June 16, 2004
Smile and Wave
It's getting empty in the greenhouse - most of the stuff has been transplanted. The transplanter is a cool implement. It has a big tank full of water which it dumps into the divots that the wheels mounted on the transplanter make. Two people - in this case Sean and Justin - sit on the seats at the end, and the trays of plugs are in front of them. Then it becomes a matter of grabbing the plugs and plopping them into the moistened holes. Every so often, the wheel gets gunked up with dirt, and Lorenz cleans it regularly (in the field, and always when he brings the tractor down to refill the water tank and pick up more transplants).
The weeds are as they always are: there. The triplets and Lorenz and sometimes Tara have been taking lots of time to go through with the wheel and hand hoes - they'll often take the row covers off for a short while to do a quick attack. The idea is simply to uproot the weeds, not pick them out perfectly the way I would do in the garden.
Except of course I haven't been doing it in the garden, at least not as much as I should. Looking at all that's sprouting there is making me feel a little bit guilty, but not enough to actually do something about it. Right now, I'm more into enjoying the garden. We've had the tiki torches lit a couple of nights now. The evidence of the level of enjoyment HP and I have been getting out of the garden is in the pear crate...
The other source of enjoyment is the pool which is, thanks to HP's endless scrubbing and vacuuming, finally open. Malcolm was the first to brave the cold water this year on Sunday, and he's been in and out of it constantly since then. I finally had my first swim today, convinced to do so by Malcolm (who isn't allowed to go in without adult supervision, and is quick enough to realize that there are only so many times he can get me to "watch" him and asked if I would swim with him. Smart kid).
Smart kid indeed, actually. He had a project for school: he and his partner, Luke, were to build a model of "something medieval". They decided on a castle. So, over several days, Sean, HP and Lorenz "helped" them with their model. I saw Malcolm and Luke drive a few finishing nails into the tower assembly, I saw them paint symbols on the towers, and I saw them scamper off on their bikes as Lorenz and HP worked away. Even I got involved, with some silly nail and string construction to go behind the drawbridge. Adrian called it, when he dropped by to see everybody except Malcolm and Luke getting into the castle - "so whose project is this anyway?" he asked... HP was still working away when I went to bed. By the time I went to bed, he'd completed gallows and a well, and apparently there was a shed with straw in it by morning. Malcolm claimed he and Luke had the best project in the class - and so they should, given that they had four adults work on it! Malcolm's has a future in management, I think.
Things go on as they do at Greenfields... hens and roosters and vegetables and children and Ruth's colt and weeds are growing. Lorenz still loves his tractor, I'm still obsessed with my garden, HP is still crazy about motorcycling (except now he actually gets to do it, insurance and registration finally being sorted out), Boris still wants belly rubs, and it's still one of my favourite places to be.