Instead of a bike ride

The plan for today was to take a long, lovely bike ride. But then we noticed that rain could be moving in again next week and also that we have no time available this weekend to work in the yard and gardens. So, stay home and do outdoor projects! Here's what we did:

1. Cleaned up debris around the base of the new fruit trees we planted last year. Put some compost around them and covered with a mulch of leaves from the yard. (Two peach trees, a cherry, and a plum, plus one dwarf nectarine that we have had for a number of years.)
2. Put leaf mulch on the asparagus bed (which had already been cleaned out and composted). The asparagus season is not that far away - April/May!
3. Planted one more speedling tray of seeds: 12 plants each of arugula, and five kinds of lettuce - little gem, freckles (one of my very favorites), Rossimo, winter marvel, and winter density. All are Bountiful Gardens seeds, except freckles and the arugula which are from Peaceful Valley. Both of these are excellent California sources for seeds. Peaceful Valley sells all kinds of garden equipment and supplies and supplements. Bountiful Gardens has a wealth of resources on BioIntensive gardening (growing a lot in a small space).
4. Transplanted a rose bush that was here when we moved in and stayed alive but never bloomed. We guessed it needed more sun, so we have moved it to a place where it will get that. Not sure if it will survive the move.
5. Transplanted a white lilac bush that was given to me years ago by friends in the Calaveras Humane Society when I resigned from being President. It was planted in a wine barrel, and we had never moved it or done much for it. It was crooked and not getting bigger. So it, too, is now in the ground in a sunny space. We'll see.
6. Penny began to dig out the space where our newest garden bed will go. It's all made. Just has to be settled in place and filled up.
7. I hacked away at a seriously overgrown rosemary bush growing by our garage. It is now about one-third of the size it was before I started. I did this to it a few years ago, and it just comes right on back. There are three more of these on the property that could use the same treatment.

All in all, a successful and lovely day. Now Penny is making vegetarian chili - with lentils, not beans - a recipe my mother sent me a long time ago from the Omaha World Herald newspaper, but the source was something called the Nowhere Cafe in Los Angeles. We're eating it in Murphys! And I had to interrupt this writing because I remembered that I was to make the cornbread, a quick recipe from our neighboring Zen Monastery Cookbook. Not much in what we're eating tonight that comes from anything local! Unless Penny used some of the frozen cherry tomatoes that came from the Monastery garden last summer.