Mr. Sun, Sun, Mr. Golden Sun

I love how the girls labeled every single one of the cosmos starts. It is 80 degrees and the sun is shining. Just two weeks ago we had snow and frozen ground, but the starts are finally going in the ground today!

Other plantings of note today: Romaine and Butter Crunch lettuce starts in the "salad bucket" planter off the back porch; sugar snap peas and brocolli; the lemon tree; ivy geraniums and hollyhock starts.

Ryan had big plans for putting in our new raised beds today. However, he spent the day digging up dirt and pouring in a new concrete foundation and box thingamajig for the fire department's water shut-off valve. The volunteer fire department is next door, and their water valve is on our property. Last summer they were having water problems and had to replace the valve. At the time, Ryan was less than impressed with their contractor, who failed to compact the earth after installing the new valve. A-hem.

So here's where I have to admit that it's all my fault. I have been asking Ryan for months (ok, a year) if we could pretty please store the canned ham (our super shabby cute 1959 travel trailer) and the horse trailer behind some gigantic native rhododendrons on that side of the property. All I wanted was some space in front of the shop for a hitching post. A couple of times he said he didn't feel comfortable driving over the aforementioned valve box since it had an obvious saggy baggy soil problem. But yesterday I convinced him that it would be fine if he put some boards on top. The canned ham made it over okay, but the Suburban, he had to stop short of attempting that passage.

Hence his afternoon of digging, pouring concrete, constructing a degage valve cover box out of concrete blocks that were behind the shop. Of course during his hard labor two of the fire department board members and the founding father of the fire department were all across the road at the Rebecca Lodge for a 50th anniversary party. They were all dutifully impressed with his engineering expertise and gratifyingly thankful that he was correcting a problem which it turns out they had recognized all along.

Meanwhile the canned ham is stuck in a funky spot at the edge of the property, even more of a sore thumb in our picturesque view than before. As soon as the concrete sets up (R says 14 days or so), he will fill the hole appropriately with gravel, replace the soil, move the trailers, plant some grass seed and never listen to my naggingly "good ideas" again.

M, S & G were at Grampa's farm playing all day, so Laura was my only helper. She is too small for the stroller! We took walks to see the horses and the neighbors. At 7:40 we booked down to the General Store for dinner. Marti and Lorena were still serving a bunch of day trip bikers and cyclists and we managed to keep them open until half hour past closing. Yummy mushroom burgers and fries and town gossip about who might be the new pastor.