Growing things

Well, wandering around my garden today at the 'old place'. The cabbages are about ready to bolt - it has been too warm here. Blackberries are in abundance, and the daylilies and roses are blooming. All of these plants will have to be dug up the last week, put into the back of the pickup, tarped down, and hosed down to keep moist. If they get too dry on the trip, I'll have to find a car wash and hose them down again.
The echinacea is up. These should do well in NE; they are, after all, a plains flower. Don't know about the spearmint; the peppermint grows better in cooler climates, I've been told, but the spearmint is a peculiarly Southern breed. I want to make sure I get the daylilies and roses and the daffs and narcissus especially; the front yard of the new place is rather barren of plant life. Roses will have to be carefully placed; don't want the forced walkways thru the snow to cause them to be trampled. But I do want them arching around the 'verandah' - also known as the side porch! - wherever possible. The front walk is a quandary - daylilies and daffs, or ground roses?
Again, snow - and salt - will be a consideration.

Talking to Mike about whether or not to take the covered swing. I want to, he hadn't thought about it. Don't know where it should go, or if it will even hold up out there in the dry cold. PVC mostly, because down here everything else either rusts or rots. But that verandah just screams for rocking chairs. The front porch needs hanging baskets, and they both need wind chimes - the big ones are going with us; our "tubular bells" predict rainstorms too well to leave behind. But the smaller ones we won't take; they are mostly shot anyway.

Looking at Lehman's online and saw scythes. Wondering if, with all of the uneaten dry feed grass on the hills, if that is a good idea or not worth the trouble. Trying to behave - looking at Lehman's is like looking at a seed catalog in December. Sigh. Everything you want, and sets you to dreaming.... I do need a new pressure canner though, this one's pressure gauge never did work right and has been missing for years. Just wandering around in thoughts of needs.

Nancy, the seller, told me that she moved her blue-roan horse, Lake, back to the pasture at the house; I am really glad. Lake has been living on another farm, and Nancy has been paying for the privilege to have someone else keep her. But that property was sold, and she had to move Lake again. For one thing, Lake is too old to be shipped around from one farm to another. She needs to be home. For another, fire is a major concern, especially out there in all of that untouched grass; Lake would be doing me a favor if she kept at least some of it grazed! And finally, Mike is very uncomfortable around horses - his friend's head was kicked in by one long ago - and a nice mellow horse that just needs to be curried and fussed over would be an ideal partnership for both of them. Nancy thinks I'm just being nice but really I'm not - I won't charge her to keep the horse there, why should I? She needs a home, and that home needs a horse. Lake can stay as long as she wants.

Closing is May 30th; it is May 4th. I am so impatient. The moving truck will be here the 21st, and we will leave then, drive nice and slow and take our time and that way Mike can experience the whole of the area before we sign and settle in.