Finally, a couple of sunny days. It’s been quite a stretch of gloomy and/or rainy weather. This past week is one of my favorites of the year. The light has changed, spring is imminent, and everyone with school age children seems to have left the Island. It’s pleasantly quiet and there is barely any traffic.

Huge kudos to son Reuben. He built a locust-post grape arbor. I’ve had a Concord grape vine for decades. It produces excellent fruit that is turned into juice annually. I have been remiss in my pruning of said vine for several years. It is a tangled mess. Reuben did his best to get the big branches up onto the new arbor but I needed to have at it with clippers to make any sense of it. Concords will grow up to 20 feet in a season and will produce on new growth. However not all of those 20 feet will produce.

Using the same principle as rose pruning, I cut everything smaller in diameter than a pencil and branches that are not a nice mahogany color.

Speaking of Reuben, he makes great omelettes and scrambled egg. The trick is to use a bit of water, not milk, in the egg mixture. It makes the finished product light and fluffy. I mention eggs because the hens are doing their best work right now. I popped several spinach quiches into the freezer last weekend. It was not just the abundance of eggs that set me to making pie. I was going through some boxes from my parents’ home and found a big stack of glass pie pans —all different sizes.

My mother was an excellent pie maker — me, not so much. I use lard like she did but end up piecing the crust together like a quilt. No matter, it tastes great but is no agricultural fair entry.

After the big freeze in December/January, I cut all the death from several large kale plants in my hoop house. The plants have revived and I’m picking nice leaves for soups and smoothies. I had thrown all the debris from those seemingly dead plants into a hole outside of the hoop house.

Wonder of nature, the spent, cut stems are sprouting new baby plants. There is hope for us all in the event of the holocaust.

Another favorite task this week has been the transplantation of tiny onion and leek seedlings. It is a job that might annoy some people but I find it calming and enjoyable.

Skiff avenue in Vineyard Haven is home to an astonishing number of turkeys. They are busy blocking the street and displaying their romantic intentions. Ben Franklin was right. He wanted the wild turkey, not the bald eagle, as the national bird. They are beautiful.

I watched a little bit of CPAC this week. I must love the pain. The so-called conservatives met this year in Maryland. One of the speakers was Marion Le Pen, granddaughter of National Front found Jean-Marie Le Pen. This is a French man who called the Holocaust a mere detail in the history of World War II.

When DJT spoke he railed against John McCain for not supporting the repeal of Obamacare. The audience proceeded to boo at McCain. Who are these people?

While I totally disagree with John McCain politically, he refused to leave the Hanoi Hilton without all his men. He was tortured to the point of losing full use of his arms the rest of his life. Trump already called him a loser for getting caught. Our commander-in-chief who took five deferments from service in Vietnam is nothing but a coward, and so are his supporters. There, I said it. Feel better already!