Yesterday was an “out” day. Errands day, which means taking husband to work, as we only have the one vehicle right now. Early day. It means th kiddos and I usually end up grabbing a bagel and a cup of tea at Tims and then continuing on.

Yesterday, we needed chicken feed and wood chips at the feedlot, a bit of grocries at the market, and a visit to the hardware store for (hopefully) the rest of what we need to finish the chicken run and get the poor birds outside for the first time in a year.

I find those days exhausting, and the fact that it’s the full moon and I’m sleeping less well than usual meant that today was a ‘rest’ day. I don’t think I woke up until nearly 9am, which is relatively rare for me these days…

I didn’t do a lot today. The basic chores, dishes, cooking, that sort of thing. Other than that, I did my usual orchard/garden/greenhouse walkthrough, and planted out 10 more varieties of seeds. I planted witch hazel, hyssop, lamb’s ear, Golden Margeurite Kelways, skydance salvias, calendula, echinacea, false indigo, weld and marshmallow. Some are dyeplants, some are medicinal herbs, some are “only” pretty pollinator attractants. All will add greatly to the orchard garden assuming they grow. I also scarified and put to soak blackberry lilies and Rose of Sharon hibiscus. I discovered only a few weeks ago that some species of hibiscus are fully hardy enough for this zone (5b), so of course, I had to source some seed.

A friend also messaged me that she had dug out some fully mature rhubarb crowns to be transplanted to my yard when she visits next week, and I am VERY interested to see what comes of that. Her rhubarb is INSANELY large. It gets nearly as tall as I am and 3″ diameter to the stalks sometimes. I have several crowns here but they struggle to say the least. It will be interesting to see if her crowns are able to thrive here, or if her soil is just somehow perfectly suited to rhubarb. I don’t love rhubarb. I don’t even prticularly LIKE it, but it is a perennial food plant that does have some awesome nutritional benefits. The huge leaves are also useful as mulchers, and really, rhubarb makes awesome wine and when combined with strawberries is great in pie. One could definitely do worse.

Tomorrow, assuming the weather isnt disgusting (it’s currently pouring rain with a chance of flurries. FLURRIES! It’s the last week of April, enough already!), we have the rest of the trees from last week to plant in the field (or as many as we can manage in the time we have). They’ve been sitting happily in their pot of soil, and when I checked them this afternoon, they all appear to be budding out nicely, so the delay doesn’t seem to have done them any harm.

We shall see how well I am moving on Friday. I will husband my strength/mobility carefully, but things do still need to be done regardless of how I feel on any given day.