Planting tomatoes and raspberries

I say we have 29 tomatoes planted. C. says we have 121 to plant. As usual, my glass is half full.

Yesterday was the first big book sale of the year, and we were there, raring to go. We brought nine bags to the sale, and took six bags home. It's been a long winter, and we were excited to get new reading material.  The Friends of the Deer Park Library are the nicest people, and they pull out all their boxes of books once a month June through October and sort them onto tables in the RV storage place. The sorting is a little random early in the sale – it gets better over the summer.

So we spent about three hours there, and I made a run to the Deer Park grocery for ice cream. I was all excited to find Breyer's chocolate and vanilla, gluten free! Woohoo! I didn't check the labels carefully, though, and both contain corn syrup, which C. refuses to eat. So I have to consume all the ice cream. I feel kinda bad about it (she says with her mouth full of chocolate ice cream).

Em, Richard and Liam came up and we went over to a neighbor's place to dig up raspberry plants. I keep trying to grow berries and apples, but deer or the goats get into the garden and eat them, or I don't take care of them and they die. I keep trying. C. says she can't stand to watch me bring plants home and kill them. I vow I will do better. I will do better.

I did find one little apple tree that survived the great goat rampage of 2014? or so. The grafted bit has died but the rootstock looks healthy with lots of leaves. I pulled all the quack grass and knapweed out around it and laid down cardboard and mulch to keep the weeds away, and gave it a big drink. That is one tough little tree. I'll regraft it next spring so that (fingers crossed) we get a named variety of apples someday, not the little sour ones that the rootstocks want to make. I also found a little plum tree and two raspberries hiding in the tall grass.

Today I planted most of the new raspberries in the sad, old raspberry spot, and shaded them with cardboard boxes. (I'll use the boxes as mulch after the plants settle in.) Then C. and I worked on tomatoes, and I pounded in a few chunks of rebar to reinforce the 2x8s in the tomato terrace. Then we cut some grass and greens for the rabbits. Note that I am leaving out the part during the hottest part of the day where I kept getting hung up as I tried to drag a hose down the hill, and had a little tantrum with some heartfelt but very uncreative cussing. I really need to come up with some new expletives. I'm fond of "suffering whangdoodles" from a favorite old radio show, Speed Gibson of the International Secret Police, but it lacks serious power. Feel free to suggest your favorites.

Nine eggs today.