them and some of them finally got over 3 feet tall this year.  A few are still pretty small.  We thought they would grow really fast but those little guys have taken a surprisingly long time to get established.

The buffalo berries from 2 springs ago are as tall as I am and the ones from this year are still small but very healthy.  I am looking forwards to my hedge around the veggie garden.

All in all, gardening is more or less done for this year except for the hard work of clean up and hauling in manure for the veggie garden.  We are also, hopefully, going to haul in some more flat rocks to finish up the pathways.  Of course, we still have to finish home improvement and get out there and cut some firewood.  One thing at a time, I suppose.

New Plants

Did I mention I went to the state nursery a few days ago?  Well, I bought the Jeffries pine and Austrian pine replacemnts.  I got those in this morning.

I bought these gorgeous Winter berry plants.  The tree at the nursery was a green ball about 20 feet in diameter with branches almost all the way to the ground.  Like a giant shrub.  They get beautiful foliage in the fall and they get really cool looking berries that hang on the tree all winter.  Had to have them.  Also, they were in five gallon pots and cost $8 apiece.  Quite the spluge.  I got five of them.

So, I am wandering around the Westside Windbreak deciding where to put them when I decide that one of the Staghorn Sumacs is really in the wrong spot now that I have finished the long shed/shade cover/greenhouse area.  I have an imaginary driveway to the back couple of acres and I want that to be wide enough to pull a truck and trailer in there.  We don't have horses but someone in the future might.  I have always thought a small sturdy cart pony would be nice.  I probably won't ever get one but I wanted to leave the option for some corrals and animals in the back area open for us or for future owners of the property.

So, I decided I had to dig that sumac up even though it is a good four feet tall now and has a couple of babies as well.  It wasn't too  bad of a job and I think I will move them down the line a ways.  That way I can keep some of my fancier trees up closer  to the house.  Now I have even more trees to plant so I better get crackin'.