Went walkabout today with my morning coffee. There's an old saying, "The best fertilizer is the farmer's footstep." Straightened the mulch in the veggie garden where someone--probably a stray chicken--had thrown the grass clippings from the path onto the spinach plants. Replaced the strawberry plant that something dug up overnight. I started by counting. "One, two, three--why is there a gap?" Looked around, and sure enough, there was a plant a few feet away.
Waited too long to protect the trees in the orchard, and now a lot of new leaves and growing tips have been chewed off by deer. I'm trying not to dwell on how much that sucks, because I can't undo it. The trees will recover eventually, and meanwhile I've really got to get the fence rings made and placed.
On the flip-side, though I had thought last year's drought killed every bit of my considerable investment in pond plants, looks like I have one surviving blue flag iris
I promise.
These might be soft stem bulrushes. I can't tell because they haven't set seed and I can't find any photos from that part of the life cycle. I'm just hoping, because none of the grass otherwise will grow submerged like that.
And there was a little red squiggle that could just possibly be an Arrow Arum. Maybe. Fingers crossed. I really can't afford to just throw plants in there year after year with no result.
Gave Kratos the ram some grain. Tried to make sure Mimir the wether got some but he wasn't willing to brave Kratos' greed by coming to me. They both need to be caught so that I can roo Kratos, shear Mimir (who for some reason doesn't roo), and trim their hooves. Another pressing item on the to do list.
Finally found a spot for the sunchokes where they'll be against a structure on one side and mowed on the other side. They can spread along the entire south side of the storage container as far as I'm concerned. I'll get them in later, somehow in between everything else.
And then when I came around the front of the house, I discovered a bunch of sweet woodruff under the chickweed, and spent a few minutes sitting in the grass with my coffee and carefully detangled fragile weeds from fragile herbs. Found out that a single stem of Solomon's Seal survived the chickens last year, so I'll put my remaining stash of roots there today.
The garlic patch, and the kids working hard to clear a spot for strawberries last night.
