It’s Here…

Spring…

Here in Germany the snowdrops are up. Our yard is speckled with lovely green and white clumps. The wild garlic is sprouting up along the creek bank and the edges of the forest paths, also green and white. In the picture above I can also see the tiny heads of young nettles just pushing above the surface. The world is waking up and I will admit, winter lover that I am, that I am really ready for it.

One of the things I love about spring, besides all the new growth is the sound of the spring thaw as it rushes along our little creek. It’s a happy clean refreshing sound and makes me dream of the warm breezy and sunny days to come.

The bees are also slowly waking up…I visited the hives today.

I know it looks pretty quiet but while I was visiting, there was a steady, if very slow, stream of bees coming and going. Especially from the first hive. I wasn’t quick enough to get a picture of one. They are sluggish but waking. I think I saw 8 bees in the 5 minutes I was standing there…not many but soon the air will be full with their happy busy buzzing. We’re not sure yet if all of our hives have survived. A few of them were a bit small going into the winter so we are not very confident that they will all make it through the winter, but there is really nothing that we can do once we have fed them for the winter, I guess we’ll know in a few weeks.

We’re starting to plan what we’d like to accomplish during the warm half of the year. I’m afraid that we are leaning toward not planting a garden this year. We still have so much to do around here that we could really put the time we would spend on the garden to better use. Since Peer works full time and isn’t able to spend as much time as he’d like working around the house, we have to take advantage of the time we do have and plan carefully what really needs to be done first. We will put down a cover crop of wild flowers so we don’t lose our planting beds to weeds.

Some of the things that are on our list for consideration.

• greenhouse
• herb garden
• walkways
• hedge
• patio
• cleaning

We are re-thinking what we want to grow, according to what we eat the most of and what is the most practical for us to grow on our tiny piece of land. Since we eat a vegan diet, we eat a ton of veggies and in the summer months, we will be eating lots of greens and salad veggies. In future we will add more kale, chard, spinach and lettuces to the garden, we will probably not grow potatoes or carrots, and will add broccoli and cauliflower. But much of what we eat, needs a greenhouse. We are going to try and get one built this summer.

We also use alot of herbs so getting the herb garden dug and planted is also high on the list.

We have no walkways in our yard and we really could use them. It becomes a swamp in the spring and fall and getting around is not so easy. The problem with walkways is that they cost money so we’ll be thinking about whether we can afford to do that this year. We also aren’t sure yet what type of walkways we’d like.

We have to finish planting the hedge, we have one side planted but need to buy the plants and dig the holes along the other side of the property. More money…

We have no place to sit and relax outside, no place to barbecue or have company over during the summer months. This is high on our list because even though it might seem trivial, it’s something that is important to us. We’ve been here for 8 years…it’s really time we had a place to sit outdoors. Last year we were given some large concrete bricks so we’re hoping to use those.

We still have a ton of cleaning to do. There is a huge pile of trash behind the house, but we need to rent a large dumpster (or two) in order to get rid of it…again…money. It always comes down to the money, doesn’t it?

Anyway, that’s what we’re thinking about right now. I’ll keep you updated.