In which I trudge, wander, play in the garden and ride a little bit

Fiddle's rehab is progressing.  Slow but steady.  

Currently we "trudge" around the yard for 20 minutes every morning. Her soundness is improving, as you can see in the most recent walk-out video HERE.

The morning "trudge" is my opportunity to keep tabs on the yard.

Pickles Marie's tree is covered with plum blossoms and surrounded by blooming rosemary (for remembrance). 
The bees love this spot.  Fiddle is almost dead center in the photo,
wearing a white fly-sheet while she explores her new grazing strip.

  Everything seems to be happening at once!

Comfrey at sunrise

I've started carrying a little pair of loppers with me as I trudge, so I can snip off blackberry sprouts that Fiddle can't reach.  If she can reach them, she eats them.  Every morning there are new vines emerging, because blackberry plants are diabolic.


The upside of not training for competitions is that there's plenty of time to mess around in the gardens. 

The Old Garden (est. 2009) freshly poled and planted with potatoes, beans, and sunflowers.
We will add corn and squash in a few weeks.

The New Garden (est. 2013)  currently features pea sprouts and spinach.

Monica's garden (est. 2016) has bits and bobs of lots of stuff, including
elephant garlic, rhubarb, strawberries, fava beans and kale.

These strawberries are fenced so they cannot be raided by hens or by sheepdogs.

Elsewhere in the yard, the tomatoes are in (Monica planted them because we do not need a Tomato Curse this summer) and the radishes are up.

Early Girl and Sungold tomatoes in the tanks, and cherry tomatoes in the upside-down tomato bins

And the asparagus is up!

Not a single stalk of asparagus has yet made it to the kitchen. 
We stand beside the bed and eat them raw.

Potatoes are everywhere:  the New Garden, the Old Garden, the manure pile, and even in a few containers!
These are purple potatoes.

Last year's turnips, allowed to winter over (we were eating them as late as last month) are now
flowering and starting to produce seed.  They will plant their own following crop.

We lost some blueberry bushes in the extreme heat last summer, but the surviving bushes are doing fine

These are not plants.  When I asked Monica how many chickens we currently own, she said,
"Oh, don't be that way."  Pretty sure that at least 2 of these cuties are roosters, gahhh.

The orchard:  apple, pear, and plum.  The cherry tree is still alive, but not very enthused.

After I took this photo, the camera blinked BATTERY EXHAUSTED at me.  But here's a picture from a few days ago:

Back in the saddle again.

Fiddle's rehab now includes 10 minutes of riding per day!  Walking.  Bareback.  In the pasture.  But, ya know....

it's good.