We love our tools and garlic.

The garlic have sprouted. Jeremy looks a little shell-shocked. Don’t these little guys know we need at least a couple more weeks?  It’s been such a mild winter and uncharacteristically warm these past couple weeks. You can’t blame them. It’s just so early yet. Jeremy is rightfully concerned that we are bound to get some pretty heavy freezes still, and we’ll have to keep them covered to protect them.  Me, I’m thrilled as all get out. They are so robust. Confident. Seeing them bursting out of the earth, in their neat rows, it hits me a like a pep talk. You can do it. Up up up! Thank you, Austin and Jill – for getting these in the ground last fall. This is the best gift a couple of beginning farmers could ever receive.

Yesterday I set to apply another coat of lindseed oil to the outside of the top bar bee boxes. This cascaded into oiling the handles on all the tools. Every one of them. The Smith’s have been accumulating all sorts of wonderful used tools from auctions around Spearfish, they are each in a state of more or less loved. Though now, after a coat of lindseed, they all have a little sparkle as we set them back up in Pemberly. (The ever stately shed, pictured, is Pemberly. Makes me want to dub the wheel barrow “our Barouche box.”)

More on tools. I just discovered the fence wire stretcher earlier this week. Jeremy taught me how to use it for tightening up the trellises on the vines. It’s just like a third hand tool for bike cables, so I took to it quickly. It’s a bit more beefy than a bike tool, but just as smart. I love it.