It's that time of year again.
The raised beds were made ready for another year of gardening on Monday afternoon.

April 19, 2016 - Tuesday

31 degrees/clear skies/calm winds

Pentoga Road

Brrr, it's chilly again this morning. We were spoiled the past several days with mild nights and daytime highs in the 70's. Today is supposed to reach into the low 60's and I see that later this week, the forecast is for the upper 40's to low 50's. It's springtime in the Upper Peninsula.

Not to be fooled, we have some of the delicate plants that overwintered in the basement on Sargie's little red wagon where we wheel them in and out of the garage nightly to protect them from any frost and cold temperatures. They will go into the various planters next month.

Monday was an ideal day, at least for me. I got to play in the dirt from almost sunup to an hour before sundown.

Before I talk about that, let me show you a handful of grandbaby pictures. Remember in the old days, when we kept pictures in our wallets, ready to pull them out at a moment's notice? Well, this grandpa enjoys doing the equivalent with his blog.

Abigail

Coleman

Bennet and Ivy

And of course:

Grady

We have more grandchildren, but these are the pictures that were sent our way over the past two days. Beautiful.

Page Two:

I played in the dirt all day Monday. The first order of business was to remove all the roots and rocks from the new addition to the garden before tilling. 

Before

The spruce roots kept wrapping around the tines. It's a good thing Mom's in Indiana or I'm certain I would have had the pleasure of biting down on a bar of soap... her cure for the use of inappropriate language.

It was a chore and took all morning, but I eventually got through the entire thing.

After

It took quite a while to clean up the surrounding area of roots and rocks. I raked and shoveled and finally, it started looking like yard once again. I'm grateful that whole stump project is over, at least for now.

Page Three:

I spent the entire afternoon working in the old garden. All the tillable areas were worked up and the raised beds repaired.

I love my small electric tiller. It was purchased several years ago at the Insurance Liquidators in town for $50 and has been a lifesaver many times over. I've owned other tillers in the past, two Troy Built rear tined machines, a Sears rear tine, a generic front tine, etc. etc. This one is so light, so handy, but best of all, it does the job. 

It was powerful enough to till the entire new garden yesterday, yet small enough to lift into the raised beds to finely chop that soil.

I finally exited the garden last night around 5:30. It was a tired boy who shuffled into the shower then later, plopped on the couch. Sargie was home soon after and we enjoyed the evening watching Dancing with the Stars. 

Sargie's working again today. I'm going to replace a few boards on a couple of the raised beds. I love growing the massive sunflowers, but their roots play havoc with the boards, pushing them out, even cracking a few. 

Today's main goal is to extend the electric deer fence to include the new addition. It's going to be another busy one.

After all, a man's work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road...