Licorice's branch is resting.

What grew up on out garden plot.

Sometimes I think that my obsession by winter is rooted in my laziness — spring at a ranch represents a lot of work and responsibilities, which I really don't look forward to. I admit that much of that work and responsibilities are actually discretionary and of my own making — nobody forced me to have goats (or as many as I do), or chickens, much less to dig around the property. We could have easily owned a house smack on a prairie with heaps of dirt around. Among our neighbors, we would not be alone. As I look around, out of twenty lots ours is among three who sport somewhat grown trees, and the rest alternates between a wasteland and an English lawn on a spot approximately the size of a men's handkerchief, in front of the house.

In our climate, about four times drier than England, maintaining such lawn is a rather demanding hobby, with somewhat risky results — at least by my standards, a bright green handkerchief in the middle of a prairies looks quite weird. But perhaps it's me who's weird, and I can imagine that my spontaneous gardening experiments strike others as nonsensical in return. This year I managed not to forget ordering seedlings with the Conservation District by 2nd January — a bunch of twenty five bare roots costs about thirty dollars with them — they offer only limited choice, but it's all stuff that grows here. Wild rosehips is my favorite — and given my aching back and feet, I kept my urges at bay and ordered "only" fifty.

A rogue rose from a rosehip.

Our three "barn" cats.

Naturally, the application of Murphy's law led to lack of snow for the whole winter, but I went to pick up my roses on Thursday, April 17, among falling snowflakes. And since I am not of a modest mind, at least where gardening is concerned, I also purchased three small pines. I'm not sure if I had mentioned it already, but a construction began on a neighboring plot, and consequently I would like to visually separate our houses a bit — they are relatively far apart, but after all one CAN see far on a prairie.

Both descendants had been invited for the weekend, to come help me with digging and planting — but it was pointless to make them drive through Friday's blizzard over the pass, when forecast for next couple of days was frosty. It only got warmer AFTER the weekend and hence I began to plant on my own. Quite slowly, for I still feel plantar fascias, which are exactly in the part of your foot that you use when digging with a spade. Then there's trouble with my back — I can bend down with no problem, but straightening up! So I crawled on my knees like a paraplegic and hoped that I would eventually get up on my arthritic knees; also that whatever I fail to stick in the ground, would last till the next weekend and the postponed arrival of my kids. The pines had their roots in balls, hence I wasn't so afraid for them, but I had to put roses with their bare roots into a bucket, bury them in sand and hope that they would not dry off too much.

Meanwhile Sid explored less known places near Buford.

He also invaded Van Horn Ridge in our National Forest.

Tense waiting ensued, which of the roses would catch on. About a third of the bushes obediently showed leaves almost immediately, another third only after up to two months — and with a third I'd been waiting whether yes or no. However, while scaling my expansive latifundia and inspecting the roses I encountered two bushes that I definitely did not plant (and here I discount off-shoots of all the original roses that had decided to like our place and spread like crazy). These two braves exist outside the original planting, and thus I had to rummage through my memory for a while, before realizing that during one year (the one when I had forgotten to order the roses), I pushed ripe rosehips into the ground — which I kept in my fridge through the winter and later cut and soaked them according to a recipe. Which had warned that this kind of planting roses isn't too effective, but it seems now that at least something worked. My garden apparently thrives best when I don't pay too much attention to it.

Having dragged too many buckets last year, I had sprinklers installed in front of the house — this year (and actually never again) I won't be able to carry buckets. Instead, I shall get infuriated with tubes; I bet I would cut them with the weed-whacker. Further I bought three more GROWN-UP pines and spent another weekend with Tom and Lisa dealing with those. Tom had to dig huge holes, whereto we dragged the trees, ran irrigation, and later during the week I installed, during a crazy bout of wind, wire cages and wind barriers.

Carol & Tom on Granite Ridge.

Crocuses bloomed up on the hill.

This year I decided not to bother with raised plant beds — last year their drainage got clogged and everything died — dirt will need to be thrown out and everything restarted — but for that I lack "human resources". Those few strawberries that grew there got gobbled up by birds — despite me having thrown nets over them, the bastards still found a way to get underneath them and eat whatever was left. Given the fact that in the year before that, everything got smashed by hail, I think best to build a "wire house" — a local equivalent of a glass house (we can't have glass houses here, see hail). But I have no strength left for that this year. Instead I bought planter boxes and placed two pots with tomatoes and a box with herbs on the porch. The advantage of the boxes is that in the case of a hailstorm, I can pull them deeper under the porch roof. Also, a cat door leads to the porch, and birds don't dare to venture there (before finishing this journal, they dared, oh well).

This year it's quite urgent with hail — since about half-May the weather "got worse" and IT RAINS. Either in the style that a cold front arrives and it rains on and off for several days in a row, or as it does now in June, afternoon thunderstorms move through, sometimes with hail. I honestly hope it would last for some time and we don't end up like the previous year, it had not rained from mid-July until some time in October, and even then only sparingly, followed by a dry winter, at least in our corner of Wyoming. We really need the water.

A view from Granite Ridge to Crow Creek and the beginning of Granite Springs Reservoir.

Cacti also bloomed up on the hill.

All continues undecided on the cat front. Guido growls at Dante, Dante growls at Huggie, and Hugo hides in our walk-in closet. Sometimes I feel sorry for him, that he is being pushed out, so we let him go to our bedroom, though I had ruled that it's off limits for cats due to my allergies. Well. I feel sorry for Dante too, she declared to be my cat and follows me everywhere and watches everything. She lets me lift her, pet her, even scratch on belly — just does not let me hug her. She still does not go out and runs right back when taken outdoors. Except for the case when she decided to go out on a night trip — she simply walked out of the house, when I searched for Hugo in the evening — disappearing around a corner in the direction from whence she came those four months earlier. I could not sleep till two in the morning, until I heard a jump from the garage — and Dante was suddenly back home — apparently she knows how to use all cat doors — and she came back. So it's just like with the teenagers, one waits if they get back home alright at night.

Carol at the Crystal Dam.

Sid floats over a campfire.

Regarding our children, they keep flying out of the nest more often and farther. Lisa settled down in Laramie and over the summer (their semester ended early in May) continues to work at a State Veterinary Lab, and also gets involved in some research at a University farm. Tom has found a summer job installing meteorological stations all around remote parts of Wyoming, and spends every week near another small town (most Wyomese towns have higher numeric value of their elevation in feet than the number of their inhabitants), and now we only see him on some weekends.

At the start of May, before the semester ended, we went with Tom and Sid on a hike to Granite Ridge — it's a hill over Granite Springs Reservoir in Curt Gowdy State Park. It offers a beautiful view to a bend of the Crow Creek in the spot where it enters the lake. To our surprise, we've spotted several kayaks in this bay, therefore we decided to go kayaking on the following weekend. By then it was just Sid and I, on Crystal Reservoir downstream. This lake had looked half-empty in the fall, but it seems that there was enough precipitations anywhere else but Cheyenne over the winter — we floated over spots where I hiked on dry land in the fall, we even spotted an underwater campfire — during the dry autumn it was apparently sensible the set up a fire on a sandy beach where nothing would burn — now the whole affair was under two feet of water. That one was most likely the last hot weekend; since then it has been beautiful (and rained).