Well, a rain filled Good Friday came and went and for the first time since I can remember, we did not put in our potato crop.  After we worked on the bee hives, there was plenty of time, but not nearly as much sunshine, to work on farm clean-up, flower-bed weeding, leaf raking and potato planting.  Planting and soil preparation went very quickly this year because Caleb used the little tiller to actually dig the rows.   Since Frenchy and Peter planted their potatoes with this method and it went so quickly, we decided to copy them.  We ran out of time and had to start chores, so only 70 pounds of Yukon Golds were planted. 

Looks like we won’t be planting the rest of the seeds until after this weekend, but we are blessed with gorgeous, warm and lovely sunshine this day which will most certainly dry up the mud!    This year we’re only going to plant around 120 pounds since we always have way more than we need.  Not to mention, we need the land  for the 1000 new hops rhizomes coming soon.   Having exceptionally fertile soil here, we receive a very good potato yield, much more than we will consume or can store properly in a basement that is too warm.  It will be interesting to see whether or not Fred insists on planting the usual amount of potatoes:)

As you may have observed in the above photos, the day started out sunny and lovely but then  ended up cloudy and cool.  Minnesota, land of extremes, a great place to live and raise a family.  I’m so glad God hand-picked this family raising, marriage vocation for Fred and I in the lovely setting of rich farm land.  It makes our life much easier in so many ways, even amongst so much hard work.