The Frost

Disaster strikes on the night of the 29th. It's a stormy night, with wind and spraying rain, and the morning is far colder than usual. When I get out of the tent I see it. Everything's covered with a thick silver frost, almost as if it snowed. I wished I'd taken a picture, but I was too stunned and depressed to think of it. I walked up to the garden. Every leaf is covered in a heavy white crust. And the zucchini had survived the transplant, and was putting out new leaves!

The frost lasts hours, as it takes a while for the sun to climb up over the trees. By afternoon the plants' leaves in the garden look steamed - wilted and watery. I'm afraid there's not much hope. The corn also is ruined. I'd gotten very close to these plants, carrying them out to the sun in their pots day after day, and watching them grow. It's sad they're destroyed.

That night it freezes again, and that's that for the garden. All the leaves are gone.

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We're up on the Cumberland Plateau, at about 1,400 feet. I guess it's not safe to plant until the first of May.
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But I still have many pots of seedlings. I always carry them in to the shed at night where it's much warmer. In the morning I bring them back out to the sun. I've moved the sawhorse table to the left (south) of the shed, and leveled the table also, so it's more usable. I'm going to start cooking on it:

By May it warms up dramatically, so I do another round of planting:

There's a long black snake we see over and over. He's a black rat snake. I see him almost every day, traveling through the grass. I even saw one out on the road. Brooke got a photo of him coiled up:

We have a great view of the sky. Here's a couple of shots I took one evening:

The blackberry is now in flower, and covered in hundreds of white blossoms. I hope each flower becomes a berry. It may really be a producer, without any competition in that bed:

The next piece of work is to put a gravel floor in the shed. It's 10'x10' with a high ceiling for storage. Here's a pic:

It's not much, but for now it's our only shelter.

We pull everything out of it, and the kids work on organizing, while I haul the gravel in a wheelbarrow. The casing for the well, and reservoir tank with its spigot, are both below what will be the finished grade, so I box them in with concrete blocks, and pour gravel around, after I've graded and tamped the dirt. I haul about 30 wheelbarrows of gravel. Gravel is really heavy. Twenty shovelfuls is about all I can comfortably transport at a time. I use a board to smooth the surface, tamp it, and check it with a level. Here's a before and after:

Now we can bring a blanket or rug in here and have a place to lay down. The gravel stays nice and cool.

I think I'm now ready to tackle the barn: