Exhausted

I've barely glanced at my journal for what seems like the past two months, because I have been so dreadfully busy trying to get my garden in. And it's not just the vegetable beds and plots of flowers for the Burrow that are keeping me outside from dawn till dusk. At the winter quarterly planning meeting for the barter network, a number of us discussed the growing number of elderly people who really have difficulty getting their seeds and cuttings into the ground in the spring. In many cases, they are quite dependent on their gardens to keep them supplied with food.

So we put out a call for volunteers to help, and I signed up myself to assist four other households. It has been quite a bit of work, but it gives me a good feeling to do it. So I'm rather weary from the effort of turning over sod, pulling weeds, hauling compost and so on. I can't rely entirely on wandwork for those sorts of tasks, because it gets to be quite draining. But it's been a lovely way to get to know some of the network's members a little bit better, not to mention a nice chance to exchange perennials and seeds, too, and to get some lovely garden ideas. (I was so impressed with Mabel Snell's cottage garden of flowering potions plants, for example.) Of course, it also means I'll be dropping by during the growing season to help with the weekly weeding, and I'll be as busy as a niffler raiding an unguarded dragon hoard come harvest time!

We've had three goats drop kids this week. This is good news, of course--I think I have enough to sell at least one--but meanwhile my goat shed is getting perilously overcrowded, which upsets the nannies and isn't particularly good for the kids. Bill, do you think you might be able to come over some evening this week and help me with the expansion charms? Your father has been pulling some extraordinarily long nights at the office, and he's so very tired by the time he gets home that I hate to ask him to do it.