Spring in the Redoubt

It is spring – glorious spring!  The weather has been beautiful – just right for planting and working in the fresh air.  We have been spending most every daylight hour outside, either working in the garden, cutting firewood or playing with the bees.  The earth is bursting with new life and we are giddy with joy just to feel the sun on our necks.

One of our goals this year is to have all of our firewood cut, split and stacked in our wood huts long before the searing heat of summer beats down on this vast prairie.  We have a load of firewood that was delivered earlier this spring that we are slowly whittling away.  As the logs disappear from the pile, the huts fill with freshly split wood.  It is a wonderful feeling of accomplishment!  One of the things we have figured out over the years is that a little work every day goes a long way toward filling our wood huts before the winter snows fly.  Sir Knight leaves for work early every morning, however, the children and I are home and are able to spend a chunk of time in the cool of the morning sawing, splitting and stacking.  We only work for an hour or so, but our progress is swift and sure. 

This weekend we made wood cutting a family affair and really made progress!  Sir Knight and Master Hand Grenade both ran saws (Saw Wars) while Princess Dragon Snack and I ran the log splitter.  Dragon Snack ran the hydraulics (she does a phenomenal job) as I hefted the wood.  Master Calvin hauled wood from the log deck to the log splitter and the guys periodically stopped sawing long enough to stack the split wood.  It was perfect symmetry.  Maid Elizabeth took care of household duties (cleaning, baking and laundry) while we worked outside and Miss Serenity spent her day working in town.  One more row and our first log hut will be filled!  Now, only two more huts to go.

Gardening on our prairie has proven to require an ability far superior to mine.  When Sir Knight and I moved to our prairie home, I was under the impression that I was a master gardener.  No so!  I quickly came to realize that I was a fine gardener as long as all of the conditions were favorable.  This prairie proved more challenging that I could have imagined and my gardens failed year after year.  Finally, in an act of desperation, I began building raised beds.  Over the years Sir Knight and Master Hand Grenade have built a number of garden beds, but not enough to provide for all of our produce needs.  This year, in an effort to greatly increase our yield from our limited number of beds, we are planting a “square foot” garden.  It is amazing how many plants you can actually plant in such a small space!  I will keep you posted on our progress – I’m hoping that it will be a lavish yield.

In another attempt at unconventional gardening, we put in a few “potato towers” next to the garden beds.  We read a number of articles before putting these towers together and the opinions seems split – a lot of people said they had great success while a number claimed the towers to be a total failure.  Again, we will keep you posted of our progress.  You can judge their effectiveness for yourselves!





Among all of the work, we took time to smell the lilacs and the children took time to be children.  Master Calvin became Calvin James - “Gentleman Adventurer“.  He spent his time filling his satchel with treasures and looking very dapper indeed!



I hope your spring is bursting with hope and life! 

Until next time….

Enola