Gardening Already?

 There have been milestones noted. Yesterday morning's rain finally erased the mound of snow and ice left by plows and shovels north of the house. Frozen lakes have gone from a few inches open water to several yards of it along lake edges, decorated by Canada geese and trumpeter swans already paired off. Temperatures bounce between chilly and warm enough to be outside for a bit, and brown lawns are allowing peeks of green and promise. The piles of rabbit droppings are not counted as spring since they were there on the snow most of the winter. Oddly, those piles were in the same locations the winter before.

I knew it was time to check the unseen garden, meaning the one on the south (back) side where sun gets the longest play, and where last fall culminated in a heavy planting of early spring bulbs, followed by rows of hardware cloth topped with rocks and boards to keep hungry pests mostly out. If the bulbs were sprouting already, I'd better scramble. Of course, if I was removing the critter barriers, I better also bait and set out a live trap.

Dressed for a cool spring day, I turned the corner of the house, and... OOPS! Everything for spring was not only sprouting leaves but also pushing buds through the holes in the mesh. After pulling the long lumber strips off and removing a few spare rocks assisting in keeping everything in place, it was time to gingerly lift off the hardware cloth. I didn't plant all those bulbs just to rip the tops off in my hurry. Once those were successfully relocated, the hardware cloth was rolled up and... 

Oh, you thought I was going to say they got put back in the shed, didn't you? Have you met me? No, they are on the ground next to the shed waiting for more time in my schedule. I did all that work in a few spare moments before heading off to my PT appointment, figuring I'd be too achey afterwards to even consider doing any yard work. I've firmly put on my to-do-later list digging out 2 of the three rhubarb plants to send to their new owner, and by doing later I do mean by my son, of course. He'll have to tote the bags of topsoil I'll need to bring the level back up for moving more plants in over the summer. I've decided the iris will be getting relocated to their own bed... sort of. One remaining rhubarb plant will have to learn to share, that's all there is to it.

Besides there was one more little thing that desperately needed doing before I left, hopefully to distract what's left of the local population of squirrels and rabbits from the garden: I baited and set one of the live traps off to the side of the emerging flower bed. I'm sure the dropping off place I used last year is open to more arrivals this spring. If this afternoon is nice enough I'll clean out the other trap of the wads of last summer's grass clippings that somehow crawled inside it over the winter before bringing it into the house to be baited and set it out as well.

Then I have to find some time outside to spray paint some cardboard white so a friend can make her own sign for No Kings on Saturday. It needs to be dry before she can write on it, and the writing needs to be dry before it goes in the car with the rest of the stuff we're taking over. We're not marching, just sitting holding signs, me in a folding chair, she on her walker. There'll be enough walking from parking to the small town park. And I'll be toting a warm blanket as well. I remember having to leave early last fall due to a cold breeze. If we sit close I can share the blanket.