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1. Our garden is visible from the road also. The soil was built up there by the previous owner for 20+ so we didn’t reinvent the wheel and left it. Amazing how many know of it and watch our progress every year.
   Two years ago we decided to move the garden behind the house and use the locations down hill slop and our roof as a water catchment. Next year will begin that journey.

2. For sweet cherry, I highly recommend planting Lapin Cherry, not a Bing. Cherry growers in the Flathead lost their Bings to a nasty freeze many years ago. Growers went to Lapins. Lapins bloom later thus getting past frosts. I had two Bings and lost the bloom several times to frost. I cut them down and planted two Lapins. They are fully mature trees now, have never lost a crop. Lapins are fast growers so you must pay attention to proper pruning. They produce massive amounts of cherries. We get so many I feed them to the pigs, they love them. Funny to watch them spit out the pits (same with Italian Prunes).

   Another orchard tip: mix 50/50 white latex paint and water and paint the fruit trees trunks up to the first branch or a little higher. This prevents sun scald and slows the sap run in early spring. This also delays the blossom time a little therefore missing a blossom killing frost.

   And another tip: When apples/pears are thinned, remove all except the “king” blossom. Look closely and you will see the blossom cluster in the form of a “star”. The “king” bloom is the one in the center. This forms a larger fruit. We start thinning when the fruit is generally an inch+ in diameter. We have over 25 fruit trees; apples, pears, sour cherries, sweet cherries, prunes, plums and nuts, a lot of work but worth it.

3. Tell the son to keep the Saiga 12! If it’s not running well, check the forum at Saiga-12.com for solutions. Rarely do they come perfect out of the box, but with a little work, they turn into sewing machines. I have 5 of them well tuned and ready in the bunker. Minimum power load for this gun is 3 dram.

4. We had 4 days of rain this week so this morning we were outside working by 0630. Got the usual homesteader chores done early; gardening, taking care of animals, collecting eggs, treated a couple of animals with bites from too rough play. Corn and grapes seem to be growing 4 inches a day, other fruits and veges doing well. Picked about a dozen early plums, will process them and freeze them until there is enough to make jelly and sauce. Later this afternoon I’ll be making bread, processed the last of the honeysuckle into jelly and cough syrup.

   Ordered a few necessary items and replaced a few old tools. The gas powered chain saw finally got too heavy for me so I bought a 20V battery saw. The large outdoor deep sink arrived and we got it placed but still need a plumber to add a line for it. Filled up the truck at the feed store; picked plantain and chickweed for the rabbits and groomed another dog.

   Watched a few WW2 movies, which reminded me of what a hero my dad was. He was wounded at Pearl Harbor and then again in Europe, but lived to come home and serve 28 more years in the Army. They were truly the greatest generation!

5. Animal House I’ll bet your father was actually wounded up at Schofield Barracks, not Pearl Harbor. Jap planes flew through Kole Kole Pass and thoroughly strafed the barracks, Wheeler Field as well. When I served with the 25th ID, you could still see a few buildings left unrepaired, showing the bullet holes. Army soldiers would very rarely be on a Navy base at 7am on a Sunday morning.

6. Our garden is also visible from the road, but as far as gardens in the area go, ours isn’t very big. However, we are pretty well known as to what we do around here. It’s relatively ok, since this county is very rural, and I believe in being in a supportive community. So even though it’s weird, we have to be real with people. I don’t spread all the little details around, but people have a pretty good idea of what we do. I mean, the gossip groups in a small county will talk no matter what you do, so you may as well plan on it. It’s safer than the TSA gathering data on you. At least they have bad memories, lol. The truth is, what I do isn’t that weird to our family, which has been well known to the community for well over 50 years. And so it isn’t too surprising that I milk a cow and have chickens and a garden and can and make butter and cheese, since my mother in law did the very same stuff all these years. We hadn’t really changed from that. We still have beef cows, like she did. My father in law had a herd of goats that roamed the area before fences were mandated. So for me to have a few goats isn’t weird. That’s just our family. It’s what we do. So the gossip groups probably don’t really enjoy discussing what we do. It would be same song, third or fourth verse.

7. got baby chicks and baby ducks in. had to water raised beds, very hot here. got another raised bed finished and planted

8. I know of an old homestead on public land with cherries and walnuts that have gone feral. For long term thinking my first choice would be copies of these not a grafted cultivar from a nursery. If they died under my care, but carried on in the wild then I’m really goofing up.

9. Ditto the comments about OPSEC.
   We purchased our land about a year ago, finally getting around to building. We’ve done some clearing and ‘work’, but the dozers and excavators have really brought out the neighbors. Several have asked to ‘see’ what we’re doing back there behind the woods. “We’re building a home, but the missus and I are kind of private people….” is hardly a deterrent, they still want to be nosy, or curious, or… whatever. I’m rather certain a few have ventured on our land when we were not there, despite ‘no trespassing’ signs and being asked to stay away. We’ve met several neighbors who are like minded and understanding, yet some are decidedly not-welcome, and obviously don’t like the idea of being held at bay.
   While on the one hand, I can understand curiosity, but the persistence of one individual in particular has me concerned (the open beer can in his car doesn’t help).

10. Husband and I had a session with our firearms instructor at his club. I had sent him a list of guns we wanted to try based on recommendations from this blog. He brought all (or similar) guns. Interestingly, he had just bought the Ruger PC9 9mm carbine which, by the way was terrific for this elderly woman. Another club member loaned us a speed loader—wow, what a difference it made for arthritic fingers! We have not yet even purchased our first firearm but, having taken two different courses with this instructor and been to the range with him several times, we are ready. He also urged me to sign up for an all day women’s instructional course at the club and I did. Looking forward to that in late June. Women are divided into five groups with instructors and we will rotate through trying every kind of firearm (allowable here in MA). $40 for the day, includes lunch! He also showed us a couple of videos of competitions and said we were good enough to do that.
    Planted pole beans and set out more tomatoes at our house in the People’s Republic. Then we loaded our clandestine chickens into cat carriers (they are getting used to this) and came to our house in the Redoubt Northeast. Up here we met roofer and agreed on repairs, cut branches that were shading woodpiles, went to town rummage sale at the firehouse and got lots of kitchen equipment and canning jars, got soil test kit and daily sun evaluator from garden store, cleared leaves from a little stream on property to assess its flow in case of well problems, researched log splitters after a session with the maul, had dinner with my family who live near here. A good week!

11. Beautiful weather this week for working the gardens, as long as we start around 0700 and wrap it up by noon. Really starting to warm up and need to exercise caution with regard to heat. Jade and Yellow Wax progressing smartly and had to use sections of fencing (2-3′ high) to prop up the plants. Herb and tea (new this year) gardens looking great and been harvesting for a few weeks. Had some false starts with new hydroponics system, but kinks worked out and things are looking up. Six baby chicks aren’t really chicks anymore will soon shift from chick feed to layer pellets and then release them into general population. Honoured to attend full military funeral for a 95- year young 1LT, ANC (Army Nurse Corps) who served in WWII. Gosh, not many of those greatest generation Vets around, can never, ever, forget them.

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