Spring....?

The word, a week and a half ago, was that there would be frost and snow, and UNusually, I was not so glad to hear that, as I had just planted my Garden. Well I took precautions and covered my little raised beds and I think after the four days of on and off snow, sleet and hail, that my starts and seeds are gonna do ok... That is, if the CATS stay out of the garden!!! They have decided it is the best place for their litter box. Relatively dry, loose soil and as an added bonus... its a bit warmer than the regular soil because of all the organic matter in decompose mode still... Oh, I know, we all like the warm seats, especially on a cold night, but that doesn't excuse their behavior! So my seeds may need to be replanted and I may need to shoot the feline beasties on my deck. (sorry Sara, but nothing should get between me and my homegrown tomatoes ;) j/k) I planted some garlic and it is coming up already!

I've recently been posting about my garden, but I thought I'd add a little about my orchard. A month or so ago we were invited in on a deal. A nursery/orchard was sold, and the new owner wanted the land to build on so he was selling the trees for $5.00 each. We ended up buying 5 trees and the guy threw in a couple of freebies that he wasn't sure would survive. We also got two plum trees from a friend, then add our cherry trees that survived the shop countruction, and you got 8 semi-dwarf apple trees, 2 plum trees, and 3 cherry trees. Quite the little orchard! I'm excited, and my mouth waters when I think of it. :P BUT of course it will take years for most the trees to be established enought to start bearing fruit. But nothing finishes with out first starting, so,... we started!

I went out and checked them all today and every one of the trees is budding and/or leafing! The cherry even blossomed, but they've been around for a while so I expected them to. Hopefully I can get to the fruit before the birds do! We have four apple trees seperate from the rest of the orchard, but they will like their spot, its next to the beehives.

I also took a picture of our purely ornamental weeping/blossoming cherry. No fruit from that one, but it's very pretty, and makes a cool fort of sorts under its branches in the summer for the kids. Well as I read this post it's sounding a bit boring. So I better end it already! Though I'm adding one last picture of our recently vacated goat "pasture." I took the shot originally for the budding plum in the foreground but the camera focused on the background. The shot was intriguing and I thought I'd share. A very northwest image. :)