This week spring is here

Wow, who would have thought. March 13th and it sure feels like spring. The forecast is showing days in the 70's ahead, into and over the weekend. And beyond. I'm pretty sure we did nothing to deserve this, so might as well sit back and enjoy it. Don't worry, we will get paid back in some fashion for this. You could get to work on some of those projects around the yard. I've already started cleaning up some mulched perennial beds in front of my house. Kind of hated to cut down the Miscanthus (silver feather grass), but it has to go sometime. It stood tall and proud all winter long, a showy golden specimen well into April most years.

Okay, let's stop right there.Turns out that cleaning out those beds too early (mid-March) is not a good idea. Removing that layer of leaves, and old vegetation allows the warm sun to penetrate and heat up the ground, which leads to new growth, which leads to sad faces when that new growth gets frozen out a week or two later, when the temperature plummets, as it inevitably will this time of year. Oh wait, did you think spring was here to stay? In mid March? Well, you can think whatever you want, just don't act on it, like I did (paragraph above).

These are photos of a job we did near Chetek, WI in '11, The flat red-colored area is for seating around a fire-pit, and we hydro-seeded the black dirt areas elsewhere. The slope we covered with random boulders, a much less expensive option than building walls and terraces. As things green up and fill in with vegetation it won't look quite so stark.

Got three phone calls for prospective jobs today. It seems as though there may be a bit more activity this year, just based on my informal polling data. People are by no means ready to throw caution to the wind and start writing checks hither and yon, but after a few years of sitting on their hands, it may be safe to venture outside again. If gas prices go over $4 a gallon, as they're expected to, I'll get back to you on that nascent economic recovery. One way or another, I'm pretty sure, things will work out. They always do when I realize I'm not in charge, that I've got to hold up my end of things, but that one a lot bigger and better than I is calling the shots. Liberating, that view.