April started out with temperatures in the 70's. This is way too warm. This is the busiest time of year with a new quarter starting, taxes to do, a garden to plant and a yard to groom. And above all, April is the month of deadlines. The first deadlines are related to the garden. Many of the early vegetables do not tolerate heat well, so they must be planted on time, or they will not do well. Spinach and lettuce bolt in the summer heat and peas wilt. Grass in the yard simply will not wait. And I left a big mess from December tree trimming to make things worse This is the peak month for dandilions. Since I can't bring myself to zap them chemically, I have to dig them out as they come up. My neighbor downwind uses a chemical service and my neighbor upwind depends on them for ground cover! And last, but not least, the IRS will brooke no delay in being paid.
The garden has moved to the Young farm where John Young and I will share the effort. Jimmy was eager to stop doing a garden, so last year's effort was just in the back yard. That does not work with all the trees to shade it. Gardens need sun, lost of sun! It is roughly 40' by 80' and should provide everything for the Youngs and the Reas. I am happy to have someone to share the work as well as the garden's bounty. As I was planting part of the garden, I realized that it was Aunt Jane who wanted the garden at the farm. As soon as she was gone, so was the garden! In Aunt Jane' day the garden was very important. Our's had everything including horseradish and Concord grapes for grape jelly. Y mother spent the last half of the summer canning the produce and making jelly for the rest of the year. We lived off of her summer work all winter. There was a huge wooden shelf in the celler (you could not call that a basement!) that was filled with peaches and tomatoes and everything else.
The best thing about April is the resumption of outdoor activities. After being cooped up since Thanksgiving, it is wonderful to take evening walks, ride a bicycle through the greening countryside and enjoy the riot of spring flowers. Crocus, jocquels, daffidils, violets, forsythia, dandilions, and most of all, the lilacs with that wonderful fragrence. We are blessed with huge lilac bushes and trees thanks to my neighbor, Mary Wood. She gave my mother many of the large lilacs that grace our yard.
Easter was very late this year and aperagus was early, so we had the great treat of farm asperagus for Easter dinner. The mushrooms were not out,however. Here mushroom means morels. I didn't even see anyone hunting them, though there were later reports of Easter morels. But the milage was high, about one mile of slogging per mushroom!
Easter Dinner was one of the 3 large Rea Family dinners each year, The other two being Thanksgiving and Christmas. Everyone would gather for a roast ham dinner. The venue did change over time, but the meal was always the same. I loved it because all my cousins would be there and we could play outside. That was not true of the other family dinners. We had a diminished Rea family dinner this year. The Ewarts and Kirstin were in Florida and Matt was busy finding a new place to live. So the Westricks amd the Hensels came to our house for roast leg of lamb and mashed potatoes, asperagus, home made baked beans, fruit salad, peach jello salad and birthday cake. Easter was so late this year that it was after my birthday. Ethan had mashed potatoes and jello salad. This was his first dinner from the table!
The last weekend of the month was a guitar weekend. I drove to Jamestown, NY to have my guitar checked and to participate in an exibition of Jim Holler guitars sponsered by the Arts Council there. Suddenly I was immersed in the classical guitar community, This is a new concept for me. This is a shared world of language, concepts and values that is unknown to those on the outside. The people in the community are so open and willing to share. I was astonished at how easily I became part of this community. Even the superstar performeers are so accessible. This is such a wonderful community.
Jim did find the action on my guitar very high, validating my complaints. He thought the excessively high action was causing the distortion of the top. And the 5th fret was too high. The sound od that guitar is exceptional. Everything just fit together on that guitar. The bad news is that part of the buzzing problem is me. I will just switch away from the lovely Savarez stings to something stiffer and the problem should go away. Perhaps my technique will improve in the future and I can return to these very flexible strings.
Western New York is such a lovely area with the open, rolling hills. Farming is the major activity here, though livestock seems to be the major commodity here. This very western part pf New York is several weeks behind central Ohio in the development of spring. No wonder, with Lake Eire just to the west dominating their weather.
At the very end of April I traveled to Colorado for a photography workshop with Kit Frost. And I will be immersed in another world... the world of fine art photography. This is another interesting and sharing community. I will write about that in May.