Making Up For Lost Time

Between the snow totals this past winter,and the rain that we have had over the last couple of months,our water table here has been full.We have had water in our basement for two months. The backyard is the worst that it has ever been-puddles just wouldn't go away,and one would sink about about 3"into the muddy yard. Needless to say,it  has hindered our outdoors plans. The two major ones were:
1)Building a wood shelter
2)Expanding the garden

The Boys got so frustrated that last week they started working in the rain as best as they could.

Now that we are finally getting warm,sunny weather,things are finally drying out. Our yard will finally get mowed this weekend (it is starting to resemble a field) and work has begun on filling the yard with dirt to build it back up and the wood shelter should be finished today.Rick's  brother Spencer is up for a few days to help Brother B build the shelter,and Rick has been using the tractor to fill the yard area.The new garden boxes will be built this weekend as well.

This morning we had a visitor:

This turkey hen had shown up in our neighbor's yard,then decided to check out ours. She enjoyed the bird seed that had fallen on the ground,looked over our compost area,and hung around for about an hour. Our caged Tom started gobbling like crazy,but she never paid him any mind. She didn't even go out back to investigate. Our dogs then noticed her out the French doors,started barking,and she wandered back into the neighbors' yard into the field,where  we lost sight of her.

Our driveway has finally dried out.In this photo you can see the pile of fill that we ordered. We wound up getting two truckloads from a local dealer. The ruts were really bad,but Rick put some fill in and smoothed it out a bit. It's not finished yet:

The main goal right now is to get the garden area situated so we can get going on that. The area had settled,making the water stagnant,so Rick has been filling and back dragging the area to build it up. We do have raised beds,but we still have to walk in that area,which was impossible. The chicken pen will get some fill as well. The girls were walking around in inches of mud for days.

The boys moved the beds we already had and saved the compost mix that was in them. We will mix the old with the new compost we are going to get. We are also going to mix in more vermiculite and peat moss.

A photo of where a big old puddle sat in our back yard and where the tractor got stuck. Lovely,isn't it???

A view of the skeleton of the wood shelter ( which we call a "pole barn",even though it isn't). The posts were cut down to size,and cemented into the ground. We have a green metal roof to put on it and fencing will go on either side. You can see we have lots of wood to stack under it when it's done!The shelter should be done today,but stacking will probably be done tomorrow.

Since I don't have much planting that I can do right now,I did plant my oregano and thyme plants in my herb box,as well as a couple of dill and basil seeds. Our strawberry plants are finally getting blossoms as well. The Boys are taking a lunch break right now and trying to get cool. Temps are in the 80's,quite a switch from the cold,drizzly weather we had last week. I will be glad when I can get my garden done,but I can take comfort knowing that I am not the only one!