Getting Ready for a busy season

The loft is getting to be like a backyard hoophouse with all the seedlings coming along in the windows. We have too many roma tomatos already and not enough brussels sprouts. I'll have to buy some pre-started brussels from one of the growers around here and bawl out Johnny's Seeds.

We have to spray them daily at least once and we continually keep trying to find more pots to transplant more growing seedlings.

My 8 chicks are coming along and are now almost 6 and 5 weeks old. Hopefully they will replace any grown chickens who develop problems throughout the coming warmer months. I've got them in an old cow trough with a brooder light over them.

Dad continues to mentally go down hill each day. He reads the paper all the time now. I doubt he has a clue what he is reading but at least it occupies him for awhile. He asks so many questions now and yesterday was insistent that his mother had just died and my mom and myself had to pull our weight now that she was gone. She died in 1961.

It is becoming tougher now to deal with his fantasies and keep him from becoming frightened. I like to look at old pictures of him when he was young. They help me remember what he was like. He is no longer able to think clearly now.

This picture was taken on their honeymoon at Groton Pond in Vermont in June of 1948. I used the photo for a class project and tinted it using Photoshop. I hardly knew what I was doing at the time but I still like the photo.

My father was an energetic man and age did not go well with his character. He liked to stay busy most of the time and that is how I remember him, burning brush, cutting wood, building stone walls, talking into a microphone at the radio stations he worked for, and outside all the time. He never watched much TV or sat for long periods. He had an uneasiness that my sisters and I all inherited. I think sometimes that is why I have a tough time helping him now. There is not much I can do but sit and watch and try and converse with him from across the table or try and distract him from some crazy notion that he won't let go of.

I think the chicks and the seedlings help us forget what is going on with my Dad and concentrate on new growth. I'll try this summer to work with my Dad and still find time to have a farmers market stall in Corning, raise a few meat birds for the Fall and keep the house and grounds outside looking good. Its alot of work but I love eating my own home raised food. Hopefully with some good weather and some help, we can have it all.