gone three days and look what happens

Last night i returned after three wonderful days in Kansas.  Well, to be honest it was two days in the car, one fun evening, one lovely day and one fun breakfast in Kansas.  The reason for the Kansas trip was to attend the graduation of my youngest, Caitlin, who received her Master's Degree in Interior Architecture and Product Design from Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas.  I couldn't be prouder and that event deserves its own post and I will do that soon.

A lot happened while I was gone.

We had a shot of rain on Friday night or Saturday, more rain during the day on Sunday and still more rain during the night on Sunday night.  I hear predictions of more rain Monday afternoon or evening and maybe more still the next couple of days. 

The lawn grew.  It desperately needs to be mowed but of course it cannot be mowed while it is this wet.  One good thing is that by the time I am able to mow it i should have enough grass clippings to pick up and spread between the rows in my new growing space.  Not only is it long but there are wide swaths of yellow dandelions.

The orchard--the apple trees and plum trees are blooming.  We have flowers opening on both apple trees and both plum trees.  Both of the pears, last year's and the replacement planted a few weeks ago, are getting leaves and I am hoping that flowers won't be far behind.  The flowering cherry, an ornamental tree is also blooming.  I am hoping that will bring the mason bees to the yard and they will find the house I set out for them.

The asparagus went from being a bunch of spears to being fern-like over the weekend.  I knows that there is probably a word for that but it eludes me now.

The rhubarb is getting bigger and still needs desperately to be weeded.

More of the raspberry canes are leafing out.

The blueberries do not look any worse.  The one variety still has no leaves but the other two varieties are looking okay.   I am glad for the rain because I think the rain water might be better than the well water.  Last year I pH tested my well water and it was alkaline so it is not helping to acidify my soil.  I think that I will make an attempt to capture rainwater over the next few days and use that for watering.

The peas are up.  The transplanted kale are surviving.  The potatoes are just starting to come in a couple spots.  Maybe some varieties are earlier than others.  Nothing coming yet from the strawberries, a couple of the grapevines are just starting to get leaves the others are not yet.  Nothing much from the garlic. 

the replacement pear is planted

Yay, the replacement pear tree is in the ground.  It arrived yesterday and when I dug the hole the ground was pretty wet and I didn't want to mud it in so i figured a day might help things dry some and then we got a little snow overnight.  So today after the sun had been shining for a while the little bareroot tree went in the ground.  Now we will wait to see if it grows.  And while we wait we will be watching to see if the other pear and the plums that were planted last year survived their first winter.  

Here it is.  

It kind of looks like the one that I dug up.

This pear is called Waterville.  In the online catalog it is described as "Large and juicy with a slightly coarse but very sweet flesh.  The tree is an extremely vigorous grower."  Sounds scrumptious.