It's a gorgeous day. 15C already and sunny. Perfect weather to get the veggie garden fully planted.
We had a rather interesting adventure this morning with a little set-to on the front lawn among four vultures and a live skunk. Yes. Live.
Not sure what was going on nature-wise. I speculated that they could smell that he was in the final stages of life. Or they just felt like bullying a waddling rodent. Or maybe they were plotting to chase him across our (now) busy street and pick up a breakfast of road kill. Who knows?
Our street is busy because, once again, it's construction season on Highway 4 and Douglas is on the detour route. Which means a stream of great huge transport trucks rolling at top speed in front of the farmette most weekdays, and cottagers' vehicles at the weekend.
Anyhow, the drama almost played out before I could get my iPhone and take a snap. If you look really hard, you can see the skunk in the top middle...
Yesterday, Rob put tomatoes and peppers into the large pad, and I planted up the peas that will climb up the makeshift trellis I concocted last year. I hope I get a bumper crop. There's nothing quite like fresh peas straight from the pod. Nature's candy. They're actually called sugar snaps. I like the taste of them better raw than cooked. My mother used to despair when Sandy and I would raid the pea patch, especially since we flung the spent pods all over the garden.
Because it's been so wet and cool this spring, the lilacs are really late. Usually by this weekend, they're out in full force, smelling up the joint. As you can see, they're still tight little balls.
These little beauties have different meanings in different parts of history and the world. The Celts thought they were magical because of their fragrance. The Victorians thought they represented old love, and widows would wear lilacs. Russians think it's a sign of wisdom and wave bouquets of them over wee infants. In the U.S., the lilac is the official flower of New Hampshire, and signals the hardiness of its people.
I'm hoping that my raspberries bounce back after the gnawing they took from the damn rabbits last winter. We won't get fruit this year - and I'll have to figure out how to protect them over winter 2019-20. But hopefully we'll have the sweet red berries to eat next year.
Here's a wee traveller I caught sight of this morning as I was doing the rounds. Beauty eh?
Well that just about wraps up this week's post. Gotta get out there and get the planting done before the predicted rains come.
Until next week.