By now, you’ve probably seen at least one of my many pictures of the recent fence and garden
move that is still in progress. But that’s what happens when you have almost ten years worth of fruit trees and established garden beds then the Department of Transportation decides that they need a chunk of your front yard—Right where the garden just happens to be.
There isn’t much fun in all the added work, but the plants have to be moved by the end of March. And if we’re really lucky, everything will survive the transplant and we won’t get one of those out of no where heavy frosts that kill so many plants.
Luckily I was able to get get them to amend the contract to allow our plants to stay until the end of March because if I would have had to do the transplants in February, we would have lost everything.
Now since our official sign of spring here in North Georgia has reared its head once again, (Daffodils blooming), we’ve started to move the hardier of the plants. Blackberries, Blueberries, and the Aronias now have a new home at the back of the property.
I think that this evenings task, just as soon as I get clocked out of the day job will be to move the three graves at the front of the yard.
Yup, you read that right. Graves. I think the guy over the bridge project might have had the same reaction when he read that via email. And they aren’t just any graves mind you. Three family pets have been laid to rest out front over the years, who will now join their most recent sister in the back.
After that will be the Beautyberries, Pomegranets and finally the Plum trees once we get a little closer to the end of the month.
I’m already expecting to loose all of our plum crop this year considering both trees are already covered in blooms like the one you see below.
Now, for whatever reason, the youngest was having himself an angry day. It didn’t matter who talked to him or what it was about, he just kept getting angrier and angrier.
So I did what any good parent would do and made him come outside to help drive stakes for the cucumber bed. I swear that the post driver probably weighs as much as his scrawny ass, but he managed to drive the stakes with a little help holding them straight and a ladder.
And after a little bit of work, we have almost three dozen blackberry vines transplanted into their new home after thinning the original beds out.
These I have to say are some of the best blackberries that I’ve ever had. The berries, when watered good get to about twice the size of my thumb and are packed with flavor. I’ve made everything from cobblers to mead out of the berries from these vines.
Probably one of my most favorite things about all of this work, is being able to walk out in the morning and pick my breakfast Whether it’s fried taters and onions, fried green tomatoes, a few hot peppers for my eggs or a mess of turnip greens, it just can’t get much better or fresher than that.
Speaking of gardening, You can catch me with a few author buddies tomorrow night, Marth the 11th talking all about gardening and having fun doing it.
BIZZAR HAPPENSTANCE
A few days ago, I was standing in the kitchen working on dishes when I looked up and spotted a crow on the back of a red tailed hawk, pecking the crap out of the hawks head.
Before I knew it another crow had shown up, and joined in the attack on the hawk.
The hawk fluffed up his feathers, bowed out his chest then said screw it and flew away.
Meanwhile, the crows were enjoying some morsel of food that the Mr. hawk had apparently dropped that they were trying to steal. Never in my life have I ever seen a crow attack a hawk, but then back home in West Virginia, there aren’t many hawks either. Most farmers who had chickens had wiped them to protect their flocks.
After a little research, I found this answer, over and over again about this odd behavior on the interwebs.
This is a very common interaction between crows and hawks. Crows are known to relentlessly harass hawks. Crows are very smart and they recognize that hawks are birds of prey and that they do prey upon small birds sometimes. The crows are defending their territory from a recognized threat.
Here’s a few links on the I found that you might find interesting on the subject.
https://www.popsci.com/story/blogs/ask-us-anything/crow-raven-aggressive-behavior/
Besides all of that, we’ve been busy around here setting up things for the Starflight anthology, including a special Starport Lounge recording session we did down at Pie Slingers a few weeks ago.
Toss in the latest project from The Corner Scribblers and my writing time has been getting scarce at times, but it’s all good. Those are all things that need to be done for the greater cause.
The latest Corner Scribblers flash collection, Gears and Gallantry, will be releasing next week and the theme for this quarter is Steampunk.
After speaking with my niece about maybe doing some artwork for the collection, she came up with this beautiful mechanical bunny that I plan to get printed and framed for my office.
Last but not least, I’m part of another giveaway this month with Dave Butler, Mel Todd, Benjamin Tyler Smith and R.J. Ladon. It starts in a few more days. Click the image below after March 14th to sign up for a chance to win all five books for free.
Until next time, keep your heads up and your pens sharp
~WJR~