A long absence

I feel guilting not having blogged in almost a year.  I have thought about it several times but have just not been able to bring myself to sit down and write.

The past year has been a very difficult one for our family and we are still struggling with some personal issues.  There has been a lot of stress, a lot of crying and worry.  Our lives here have been turned upside down and our life on the acreage, our gardens, etc have fallen by the wayside as we try to cope.

This year we did manage to plant a few tomatoes, cukes and peppers in the greenhouse - but none that we started ourselves.  The garden has been planted with most of the surface covered in weeds at the moment.  We only put in potatoes, kale, cabbage, zucchini, radish, onion and lettuce this year.  I'm happy that we didn't plant the full repertoire of latter years - I wouldn't be able to deal with it all.  I figure we can pick up whatever veggies we need at the local farmer's market.

This year we had a tent caterpillar invasion.  There were millions crawling everywhere and on every surface.  The only way we could use our sundeck was to spray wasp killer at the bottom edge of the deck and  caterpillar's would not cross over the line.  Let me tell you it was gross!  The leaves of all surrounding trees were stripped bare, but nature is amazing and within a few weeks new leaves re-emerged.

Over the past couple of weeks we have  a couple of owls hanging around our property.  I'm not sure what kind but a fairly large grey owl which sits about 1.5 feet tall.  We hear them screetching over the day and at night.  There seems to be quite a lot of mice around so perhaps that is what has attracted them.  Feast away owls!