Happy Golden Days

Today, I wish you sunshine and daffodils! Happy golden days. It’s still a bit nippy outside, out here, JOTOLR, but I’m about to cast off the bonds of inside to spend the entire day in the yard in REAL sunshine! We got a taste of it, yesterday, and we’ll never be the same!


MM and I were virtual whirlwinds. What’s even more startling is that we’re both on a gain with the pain! You know what I’m saying: the longer you’re “at it” the easier it gets! Working the winter “creaks” out of the body takes awhile—especially at this age! MM will turn 80 this coming January, and as far as I am concerned, he’s just plain amazing!


The yard is alive with song this morning! And all of a sudden, we’re free from responsibilities! At least the kind that involves feeding and milking and …whatever! The cows are happy with spring grass and don’t want hay even though the grass has notably little food value at the moment, though it’s increasing daily.. Johni is dried up and awaiting the birth of her calf, so there are no milking and no cheesemaking chores for me! (Also no milk, no cottage cheese, no Mozzarella, no ice cream!)

The seedlings upstairs here under the grow-light are popping up left and right. MM says I was taking baby pictures this morning! But I wanted to show you these special tomatoes which we received from a gardener in Belarus through Seed Savers Exchange last year. Even with the lapse of a year and that long trip, they’re doing just fine.


And, I found a surprise yesterday! Several times over the course of the many years we’ve lived here, there were times when we lost our senses and decided to move. Indeed, we went so far as to pack up and pack out. Thankfully, though, we’ve always returned. As they say, “You can take the girl out of the mountains, but you can’t take the mountains out of the girl.”

In one such ill-considered move, I took some daffodil and tulip bulbs from the yard  we were leaving, and moved them across the road, confident we would return someday and build our dream home on the old homeplace (which we have long since done).. I carefully dug up as many of the daffies and tulips as I could find (our old house, across the way, was purchased by a single man who does not garden, and who prefers running machinery) and stashed them in a little bed next to the driveway,  where someday I hoped we would return.  The daffodil bed has grown considerably. In fact, all the daffodils on our present homeplace have come from that original stash I made back in 1987. But until this year, the tulips had never shown themselves except for one or two on odd years. This year, for some reason, they decided to emerge in considerable numbers. I’ve located 20 tulips so far, and at the end of the growing season, when it’s safe to transplant them, I’m going to lift them carefully and move them to a location they (and we) will enjoy!  I'll show you when they bloom!

I believe this time of year, though,  fantasy ambition gets the better of good sense.  I just ordered 100 strawberry plants and they should be here in a week.  It was last year's berries which we've been enjoying from the freezer that did it.  So, now I'm "into it" as MM tilled a bed for them with our new tiller yesterday 

The Forsythia is simply outdoing itself this year!  After a long hard winter, it’s celebrating, too.


And finally….the daffodils! Oh, the daffodils this year are simply splendid! I have a lot of the old fashioned doubles which lend an incomparable fragrance! So I spend a lot of time bent over, drinking it in.


Here’s wishing you a wonderful day! Those who might read this living in the wet Northeast, our thoughts are with you, hoping the sun will shine soon for you, as well.