This is Miss Delaware (the white one). She’s my alpha hen — a funny, bossy, curious hen. She likes to be right up in everyone’s business. Which is fine, most of the time, but this morning she and my younger dog, Owen, had a little altercation. This is Owen (taken by our friend William Campbell last winter). Owie is the center of Owie’s universe — I’ve spoiled him, mostly because I think he’s hilarious. So, last night, we had a little rib eye on the grill, and this morning I tossed the bone out in the yard for whichever dog…

I don’t have a photo, but the row covers on the pepper plants are working great. They look like they’ve grown 1/2 an inch since last weekend, and many are getting another set of leaves (they were pretty tiny seedlings). This is much better progress than I got last year under plastic, and that they’ve also been getting the benefit of rain is terrific. Ordered a long swath from Johnnys Seeds that just came this morning. I’m going to put the tomatoes out this weekend (well, depending on how true those snow reports look) and put them under Agribon. I…

I transplanted the pepper plants yesterday — it’s been warm and sunny, and I was losing a few of them in the cold frame because they were in the little 4-packs, and sometimes I forget to water. So, into the new 8 x 3.5 foot bed at the end of the new garden. It’s a sunny spot, and the fence bounces a fair amount of heat, so I’m hoping it will be a good microclime for peppers. Every gardener has his or her obsession, and mine is peppers. This year, I have the usual assortment of oddball herilooms — most…

Spring means morels, and morels mean the return of hiking. We’d both had sort of an intense week, so when yesterday dawned cool and sort of rainy after a week of unseasonable and unwelcome temps in the high 80s, Himself suggested we go out in the afternoon and look for morels. Now I haven’t quite hit the big half century mark, but I’m getting close enough that one notices certain changes during an afternoon in the woods. For one thing, there’s the vision issue. I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing my bifocals most of the time (since most of…

This is what we woke up to at the cabin this morning (that’s the motel building and the shed behind it. If any of you good readers would like to rent this property for a vacation, the listing is here: http://bit.ly/wCoIWE). Anyhow, things got exciting last night. For the first time this season, it looked like we’d be able to build a fire in the firepit and cook outside. And for a while, it was beautiful. Then I went inside to saute the morels, and by the time the sausages were grilled, the wind had picked up and it was spitting…