It's Winter, right?

We were all outdoors this weekend.  It was a balmy 60+ degrees and sunny so what better way to use a "Winter" day than to work outside?

I finally pruned most of the fruit trees, which is an agonizing task for me as I don't have the greenest of thumbs and it just drives me nuts to cut off a perfectly fine living branch.  But I managed through it, the entire time chanting to myself, "Pruning is necessary, pruning is good".

Rhiannon and I raked up the "really" wasted goat hay (as opposed to just wasted goat hay, which becomes animal bedding) and put it into the compost heap.  Those hay-snob goats drive me nuts.  All that perfectly good hay, spit out in spite and trampled on.  But I managed through it, the entire time chanting to myself, "This will make great compost, compost is good".  I do a lot of chanting around here.

I also cleaned out the raised beds in the front yard.  Yes, I know, it's the middle of winter and it should have been done in the fall.  But honestly, I think the covering of leaves did the cabbages a favor.  I still have most of them that weren't harvested in the fall.  I planted a late fall crop figuring what the heak, and although they didn't get to full maturity, if I picked them now I'd have tiny heads of cabbage.  I just can't believe they are still alive!

Some of them have frost damage to the outer leaves, but all in all, they are doing pretty well for the end of January.  I probably could have harvested larger heads had I got my sloth of a self into the shed and put the plastic tarp over the hoops.  And I still may cover them up  hoping for a little more growth since it's supposed to be in the 60's all this week.  Crazy warm winter we've been having.  But I guess it's about time; the past several winters have been pretty harsh.  Call it Global Warming or Climate Change or whatever you want, but if it means it's warmer in the winter and I get a longer growing season, be damned the ice caps!

So now that I've semi-cleaned up the cabbage patch (I hate saying "cabbage patch", visions of those gawd-awful-ugly 80's dolls always pop into my head....and yes, I had one) and have a clean and fluffy (yes, fluffy) second bed just screaming to be planted, I think I'm going to do it.  I'm going to plant something.

Paul threatened me if I did any planting, mumbling something about everything getting just about ready to harvest and a freeze will kill it all, but I don't care.  I'm going to plant some lettuce, and spinach seeds in the empty bed and cover the hoops with plastic.  I have several packages of unknown-dated lettuce and spinach seeds so if they make it, great, if not, no big loss.  And I will have somewhat satisfied my cravings for dirt in my fingernails and the smell of earth in my nostrils.