Plant Till You Droop

Thursday morning we woke to heavy rain and soppy ground. We had planned to go to the awesome Frontier Culture Museum in Staunton, and I was thankfully able to get the van up the driveway without mishap. Our day there (with a Costco stop afterwards) was extremely pleasant: beautiful weather, interesting things to see, plenty of space for the children to run to their hearts' content.

Incredibly, when we pulled in the driveway, my mom and sister were ready to keep planting, so they got six more flats of vegetables in the ground in the two hours before total dark. This week's addition to the garden is looking really sharp!

By Friday morning, while the children slept in until almost 8, my mom went to plant a beautiful blueberry bush we'd bought at Costco. It fits in a little corner of the market garden, and I have hopes that it will produce for me even this year.

With the market garden closer to being "caught up," we went to plant 56 chestnut trees down the wooded path to the lower pasture. We had to cut down a few volunteer trees, and snip off lots of small growth. The chestnuts were leafed out well, and I have high hopes that we will soon have a chestnut path.

Their little pink markers get lost in the green foliage and the steep slope of the road, but up close, I love their cheery, "I'm here!" presence.

After lunch, we put 116 hazelnuts into the swales in the cherry orchard. And we were absolutely exhausted after that. What an intense few days of work.

A few fun photos.
The two little cousins, twelve days apart in age.

And just the sweet girl.

The full group (minus me), the first night. No one was tired yet!

We had a chocolate cake to remember my niece Grace.

I had asked for nice weather, but what we had during the course of the week was over and above what I could have imagined. A good amount of rain, at optimal times; sun, wind, overcast, all at the perfect times.

The goats did get out of the pen late Friday (they must have realized that the electric fence wasn't working, since the charger was up protecting the broilers), but we managed to catch them and contain them. In the grand scheme of animal issues, this was quite minor.