Good Sunday morning. I hope all is well with you. Today we find a bit of a mish-mash when it comes to weather, it will be interesting to see how it goes. I didn’t get anything accomplished yesterday, I woke up a bit under the weather with a fever of 101.5 and a massive ear ache, so nothing got done yesterday, other than laying in bed.

Well, that’s not entirely true. While I was scrolling around on my phone it began to ring. I didn’t recognize the name, but answered it anyhow, because it was indeed a number I had put into my phone at one time. Turned out to be the neighbor behind my brother-in-law, telling us news of a brush fire that was headed in their direction. He didn’t have Bruce’s number so called us to call him to let him know the fire truck was on the way. There was lots of jumping out of bed, springing into action – on Joe’s part, and our dog Annie, but certainly not mine in the shape I was in! Indeed, the firetruck showed up, I watched as Bruce sprinted out to flag it down, Joe grabbed some gear and headed over. Jill called to ask me what was going on because in all the commotion, all Bruce said was “call Jade” as he headed out the door. As Jill and I were on the phone a few more fire response teams showed up, Bruce and Joe hopped on the four wheeler and headed over to the neighbors house….it was quiet a bit of excitement for a Saturday morning!

Thankfully, the fire was out within 20 minutes or so. There is about 3 acres scorched, and a few trees that might have some damage, a report will be filed with the insurance company. It appears the brush burning the neighbors attempted got a bit out of control. It was a bit of a windy day, apparently too windy to try to do a control burn. But everyone is fine, the neighbor took swift action. I think it might be a good idea perhaps to gather phone numbers from the other three houses on our road, just in case something like this happens again?

I did finally mange to get out of bed yesterday. Jill and Bruce stopped by on their way back from their daily walk. Jill visited me while I sat propped up in my sick bed for a while, until the boys came in for tea, so I finally pulled myself up and joined the festivities. Not everyone has the great fortune to have their brother live across the road, or the great fortune of having such a great brother like Joe has, and an even better bonus is to have such a great sister-in-law.

As for today, I’m feeling a bit better, the ear still hurts, but I’d like to get more seeds in soil, so it just needs to go away. I did manage to pick up three bags of Miracle grow, I know it’s not the best soil according to some, but I have zero germination rate with the Bells of Ireland, which in my book is completely unacceptable. I will bring in the seed cells I have out in the greenhouse, and see if I can tend to them better in here, then do another seed cell with the new soil and another seed cell with the old soil, and do a bit of an experiment-why not? I have the time and energy for it, and I’m super curious as to why such horrible germination rates when the last two years have been so amazing. I’ll try heat mats, a light, and check on which brands of seeds I used last year, and perhaps even order those same ones.

Yes, I just might order more seeds….wait did I just say might? All lies…I did in fact order more seeds, on Friday. The bride-to-be from Nebraska asked for some specific colors she would like, so I poked through some catalogs and found some new-to-me seeds and thought I’d give them a try…. for the sake of the new bride of course – not for me! I also bought some food…because as a seedling seller – which by the way — an officially licensed retail nursery thank you very much – people always ask for tomatoes! I added Golden Ball Chrysanthemums & White Stars Feverfew to the line up of fun flowers. There is also two different kinds of tomatoes, two different kinds of beans and even Rouge Vif D’Etampes pumpkin seeds arriving. Hopefully I haven’t missed the windows too much for those, but I’m going to give them a go anyhow. It will be okay.

My greenhouse is so empty….!! I know I have plugs coming next week, and things will start to get to hopping, but it’s so strange to have such an empty green house on March 7th, but it certainly has been so much less stress than last year for sure – at least in the seed starting arena less stress, but not so much in life…there’s always something to stress about! I was finding myself getting giddy with excitement as I was looking through all of the pictures of my different plugs I have coming over the next several weeks. I need to lower my expectations….take it easy….because things can happen that are out of my control, but I can’t help being excited about all the fun new things I’m growing this year!

Oh, yes and we’ve finally managed to set up the weather station, here’s the link if you would like to check out the weather at our ranch. Our station ID is KWAEVERS44 on weather underground. It will be fun to see the specific wind speeds, and the direction of those winds – in addition to the amount of rainfall & temps. I blame the weather obsession on my dad. Always walking by the weather station hanging on the wall, tapping that barometer, making some mutterings about the weather. It mattered to him what the weather was going to be doing because he worked outside all of his life, he was a farmer in his younger years, a county road department truck driver for many years, and then a dirt guy at the end of his career, so it mattered what was going to be in store for him for the day. I’m not sure if I will ever not pay attention to the weather, and it’s not like I can really do anything about the weather, but it is certainly still a fascination to keep an eye on it.

I hope you are well this fine Sunday morning. Take care and have a fabulous second week of March! Until next time, hugs to you!