Morning Folks..

First Happy Belated EASTER to everyone.. From my little farm to you and yours!

It was truly a lovely Easter here on the farm.. Friday I got cleaned up and headed down the road some to where the local 4-H club was hosting Soil Club and I got to listen in while folks talked about living soil and what soil is etc.. Then I got to my little part helping the kids make seed balls.. nothing like clay, compost and wild flower seeds to get hands o so mucky!  It was a fun time, I enjoyed watching the kids figure things out and ask questions an so forth..

Lovely group of kids and moms 🙂 I look forward to working with them again in the near future.

Then Saturday came, which meant feed run, getting the tires switched from winter to summer but the main part of the day was the sump pump.. the bleep-bleep sump pump.. it decided very late Friday night to stop working properly.. which meant 4 inches of water all over my whole cellar (thankfully no water in my basement as the house is two different sections) so time was spent trying to fix it as we had parts.. the issue was figured out enough to run it to drain the basement but not being able to keep it going so it was a very late night indeed. With the last draining happening at 2 am in the morning..

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/flood-risk-april-2019-1.5105575

“downstream communities like Clarence-Rockland, Ont., volunteers have been working hard to prepare homes and other properties for potential floods.
Other towns like Rigaud, Que., have reported minor flooding, with residents there already being urged to pack up and leave their homes.
Sarich is warning that water level records could be broken for some of the Ottawa River’s tributaries.”

Compared to other folks.. we were doing great.. the cellar is prepared and everything is lifted off the floor by 6 to 8 inches depending so its a matter of fans and drying it out and then giving everything a swipe down with bleach water to makes sure we don’t have a mold issue afterwards but overall its the best place to have a water issue if you are going to have one.

The yard has been draining so well and all heading down and holding in our “Front Pond” and the overflow into the rain garden. I am happy that this water is not all leaving the farm.. but even more happy to see if collecting the water in the yard..

We are also looking at doing some work to direct the sump pump so it can be used to water in certain area’s of the garden.. we will see how that works.. I want it set up so I can switch it from watering the garden to going to the swale depending on what I want.

Saturday the alarm went off early as we needed to be at the hardware for new pump first thing but things just didn’t go as easy as expected, leading to more parts required in the afternoon run to town for the tires and then far more time then should have been spent.. It was one of those.. get this part working but then issues to get the correct backflow stop valve in place correctly..  It was a long day and we were also trying to get things ready for the company on sunday.

Sunday came with two truly lovely families (Hubbies cousin’s) arriving on the farm for a nice ham meal, a egg hunt and some other fun things on the farm.. it was busy, filled with short visits as we all took turns giving a helping hand looking after little ones.  It was a true blessing!

Monday arrived and it was a garden day.. we worked on the strawberry bed in the morning and got it all done up.. then lunch break and the afternoon was spent working in the bigger raspberry patch.. more on the garden stuff tomorrow on Gal in the Garden series.

Really chores where needed to be done and then extra work in prepping the gardens for some coming planting this week.. I had a short hard nap and then it was Monday which means gaming night..

As you can see the weekend flew by!

However you are by now wondering how this is connected to the title.. and that is because I wanted to share that I am moving a touch slower then normal due to the fact that I hurt myself a touch.. I have a inflamed/slipped disk in my lower back along with a pulled tendon.. I have been working on it and its getting better but boy do I know when I push it.

I am under orders on what I can and can’t do.. so some low ground upward lifting is really limited at the moment but I can walk and I can do upright work and I can use tools.. it might be the only year you ever see me using more bare soil just around the plants, I plan to just cut and drop the weeds in the place as a green crop but I believe that it would be easier to cut and drop in place with the long reaching tools then having me try and kneel and pull etc.

It will be a slow but steady time here.. with more rests then normal..  but so be it!