Strawberry Rain

My sheep magazine's almanac called the rain we've had lately "Strawberry Rain," as it falls when the strawberries ripen. Delightful name, I tell you. The little wild strawberries we have all over are delightful, too.

Strawberry planting continues, but I hope to finish tomorrow. The garlic sent up scapes, the flower stalks in the center of the leaves. I pulled the scapes because we want the garlic to grow larger root bulbs, not put out flowers and seeds. Most of the time the scapes broke off in my hand, but sometimes I could pull them from deep inside, and they'd emerge with a pop. Very satisfying, and impressively long!

"A lot of farming is just planting something, watching it die, figuring out why, and planting it again." Local farmer Whitney Critzer said this, and he's an older man who's been farming all his life. It helps me to know that even "real" farmers struggle with growing things. Almost all of our trees appear to be doing well, though, leafing out and growing. So hopeful!

Phil's trip out of town was more-or-less a bust. I realized that the policy of "we don't turn down work" is a bit too much like the main character in the movie Yes Man, who says yes to everything without considering the pros and cons. This ill-advised trip to Colorado meant that I missed my beloved beekeeping class, and Phil spent four days out of town with little (not nothing!) to show for it. And probably didn't pay for the price of his ticket. Wisdom, Lord, we need wisdom.

The bees are hanging in there, despite my lack of class attendance. In fact, the Queen of Sheba hive appears to be thriving, though the queen herself is not yet out of her cage (she's getting there--the bees who are eating her out have to tunnel so deep inside the box, they almost vanish). There are always more bees on the feeder, more humming noise from the hive than the Queen Esther hive. I hope the Queen Esther hive will have babies coming soon. The time is running out for them both. Worker bees don't live forever, and if no new workers are born, that's the end. (Be anxious for nothing, I tell myself.)

Isaiah spent all day Sunday throwing up. As our pastor's wife said, "These things always seem to happen when the husband's out of town!" Blech! Abraham started, too, and kept it up all evening. Where did it come from? I have no idea.

We had a good time continuing to read through our picture book collection. I've been surprised that even Jadon listens in. He seems so old and mature. Then I remember that he's not even eight, and his age resumes proper perspective.

Jadon is down to single digits until his birthday, and of his own volition made a paper chain so he could count down properly. This seems a bit too high pressure. What can I possibly get him that would live up to a paper chain countdown?!

I've decided I need to eat through the meats in my freezer. So I pulled out a ham today, brined it, rubbed it, and baked it. The baking part took forever (a couple of hours, when I was expecting only one), but the end product was absolutely delightful, albeit a bit dry. I'm okay with dry—I'm a white meat kind of girl.

Since Phil returned home after midnight last night, he reset the sheep pens, rolled a big bale of hay into the cow pen, scooped up the stinky kitty litter that Abraham had spread around, loaded the truck to do a dump run (and did the dump run), and started to put up fencing around our pasture. He got six panels up in what felt like very short order. We're excited for the cows to graze our meadow. I'm sure the cows are ready to get out of the paddock. The rain has turned it into quite the mucky place.

But I won't think about my mucky paddock. I'll think about the joy of the Strawberry Rains falling on my baby strawberries, keeping the temperature mild and the air moist.