Spring!

Spring appears to have finally reached New Hampshire. My lawn needs to be mowed before it becomes a complete hayfield. Unfortunately I took the lawnmower in to have a spring tune-up two weeks ago, and it's still there. I need to call and harass them tomorrow, since they told me it would be about 10 days.

This morning we headed off to the Hollis flea market to enjoy the first really sunny day we've had in about a week. It was very successful. We came home with two glass pyrex baking dishes, three broiler pans, a couple of extra baking racks, a Revereware dutch oven style pan, some small kitchen tools, a set of dice-shaped salt and pepper shakers for my collection, a cute otter figurine, and super-ornate picture frame for an old family photo.

This afternoon I went out and did some yard work, with mixed results.

I was annoyed to find when I uncovered the trailer that one of the tires has done completely flat over the winter. So flat it doesn't even spring back when the weight is lifted off it. The trailer is now up on cinder blocks on that side, so I can get the wheel off and get a new tire. But first I have to manage to unstick the lug nuts...

But there is good news too. The Christmas Rose is still blooming like crazy. The foxglove I planted last summer is coming back beautifully. The jack-in-the-pulpits are starting to poke up through their covering of leaves. The Siberian violets are blooming, and best of all, I have a little clump of fern-leaf bleeding heart that lived and is blooming. I think this was my fourth attempt, so I'm doing a happy dance.

The red and yellow raspberry canes did not fare well over the winter, so I don't think I'll get fruit from either of those this year. However there are lots of fresh shoots coming up, so next year should be good if we don't dump huge volumes of snow on them again. The red ones were under all the snow from the garage roof when we had it shoveled, and just broken under the weight. The yellow ones didn't get enough water last summer.