Spring in the mountains is a fickle affair. Spring time one day, winter the next, then back to spring.
This was preceded by a 63f day, the snowy day, it fell to 14f, climbed to upper 40’s and windy yesterday and back into the 60’s today.
I checked the greenhouse tonight, I fear the greens didn’t survive 14f. It was too dark to see for sure, but it looked like most were burned off. The tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, spinach, and Komatsuma have sprouted indoors, but nothing has been sown under the greenhouse yet, just the transplants that were overwintered or planted out there a few weeks ago.
To confuse the schedule, as pasta was on the menu a couple nights ago, one of the bags of tomatoes was brought up and cooked down, run through the mill, and 4 pints of tomato sauce canned.
Not the usual time of year for canning, but the 8 gallons of tomatoes in the freezer need to be made stable. Tonight, a second 2 gallon bag was brought up and a few handfuls were thawed enough to skin, chop, and add to a pot of chili that was being prepared. The next rainy day, the remaining gallons will be cooked down and canned. Not as many tomatoes are being planted this year, but enough to add more to the shelves.
The spring flowers on our walk were recovering today, but the pussy willow that had begun to bloom are all burned and browned. Some of the catkins hadn’t opened yet, so hopefully they will open in the next couple of weeks.
The switch to daylight savings time means nothing to the chicken flock, but throws our senior bodies into disarray, bodies that disagree with the clock as they adjust.
In the midst of the storm on Saturday, our internet quit. Our router was 9 years old and after a cell phone chatline with tech support and a phone call from the local technician in our little rural coop phone service, we have DSL, we drove down and picked up a new router/modem programmed for us. It still didn’t work and no technicians are available on Sunday. They came out this morning and really couldn’t figure out why, but changed the filter on the line coming in the house and managed to get us back on. A couple hours later, it failed again and Son1 spent an hour on the phone with me troubleshooting. Thanks to him, we are back on again.