I heard this years first geese this morning. Not enough for a full v ... just a few early optimists in leading the way for the rest. That also means that its time to get the greenhouse organized so I'll be ready to start seeds on the next fruitful planting day .. which will be next tuesday, the 23rd. ( will be a second quarter moon in Cancer )

Is it a sign of my age that I set such store by all the old sayings? Nope ... I learned most of these bits of folk lore at my mother's knee, and they have stood me in good stead over the years wherever I have lived.

So, I always wait to start my greenhouse up until the geese are back .... I never direct seed in the garden until the leaves are on the trees and if the Full Moon is early in the month of May, I wait until the end of the month to transplant my seedlings. ( this year I'll transplant in early may .... likely on the 7th or 8th... because the fourth quarter is a great time to transplant and the Moon is in

Pisces. )

Last summer I built a play yard out front for my dogs. There is so much wildlife around here that is the only reliable way to keep them safe off leash. Now I dearly love my dogs, but some of the herbs in the pond garden out front will have to migrate out back to the new gardens that I'm building out back. The Lady's Mantle, the Comfrey and the lavendar simply wouldn't stand up to the exuberant wrestlemania and games of hide and seek: )))

Every year the reach of the to do list for the yard easily exceeds my grasp: ))) One of these years I'll actually get to building the cattery , which is the only safe way for country kitties to spend time outside, with the Lee Valley gazebo kit that I bought for that purpose.
Last year I refurbished the little garden shed .... having finally decided to keep it in place if for no other reason than to serve as a privacy screen for this little back garden. By the time the 34 fence post holes were dug ... in land that is, as the locals say , 'a little ledgey", summer was nearly done and it was almost hunting season before the play yard was finished
If, like me, you are planning on building a pond this year ... be on the watch for underlay that gets put out for spring pickup. Just because you wouldn't use in your house doesn't mean that it won't make great underlay for your pond to protect the liner. If you know anyone who has dismantled an above ground pool, the pool liner makes a dandy pond liner too.
If you live in the Greenwood area, the crushed brick for the path around the round patio came, very reasonably, from Happy Joes.
PS ... don't toss out cracked and broken clay pots as they can add interest (and refuges for toads) in perennial gardens

My mother's journal

My mother always kept a journal. Old school ... in notebooks that are still bundled in boxes in my brother's basement. Too precious for the recyclers but too private to go rummaging around ... at least yet.
Opposite sides of the coin are still tempered from the same metal. Different generations still share the same underpinnings ... gardening, cooking and even nagging politicians.
This isn't my mother's journal .... and yet it is. Mom was ahead of her time when it came to feminism and ecology and was often frustrated to tears at the way women could be their own worst enemy.
Today was one of those frustrating days for me .... until a good friend reminded me that "all you can do is stick with your own values and do and write what you want - the world will catch up with you some day."
Well the world did catch up with Mom .. more or less. She did live to see most of the changes she had hoped for with women's rights, but sadly even the melting icebergs haven't changed the political doublespeak about global warming.
You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete - Buckminster Fuller, philosopher, futurist and global thinker (1895 - 1983)