It's been a good and busy day. We started off with a cool morning but not the hard cold like we've had. I sure hope the freezes are past, as it's time to get stuff planted!
We're still missing Starr out at the barn (four or five days now), but all else was good. Patch is looking very, very ready to have her calf. She and Royal really enjoyed their chow, as did the cats and hogs.
Just after breakfast, I was toned out to a structure fire about six miles west of town. Early in all the calls they were looking for more guys so I continued on. I was about two miles away when they downgraded the response and then cancelled - it turns out somebody's fireplace flue got clogged and the smoke backed up into the house, quickly filling it, and making folks think it was on fire. All's well.
Back home and Nancy was finishing up watering the gardens. We drug out all the tposts and panel sections and set the climbing wall for the cucumbers (we'll plant them late next week) and the tomatoes (due to arrive next month). Rather than use the clips that come with the tposts, we used wire and knotted it around the post and panel - it looks to be doing fine so far.
On our way in to town for groceries, we saw that the cows were hidden somewhere so we stopped to check. They were chilling in the barn - no sign of anything imminent. Bert was peeking in the basement window and jumped on in - it's amazing how agile these cats are becoming (almost ten months old now).
While Nancy was making some lemon bars, I ran out to check on the chicks. All's well and they're growing so quickly now. The big girls gave us five eggs this morning! What a deal!
We made a run out to the Country Greenhouse up the road and picked up some flowers for the back garden, some others to replace the decorative grass by the front steps, plus some sweet corn (peaches and cream... Is there any other?), and a garlic.
Our friends Josh and Katie came over with their four boys for a visit and dinner. It was a wonderful time, and the kids throughly enjoyed themselves. They scampered around the place, inside and out, walked down to visit the cows and hogs (the barn cats all hid), and enjoyed the grain bins - one of them filled the hog feeder to overflowing - and Fintin managed to fill his boots with hog grain as only a three year old can!
Tomorrow I'll plant the corn patch while Nancy plants the new plants. Until then, take care of each other.
