Skippy on vacation

Skippy has been swimming and boating the past week up in Vermont! With his two buddies Bannor and Beja.

planting peas and favas

I did get my peas planted on Wednesday - St Patrick's Day. I planted three rows:

Sugar Sprint (Johnny's) snap pea, 2 ft vines, 58 days
Caselode shelling pea (Johnny's), shelling pea, 2 1/2 ft vines, 57 days
RSVPea (Burpee) shelling pea, 3 1/2 ft vines, 56 days

And I planted a block of crimson-flowered fava beans that Dan grew and hand-collected.

I had some "help" from the canine crew. Bannor, my brother's dog who's here for the week, was especially interested. I thought it was great that he wanted to check out the seeds - Skippy has never shown much interest. But he wasn't only sniffing, he popped a fava seed in his mouth and enjoyed crunching on it for quite a while. Oops. I covered them up more quickly after that!

I also spread some cover crop seed on beds that I will use for corn and squashes this year. This is an experiment as I don't know if it will grow much before I turn the soil.

buddies

Here are more photos of Skippy playing with his buddy Bannor. They have such fun! A lot of running and playing - but SO much sniffing. What DO they smell??!

march marsh

A beautiful blue sky today. The same color is reflected in the water. Our weather is getting into the 50's now. If you look close there are small sprouts of grasses and leaves everywhere. I've been meaning to compare this date with my records form previous years. It seems like an early Spring here. (Marion was saying Spring is 4 weeks late in the UK this year.)

Skippy's friend Bannor is visiting this week. This is our first walk together. I'll add more photos of the two buddies.

Fragmentary Blue by Robert Frost

Why make so much of fragmentary blue
In here and there a bird, or butterfly,
Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,
When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)--
Though some savants make earth include the sky;
And blue so far above us comes so high,
It only gives our wish for blue a whet.