Spring builds big muscles

It’s Monday evening, and I’ll set the scene for you:
Warm enough to be out in a light sweater, sun’s just gone behind the trees ringing the property but still shining on the tops of the southernmost trees, and the only sounds are birdsong, including a neighboring rooster, hummingbirds zipping around me, and the kids playing across the road (I don’t want to, but to be fair must mention the occasional passing car). As I type this, I’m sipping ambrosial mead bought yesterday from a bee farmer and mead maker down the road (I also bought some of his fireweed honey). We worked hard today, as I think we’ll be doing more and more these days, clearing weeds from beds to be planted with chard and strawberries. Got the chard planted but the strawberries must wait as we just got the holes cut in the black plastic by (or just after) quitting time. It was a gorgeous day, hot enough to want a sun hat and plenty of water on hand.
Last Friday was the first harvest day for the Moss Street market in Victoria. Off the top of my head, we picked rhubarb, leeks, parsnips, salad mix, brassica florets, Jerusalem artichokes, kale, mustard greens, nettles (ouch! But yum…), fresh and dry herbs, spinach, flowers for bunches. Mary and Bill went to the market (which is just a half market for a couple of weeks), then next weekend it will be Bill and I. It was a fun harvest day. Last week was a hard-working week in general. I finished planting tomatoes into the greenhouse I am responsible for keeping track of, which ended up being around 160 plants. Mary built a small rock retaining wall for one of the fields which is somewhat terraced, and I helped out a bit with that. We moved the second movable greenhouse (the first one being the one in which I planted tomatoes) and that is really quite something. It involves pulling with the tractor and chains and sticking logs under the rails of the greenhouse… excitement. I don’t remember what else we did right now, but it included lots of digging and moving stuff in wheelbarrows and lifting and general body building-type activities. I’m definitely getting stronger, and I can feel the work in my back. To explain these pictures a bit: the massive leaf I’m holding is giant winter spinach. Bill is the guy gathering daffodils.
You can see some of the lovely produce we harvested for the market, and it’s in the cool room where we store what we harvest. The flowers in the buckets we made into bouquets Saturday morning. There are some examples of the seedlings we’ve been raising, both for sale and to plant at the farm. My hand is next to the same size tomatoes as I was planning into my greenhouse.
So things are going well. Jesse came to visit this past weekend, which was so nice especially after my having gone to Vancouver for the Easter weekend. We had a pretty chill weekend. On Sunday he, Bill and I went to the meadery and had a tasting, spent and hour on the beach, went to visit the alpacas (who I’m falling deeply in love with) and had a great supper. Yay!
Take care all of you,
Love, Sasha