Welcome spring

It is getting to be that time of year again. Spring. My second favorite time of the year -- fall being my favorite.

 Here on the "farm" I am getting seedlings started in the greenhouse.

Earlier this winter I could not take the stark grey of February any longer so I started broccoli and cauliflower in the greenhouse. I know I was a little early, but there is something very satisfying about seeing the little green seedlings poking their heads out of the potting mix.

Saturday I started beef stake tomatoes and some other tomato hybrid that the owner of the farm provided. I ordered my own Roma tomato seeds and a few other vegetables last week. They should be arriving any day now.

Broccoli seedlings

The flats get placed under grow lights until the seedlings are established then they are moved to the south facing window of the green house and we hope they make it to transplant time. The tricky part for me has always been hardening off the transplants, which is a fancy way of saying "getting the plants used to being outside."

I also started a plethora of herb seeds -- fennel, basil, Stevia and a few others. Potato and onions sets will be planted outside sometime in April. I am told some people plant potatoes in March, but we tend to flood a lot and often in the spring, so I usually wait. There is nothing more discouraging then having potatoes rot under several feet of water.

We have about 25 raised beds next door, plus a large "pumpkin" garden and two fenced gardens. I always graph out in detail where everything is going to go and when the weather warms I generally transplant them with wild abandon, purposefully forgetting my carefully planned garden planner. That has been the norm for as long as I have been gardening.

I have to say, however, I love the online garden planners. They are great and the little graphs I make are so pretty, neat and orderly. It gives me something to do during the dreary winter months. But when the time comes, there is nothing like planting wherever the spirit moves. Tomatoes and peppers here. Oh, I have extra onions, lets put them over there.... and where can I put all the potato eyes? Ahh yes --  next to the plastic green house garden. (That would be the garden next to our house where -- until the floods of this spring -- there was a plastic green house that I used in an attempt to harden off the seedlings).

And speaking of floods... we were hit hard late this winter. Warm weather caused a huge snowmelt and then several days of heavy rain took their toll. All this happened while our truck was in the repair shop, so we had to enlist the aid of a neighbor to help us move the farm trailers and our travel trailer to higher ground.

The water around our house rose to about three feet - just below the windows of our basement (our house has high basement walls for this very reason). The chicken coop, freezer shed, and cabin at the back of the property are all built on stilts -- about four feet off the ground. The water in the back rose to about an inch from the bottom of each building. King's helper person, who lives in the cabin, used waders to get to  and from work each day. The water in back was chest high while the water in our driveway reached a manageable thigh-high level. We used large garbage bags to wade out to the road and then walked to where our loaner car was parked. I used the garbage bags once and then decided the water was cold enough to sufficiently numb my feet so as not to feel the rocks and stones in the driveway. Since my knee replacement surgery the fear of falling on new joints is still pretty strong, so for me it was easier to simply roll up my pant legs and walk barefoot to the road. I also had visions of falling down in the garbage bag and floating downriver while trying to wiggle my way out.

The county road commission kept sending trucks out to check the bridge next to our house, but other than removing a log jam forming against the bridge, there didn't seem to be any undue concern.

A neighbor came and helped us move
the farm trailers and our travel trailer
before the water levels became
too high.

Years ago, when  the children were very young, I would often drive past this place and wonder to myself, "Why would anyone want to live on a flood plain?" Guess I know now. For us it is a great retirement gig complete with free housing.  King and I may have appeared to be what others would term typical middle class, but we've always had a sense of adventure and when we found this caretaker gig online it seemed like a fun thing to do.

The flood waters reached
the bottom of the chicken coop.

We had thought we were going to end our careers as caretakers  last fall with our going on the road full-time, but things always have a way of changing.

This will be our seventh summer here and we made arrangements with the homeowner to stay on a few more years. For now anyway, plans always change. In the meantime, our granddaughter will graduate high school this summer and move on. We will take off for parts unknown every winter and return to tend the land in the spring. Traditional snowbirds for a few years and then? Who knows. We can't commit.