The Sock and Things that Fly.

This year I had good intentions of celebrating St. Patrick's day wearing hand knit green socks, and getting the potatoes in the ground. Well, so much for good intentions. I did wear green, and we did have the potatoes, but ...

I only got one sock done, and the potatoes needed more time to set eyes. The sock is knit in a beautiful emerald green that I got when I went to Madrona in February. It's from Fancy Image Yarns, and as usual, it a sheer delight to work with. Myra dyes her own yarns and the colors are so brilliant and true. I've cast on the second sock and do intend to get a pair done soon. It's just hard to find time to knit when I'm working in the garden.

The potatoes will get planted this weekend, along with the onions that have come in. Susan is bringing them over on Saturday so we will have a planting frenzy.

In the meantime, we have really ticked off the crows around here. I am a fan of compost, which means composting all of the vegetable kitchen waste. It turns into black gold, and well worth the effort. My dad taught me the value of good compost, and I've never doubted it. Here at Edgar's Acres we have been using bins made with fence wire so the crows were regular visitors to the compost buffet.
Sorry you screeching birds, but the buffet is now closed. We are in the process of emptying out the compost bins at our house in Bellevue, and bringing them over to Edgar's Acres. First one is in place. We got this done on Monday and yesterday morning the crows sat in the trees lamenting the fact the buffet is now out of business. The compost is now all ours.

Yesterday morning David put up the Mason Bees box. We all know there is a crisis as far as the bee population goes. We have been planting flowers and shrubs to lure the bees in our garden and have tried to make our place bee friendly. The yellow jackets love the place, and last year I counted six different types of wild bees on the thyme. Our berries and vegetables were pollinated fine last year, but our apple trees were bare.

Our dear neighbor Charlie brought over a container of bees for us (on the right). The lower portion is full of the hibernating bees, which will be waking up soon and they will start filling in the empty tubes. After they have filled up all the little tubes this fall, we will bring in the containers and put them in the garage for the winter. Thank you Charlie.

Birds are an important part of our garden as well. We cleaned out the bird feeders and got them up for the birds. They've been flying by checking out the feeders and should be visiting soon. The birds help eat the bugs we don't want, especially the grub worms.

These bags are full of sterilized thistle seed (native thistle, not the Canadian thistle) that the finches dearly love.

We spent yesterday afternoon in Port Angeles. We first stopped by Everwarm to check out the woodstove we want to get in our house. The heat in this area is electric, propone or wood, and the electric bill is out of sight. When we had the house put up we planned for a woodstove in the family room, with circulation for the living area of the house. We will be getting the Endeavor
this Fall. Just got to finish saving up the cash for it.

Our next stop was the Airport Garden Nursery in Port Angeles. We have heard so much about this place and wanted to see for ourselves. I was planning on getting some flowers for the new beds so why not check out a new garden center. I could get into a lot of trouble here. I got pansies for the beds and some lettuce starts.

After that it was down to the ferry terminal for coffee, and then a trip out to Ediz Hook. It was amazingly calm so we were able to walk around without getting windblown. It was a nice to just watch the cargo ships heading out to the Pacific and the ferry coming into Port Angles.

The view looking over the Straits of Juan De Fuca is Vancouver Island, BC in Canada. Until I get my passport, this is the closest I can get to Canada.

We finished off the day visiting with my mom's cousin Mary Lou and her daughter Laurie. Mary Lou cooked an amazing meal, finished off with her cherry pie (made with our pie cherries). Mary Lou amazes me. For a 88 year old woman who is legally blind, she sure knows how to prepare a beautiful meal. A real treat was meeting Laurie's daughter Lilly her daughter Percy. Even though I had my camera, I forgot to take pictures. Grrr. We had a wonderful time and I love my Port Angeles family.

Well, today it's supposed to be warm and sunny so I'll be out planting lettuce and sunflower seeds. We are supposed to have rain tomorrow which actually will be a good thing as we need to get all of our new plantings watered.

TTFN

Sue