This week has been such a relief. With the weather pushing back the beginning of our spring activities, nervous energy had the chance to build up and multiply. Now that our vegetables are in the ground, we are a little more relaxed. When my to-do list gets too long to memorize, all I want to do is start checking things off. I’m so glad I got to check something off. I had a beautiful, well-thought out plan, then I got too excited when I saw the actual plants. (We did seedlings for some things this year. Next year we will start our own seeds.) The plan changed and we squeezed in three extra types of veggies we hadn’t planned on. I just couldn’t say no.

For an update on the Ruth Stout method: it’s working! We prepared our soil a little over a month ago and covered the soil with a thick layer of hay. As of today there are a handful of grass blades poking through the hay. (The picture below is the worst of it.) And when I went to pull them, they practically popped out on their own. You have to expect some amount of weeds no matter what method you use, but this was beyond minimal. Last year, if I didn’t pick them every day the garden would have been overrun. So I will happily deal with pulling a few weeds once a month.

I walked around today, and noticed some blue spruces with some inspiring new growth!

Also, Jamie told me to go look at the four bluebird eggs in our bird house. I didn’t see any, but I did see four tiny little furry things in the nest. You can’t make it out from the picture very well, but they are the dark pile in the center of the nest.

I even found some pretty flowers growing randomly in the yard. Now that we’ve checked off a few things on our list, it’s time to step back and enjoy it before adding anything else. We are purposely living in the present and patiently waiting for the plants to grow.