Peach Blossoms

One day early last week, the fruit trees budded out up here on top of the hill. The apricot tree is the showiest, but one of the peach trees is a second runner up. Even the new plumcot trees are blooming. Now, it is a matter of crossing fingers that no freeze occurs. Last year, we had a late freeze which destroyed the fruit crop.

My back is killing me. I think it is the aftereffect of scraping wallpaper and the old skim coat of plaster down in the bedroom of the old house. I really overdid it on Friday.

I've often said that I worry that the only thing that was holding that house together was the wallpaper. Although I'd easily removed the top layer of blue vinyl long ago, this last group of layers was a quarter inch thick, wrinkled and painted over with a lovely chrome. (Why has every old house I've remodelled been painted chrome green?) There were at least three layers of old pasted wallpaper. The earliest looked like a brown wood pattern, but I think it was so old that it had turned brown with age. Once down to the real plaster job, the damage was much less than I thought it might be. It was all the layers that created the ripples and surface irregularities.

So, now to find someone who will apply a new skim coat so I can paint the walls.

I planted some seeds in the vegetable garden. That's one job calling me.

Eggs abound. Chickens, ducks and geese are producing. I've got some eggs in the incubator.

I saw wild quail out in the pasture, and that's good news. It means that we are good stewards of the land. Wild turkeys are also in evidence -- another group we want to encourage.

'Two new goat kids yesterday afternoon. Time to go down and see what else is new. Oh -- and to my friends who saw little Zero dragging his back legs and were skeptical that he would eventually stand up: he is completely normal now. The other day, I saw him leap off the table in the barn and run outside to play.