Weekend in Spring

It was very lovely this weekend. Sunny, mid-70's, slight breeze. The weather is unpredictable, to say the least, until after the 4th of July, so if we get a nice weekend we get to work.

Saturday, Jeremy mowed the lawn. Most of our yard is in pasture or garden, but along the driveway, around the house and by Jordan's swing set is regular turf grass. If it were up to me, I would reduce the amount of lawn in the yard. I think lawn is kind of useless. Plus, I have a nearly OCD desire to make every inch of the property productive. I'd love to change the front lawn into meadowfoam - beautiful little white and yellow flowers. They are really hardy wildflowers that you can walk on, even mow. But Jeremy loves the look of a traditional European yard. He takes a lot of pride in orderly flower beds, hedges and trees. I'll admit it does look really pretty. Everyone who visits comments on how lovely the yard is. But it takes a lot of work. Jeremy had to spend a few hours mowing the lawn, which he did early before it the sun got high. When I finally made it outside (I'm slow on the weekends) my first breath was of freshly mowed grass - one of the best smells right behind grandma's cooking.

That afternoon we decided to get Lilly sheared and hooved. Lilly gets the thickest wool I've ever seen. It grows on her cheeks (lamp chops) and on her forehead; down her back legs and on her stomach. Jeremy was thinking that if her lambs are born before we sheared, there's no way they'd find teats in that mess of wool. So we grabbed her and started shearing. It took us about an hour, including getting her hooves trimmed. And she only got nicked once - not bad for a couple of part-time farmers armed with very sharp manual shears and a jumpy sheep.

Jeremy also managed to get Junior and Notag sheared. They are much easier because both just stand still and enjoy the attention. Patches is almost done too, but she got distracted by food before the last hind quarter was trimmed up.

Today, Sunday, we had family over for breakfast. Fresh eggs and sausage (we are almost out of our pork). Yummy! Then we worked in the garden. We planted peppers - Cubanelle. They are long peppers like Anaheim, only a pale green. Last year we planted one of this variety along with the regular green bells. The Cubanelles set so much more fruit and were less susceptible to the bugs. This year we are planting four Cubanelle plants. I can't wait for the first chilie relleno's.