A Garden Checkup and Spring Is Almost Here, For A Quick Slide Into Summer

I hope all of you had a fabulous weekend. DH and I took advantage of the tolerable weather and took a close look at the garden and the yard to see what will need doing when the weather gets a bit warmer. I was surprised with the number of plants that survived the winter - several of the potted strawberries actually made it through, and my small strawberry patch which we piled dead leaves into for winter insulation seems to have made it to another year. Of course, I have no luck with my strawberries - they grow nicely, but they don't bear a lot of fruit. 

I love fresh strawberries, but I've never had much luck 
growing them myself. I'll work with the ones that 
survived the winter, but I rarely get many berries from 
my greenery. Thank goodness for Farmers' Markets. 

My Columbine seems to have survived, which makes me quite happy. I see the beginnings of several of the lillies cresting the soil, and some of the ornamentals are poking their heads up. It's the end of April, and even though we're still going to have temps below freezing this week, it won't be for any long duration and we're probably finished with any deep snow. We're cold enough over the next two-three days now to have a quick flurry if all of the conditions line up, but it's more likely to be sleet or rain. 

We don't grow a true Rocky Mountain columbine - the 
intense blue/purple of those blooms only occur when 
it grows in the high altitudes of the mountain valleys. 
But, DH does plant columbine for me, and they're lovely 
even though they're not that blue/purple coloring. 

Although I still need to make reservations for the YMCA's swimming pool, they increased the numbers once again and now, instead of the 10 or 15 people they were allowing into the pool, it's increased to 25. It's not something I usually need to worry about in the 5:00 am group, but later in the day - people will be impacted. We only have five double lanes in my little pool, and at least one of those gets reserved for water exercise/aerobics. I'm pretty sure that by the time the outdoor pool opens in a month or so, reservations will be a thing of the past. 

Our outdoor pool is Olympic size, my 30+ laps will drop 
down to 16 laps for my mile. It's a whole new mindset, and 
we usually get a lot of people from other YMCA's in the 
area taking advantage of our pool. So it can be crowded, 
and there's a lot of people per lane. I'm not a super fast
swimmer, so I'll use my short fins to keep up 
the pace. 

So we're pulling out of our long Covid winter and entering a new Spring with some hope. The world might be going to "hell in a handbasket", but my little corner seems to be well on the way to recovery and Springtime hope. I can't do much about the world, but I'm grateful for my own little corner of stability. I hope you have a glorious Monday filled with love and friends and I'll be back tomorrow. Slava Ukraini.