Monday, February 28, 2011

Storms, Woodchips and Blossoms.

Our bad weather continued: hail, high winds and sheets of water. Very exciting. And even more exciting a forecast of snow for last Friday night. Sadly, by then, the storms had passed and we had a hard freeze but no snow. I had very disappointed children on my hands. Snow in sacramento... what is the world coming to?

                                                                                                                  The View From My Office.

The hard freeze though... we have those regularly and it is a big threat to farmers in the valley. Almond trees are very sensitive to frost and so are plum trees. Unfortunately, our plum tree was in full bloom when the cold weather hit. Hopefully we will still get a few plums. Usually we harvest more than 40 lbs of plums so it would be a great loss.

                                                                                                                           Plum Blossoms.

 
                                                                                         Plum Blossoms

Luckily most of the apricot blossoms were still shut tight. Last year was not good for apricots, maybe this year I can make apricot jam again.

                                                                                                                                Apricot Blossoms.

It was most definitely not hammock weather.

                                                                                                              The Hammock Over The Swamp.

And the yard was a swamp so nothing got done in the garden.
Well, almost nothing... Mark put wheelbarrows full of wood chips on the new-future-vegetable garden and the chickens went to work: in 2 days they had spread all the wood chips around.



I love team work.

4 comments:

  1. I SOOOO want some chickens, but I'm not sure I can give them the attention they need.

    I have been promised some plums this year! Good luck with yours!

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  2. Mary, chickens take very little time especially when they free range. You should give them a shot!

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  3. I live in Arizona, and woke up to snow Sunday morning. It was crazy! And I also have a plum tree and apricot tree :) Both had buds swelling on them, so I am interested to see how the snow affects things. Of course, other than that day, it has been in the seventies and eighties. Weather is crazy!!

    I do hope that your plum tree is prolific despite the freeze!

    Have a wonderful weekend!
    Mindee

    p.s. I like your pictures. They are very nice :)

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  4. Mindee: Snow in Arizona? In March? Wow.
    Have a good weekend too :)

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