After the Rain

May 19, 2025 ~ Crystal Sands ~ 1 Comment

Spring is keeping us busy. Ron is planting. I am raising baby turkeys, pruning fruit trees, and keeping a young cellist on track with a very busy May schedule. I have found that December and May are the two busiest months in my son’s musician life, but I think Mays are the busiest. It’s a very good busy, though. All of these performances are giving him such good experiences, and of course, even though I am constantly planning travel, food, water, and wardrobe, I am rewarded for my efforts with beautiful music. It has been a good spring.

Last week, it was a bit hot, and I am thankful that it cooled down. Yesterday it rained. It has been a pretty wet spring, which means tons of black flies and mosquitos (it has been one of the worst years I have ever seen for the black flies), but the garden is very, very happy. So far, Ron has planted peas, potatoes, lettuce, onions, spinach, beets, kohlrabi, and he has all the tomatoes, peppers, and melons started in the house. He has been so busy. I have felt badly for him planting out amongst those epic black flies. I am covered in bites just from my limited time pruning trees and such. I don’t even know how he stands to stay out there some days, but stand it he does.

And the garden is looking beautiful.

And speaking of beautiful, yesterday, after the rain, I got some great pictures of the fruit trees and of Ruby. By the way, we let the ducks come over and hang out with the chickens last week, but the ducks kind of bullied the chickens–except Ruby. I was talking over the fence with my neighbor when I heard a commotion. I looked over, and Ruby had had enough with being bullied. She was throwing down with the ducks!

Before I could get there, she had won, and the ducks moved on. I have no words for how much I admire that hen.

Here are some lovely photos from after the rain yesterday.

Ruby under pear blossoms, being magnificent

Planting in the Dark

April 29, 2023 ~ Crystal Sands ~ Leave a comment

Day 356 of 365

Today was a big day, and I have been going strong since 6:00 AM. Since my health issues, I am not nearly as good at the long days as I used to be. It was a wonderful day though, lots of work, but so rewarding. I guess that’s so often the case, right?

My son performed at a community cello recital in the early afternoon. He did so well, so well. He’s kind of like a miracle to me with that cello, but maybe it’s because I know the back story. This was his very first time to play a big piece from memory–no music–in front of an audience. This made him more nervous than usual, and it started yesterday. He was nervous and teenage grumpy and there was no fixing it. I have been parenting my butt off since yesterday afternoon. Ron has too. Of course, it all worked out very well, and I was so proud of how he found his strength.

Ron also had to plant an epic amount of seedlings today because big rain is coming tomorrow and those seedlings are beyond ready to get into the soil. It’s been cooler here this spring than it has been in the last several years, so Ron has been waiting and waiting for a window. Today was the day.

When we got home, it was on. Ron would add the compost and dig the holes. I would line up the plants, and then we would just plant and plant as fast as we could. I was worried we were going to be planting until midnight, but we moved quickly. We ate dinner at 9:00 PM, but we finished the planting!

It was so much fun to be out there working with Ron too. In the last few years, I have fallen into working too much and have not been able to help plant very much in the spring. I do far too much consulting work because I can’t say no, but I am learning to say no and finding out that it’s pretty nice.

I loved getting my hands in the dirt and planting those beautiful seedlings Ron grew. Ron played classical music on his laptop, mostly cello, while we planted, which made for the best time. Eventually, it got dark, the music stopped, and we were still going. We were out there planting by flashlight, under the moon and stars, and it made me think about cultures that use the moon cycles as a guide for planting, which made me think that I need to research this topic more.

photo credit: Andy Holmes, Unsplash

Busy Season

April 10, 2023 ~ Crystal Sands ~ 2 Comments

Day 336 of 365

We are into a tough time here on the little farmstead. I love spring, but my goodness, it brings some work, and we have some added unusual situations this spring.

We are not sure what to do with Anna Maria. We even considered trying to make her a house duck, but I don’t know if she can do it. Plus, she will forever hear the call of her people from the window and will want to go out there with them. So, we have to keep thinking.

It’s also planting season for Ron, which is always kind of epic. I need to get the berry bushes pruned, and I have to finish pruning the pear trees before it’s too late. It may already be too late. On top of this, I ordered peach trees and more blueberry bushes because I am determined to make an edible landscape around our property, but I don’t even know where they can go. We have a lot of shade from a lot of trees. So I have to study our property and the sunshine and then dig. The soil is so rocky that Ron will have to dig the holes for the trees, but I can probably dig the holes for the blueberry bushes.

We also have rats in the chicken coop still, and they have done some fairly serious damage. Now that the weather is warmer, as soon as we are able to get to it, we have to take down the inner wall, maybe for good, and Ron will have to replace some of the boards on the outside.

Oh, and as I write this blog, I can hear Ron watching a video in the next room. He is learning how to treat trees for brown tail moths because we have those too. Thank you, climate change.

When I write this down, I feel a little panicky about being able to do all of this between work and homeschool, but I assume we will get it done–always later than we had hoped but always done.

In the meantime, I am doing a pretty good job of getting my essays graded for work while I sit in the bathroom floor with Anna Maria. We had a duck in the house before for several months. Her name is Anna Sophia, and she loved the cello. Today, I played Anna Maria some of Anna Sophia’s favorite music, and she really liked it. Ducks seem to like the low cello sounds a lot. In fact, I found a cello YouTube channel and used my laptop as a duck sitter while I was making dinner tonight. The music keeps Anna Maria from quacking and quacking, and female ducks quack very, very loudly.

The cutest thing was that I could see her through the reflection on the screen watching my computer over my shoulder, but when I would turn around, she would turn her head like, “you can’t look at me.”

*Also, I feel it is important to note that we had Anna Sophia for about a year and a half before Anna Maria came into our lives. And Anna Maria’s name was already Anna Maria. We didn’t rename her. I thought you might wonder why in the world we had an Anna Sophia and an Anna Maria.