It’s a wonderful time of year

Color amid showers

It’s the most colorful time of the year… (think that Christmas song ‘the most wonderful time of the year’ tune, its what rolls across my mind when I survey the prairies). Emerald green waves drift across the prairies while brilliant, rich yellow pops here and there. The rare periwinkle blue shyly blooms and winks amid the waves.

The canola is such a rich and brilliant yellow; my eyes forget the intensity of the color till the next year rolls around. Soybeans, corn, wheat, edibles and potatoes wave and nod sleepily in the afternoon sun as birds execute soaring swoops and daring dives. While the flax pops the soft blue and then melts back into the green of the emerald waves.

Scattered rain showers stealthily steal a march over the prairies, dousing some fields and leaving others with only tantalizing drops of rain. Farmers play tag with the rain clouds as they try to finish the last rounds of spraying. Hubs is out right now sneaking into the opening of gentle breezes and temporarily cloud-free skies.

I spy a fox in the edibles

I turn around and weeds have sprouted even bigger than before from my last weeding and hoeing. Finally, my garden looks less “I just planted this in the middle of June” and more like a real, potentially veggie-producing garden. Yay. A garden that I now remember to close the gate behind so Scooter doesn’t charge in and damage my plants with his clumsy paws.

Not too shabby looking eh? Ignore the weeds lol

When I bought my plants (my house starters didn’t make it or it was a 90% fail rate, lol) I encouraged hubs to pick one out. Yes, hubs took me flower/veggie shopping. He wheeled that giant flatbed cart like a pro around the greenhouses (he took me to more than one!). An interesting plant called a cola plant caught his eye. It smells faintly like the pop and if you snip the new, tender shoots you can use it in marinades to flavor meat. Maybe even as a dry rub. Who knows? We’ll test it this weekend. 😊 But it’s the first plant that hubs checks to make sure its still alive and growing in the garden. For some reason the squash plant doesn’t interest him as much. Go figure.

Gotta keep the water-loving farm dog happy and cool

My farm/in the field duties have been relatively light in the three weeks that I’ve been back in the Canuckland. Unfortunately mowing, trimming and general roundup spraying around bins waits for no one. And we invested in a lot of perennial flowers which take more time to plant than it took to buy them (this includes mulling over the exact plant – and how many - to put on the cart, after I’ve discerned which type of flower – hubs did very well through all this). 

I’m thankful for the time to catch up on that but now that leaves me with ‘free’ time. Which is just waiting to be filled with bookwork and follow-up phone calls to straighten out the inevitable error here and there on statements. Wiiiiiiiiiiin… or not. I suppose it’s a good reason to stay out of the heat and bask in the arctic cold of the basement that comes with the ac being on, right? And drink cold coffee while the obviously over-worked and busy farm dog snores on the cold floor. 

It's like he knows I'm going to take a photo

I shall procrastinate on posting a photo of my ‘now completed’ horse pasture because the wire isn’t up yet. Somehow spraying trumps that, ha. At least when I post a photo next week, the grass blend for the salt spot will finally be up and looking more like a grass pasture and less like forgotten field.

 May your week be full of time with friends, bbq’ing and iced coffee.

But hey, apple trees :)