A March Snow and a New Retaining Wall.

 

The orchard is blooming, and the sunflower sprouts are bursting through the soil, but it snowed in the hills last night, so there are no (live) pollinators to be seen this morning.

Sunflower Sprout- Will it Survive the cold? 

Did I plant my sunflowers too early? If it gets too cold, the newly sprouted plants will die. And if the pollinators get hit too hard by the snow and miss the almond, plum, apricot, and peach blossoms, we may have a small crop this year.

See the black Carpenter Bee? The cold may have killed it.
Or maybe it is just sleeping...upside down? 

Despite the risks, in a few months, we’ll probably still have more apricots and plums than we can handle. Few peaches though- our peach trees are not thriving.

My husband has been working on a new retaining wall. When people come to visit our property, one of the first things they notice are the rock, brick, and concrete walls. Most of them were built long before I came here, and my in-laws have spent years transforming the naked and wild hillsides into usable terraces with retaining walls.

The new wall will hold back a huge hill of dirt behind the orchard and will be constructed of concrete cylinders my Father-In-Law scrounged after years of working near a concrete factory, where they would regularly discard concrete test cylinders. They are perfect for retaining walls.

 The wall-building process could take quite some time. This will not daunt the men. They have always astonished me with their patience for long, tedious, drawn-out projects. Once it is complete it could last for decades, if not centuries. 

As I wander around on this drizzly day, I am deeply grateful for the solitude, the cold moist air, and the stark beauty of this place where I am privileged to live.