After several weeks of what has been the coldest, cloudiest, and dampest spring I can remember, we have immediately bypassed spring and moved into summer. We have seen temperatures in the 80s the past several days after weeks in the 40s. Our seedlings are sitting on the patio table, starting to harden off. We will be waiting until late May to plant tender seedlings to avoid a repeat of last spring's killing frost, but we are moving into planting season.
We are also doing a little early harvesting. We planted a raised bed of asparagus last year, and it has been responding well to the warm temperatures. Because we want to nurse the bed along and build up the crowns, we have been making light harvests - enough for Maggie and I to each have a serving the past couple of dinners.
I am in the middle of a week's vacation. As with past years, it is a working vacation, with fishing in the morning, and projects in the afternoon. The bathroom walls are up, and the touch-up painting is nearly complete. Our fruit trees mostly made it through the winter, with only two trees lost, a cherry and pear. We bought replacements (a Ure Pear and Evans Bali Cherry), which are now in the ground. I also planted the three apple trees I grafted earlier in the spring at a class through Driftless Folk School - Not sure if the grafts will knit, but we will see in a few weeks. I am also not sure how I am planting five more fruit trees, after the 16 or so planted last year. My recollection is that we had a hot spell last year while planting the trees, so maybe this is the new normal.
I have been waiting a few more days to do our first hive inspection, to allow the bees to acclimate, but I did give them more sugar syrup this week. The dandelions finally started blooming this week, so the nectar flow is on.
We saw Orioles in the trees, and put out some jelly for them. Maggie pulled the hummingbird feeders out of storage and set them on the patio table. I walked outside to find a hummingbird checking them out - they were empty but the birds seem to recognize the feeders. We saw a couple of Scarlet Tanagers in the woods while looking for morels. This led to an interesting conversation at the hardware store. While waiting in line, the man ahead of me was purchasing a bag of bird seed and was telling the cashier about the Indigo Bunting he had seen. She mentioned having just seen a bright red bird recently but did not know the name. I said it was a Scarlet Tanager, and soon the three of us and the other cashier were comparing spring birding observations. Typical for a country hardware store in the spring.
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