We had planned to clean and stain the deck at some point this summer. Due to avoidable circumstances within our control we decided to advance that chore to the top of the to do list. We bought a product called 30 Seconds deck cleaner yesterday while we were in town and E began to clean the deck with it today. We did a really thorough clean last fall but, before staining, we need to get all of the newly fallen pollen off the boards.

I didn’t sleep a wink Thursday night listening to the crazy winds outside our window. They had come out of nowhere. I knew we had to go to town Friday, as we had a very long list of things to do yesterday, and had no choice but to go across. Well, that’s not true. We could have cancelled but it would have made today’s trip to town to pick up our new toy completely unmanageable. The only way for me to survive the project at hand was to divide the tasks involved between the two days. Fortunately, by the time we went across, the winds had sat back a bit and the trip wasn’t too bad. We have had much worse.

I have transferred 141 tomatoes from the peat pods to their starter pots, planted in Pro Mix. I took their peat pod wrappers off before planting. This is the last stop they will make before they go into one gallon pots. From the one gallon pots they will be ready to be planted outside at the end of May. The greenhouse still isn’t warm enough for them so the starts are still down at the house.

Have you noticed the price of Honey Crisp Apples? I long ago took them off my shopping list but E came across an article on growing apple trees from seed. So we saved our pennies and bought one Honey Crisp apple for $2.63, to split between the two of us, and then saved the seeds. First we lay the seeds in a wet paper towel and dusted them with cinnamon. They were then placed in a plastic bag in the fridge for a month. The seeds sprouted so I planted them in little peat pods of their own. They appear to be alive. I will keep you posted on their progress. Theoretically, my four year old granddaughter should be able to pick the first apples off this tree to bring to her Papa and Nan at the old folks home.

We picked a stain color we think we will like from Home Depot (Behr Stonehedge solid colour waterproofing exterior stain) but we have been fooled before so only bought one gallon to test it out and see what we think when we see it on the deck. The next time we have a bit of warm weather E will stain a test square on the big deck about the size of a hot tub ‘cause a patch that size needs to be stained

sooner than later