Dirt, Drudgery, Discombobulation and Dust.

(I've decided to create the Alphabet Series of Posts...)

This weekend was filled with the usual (and more so) stuff, but we were blessed with beautiful weather.  As a matter of fact, I suspected we went from our usual one day of spring into full-on summer.  Both days reached a high in the low 80s, which, while glorious after all this cold, gives me the wilts.  And discombobulating because it was in the 30s in the mornings.  Geezloueeze.

Saturday, we moved some furniture into my DS's new house and then the Girlz (Mom, DS and Yours Truly) went to a great place that sells the contents of estates.  They have an auction every Sunday during the summer, but the rest of the 'treasures' are stored and sold out of an old house.  It is so much fun to rummage around!  You can get everything from old postcards to a stuffed swordfish!  My DS found a lovely, small, cherry desk with a chair at a very reasonable price, so we toddled that back to her house.  Slowly, but surely.  She moves here two weeks from today.  I. Am. So. Excited.

The rest of the weekend was spent cleaning up the raised beds, weeding, schlepping dirt around, more weeding, more schlepping, and planting.  I got some lettuce planted under hoops, rearranged my cucumber/bean bed to accommodate trellised beans AND bush beans.  I also planted some sweetpeas (encouraged by Mama Pea's success) and my red onions.  I had been poking around in a big box store's garden area and found a lone, bedraggled six-pack of curly kale.  As all it appeared to need was a good watering, I talked them down to less than half price, and they were taken home and put in the kale bed.

I managed to slog along all day on Sunday, but have made the executive decision that all drudgery stops at 4 o'clock.  Sometimes I actually follow my own directions!  It was a great weekend for laundry and I got four loads dried on the line.  How nice it is to put away the racks - and the flannel sheets.  However, I keep waiting for the other snow boot to drop.  I've been tricked before, which is why I did not plant more.  Should the need arise, I can easily cover what I've planted.  By the time I was finished, I was covered with dirt.  What a glorious feeling.... :)  Now, if it would just rain.  It is as dry as dust out there. 

On a sad note, I lost another chick - he/she was not as hearty as the other five and when I moved them to a box in order to clean out the brooder, it was too much for it.  I also opened the coop on Sunday morning to find that E-Claire had died during the night.  That was a tough one - she was the first homegrown chick here and a real character.  But she had developed a sour crop and had three years of ups and downs. 

The sheep got out on some grass on Sunday and were thrilled.  I had to keep an eye on them, with the heat and threat of bloat.  I have decided that Linden is not the sharpest tack in the box.  As a matter of fact, I would refer to him as a marble in a box of tacks.  While it's much better now that their woolly coats are off, they still can get sunburned and overheated.  The other two, Juno and Norman, and the llama know to head for shade if it's hot and take breaks to suck down water.  Not Linden.  He goes around like a lawnmower.  I had to physically move them up to the barn and close them in a shady space.  He was actually panting!  My problem child.