Dirt Under My Nails

I love long weekends, almost as much as I love weeks off or summer break. I particularly love long weekends in the springtime, when I can go outside and be outside for as much of the day as possible. This past weekend was fan-tab-u-luss. Not only does the front of the house look good, but I cleaned out the south garden and planted my tomatoes and pepper plants and about a million basil plants. I think come mid-June I am going to have pesto coming out my ears...
I even managed to head out back to the big garden and clean up three of the four remaining garden beds yesterday evening, and planted my forlorn brocolli. I am impressed that it lived so long, since I only started it in March and it has been pining for dirt for about a month now. I think we may finally have warm weather, and if not, well, brocolli likes the cold right? I had just enough to fill the three little beds. Now, I don't know what I am going to do with Bed #4. I don't really have anything to plant back there, so part of me thinks: Ahhh, just leave it to the weeds! The crazed gardener in me says, no no you must dig it out and find something to plant back there! There's a plant swap coming up this Saturday, so I think I may see what shows up at that and come home with some treasure. Or not. It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have a bed o' weeds would it?
In chicken- and rabbit-related news, the chicks are feathering out nicely and learning to fly in little short bursts. I turned off their heat lamp today and they seemed pretty happy with the slightly cooler temps (it was still about 90 degrees in the brooder shed). The rabbits are doing well, the only catastrophe is the young male likes to hop around so much that he knocks his cage off the temporary stand. So, now he is on a stack of folded sawhorses to keep him out of the dirt. He doesn't seem to be able to knock himself off entirely, but whenever I wander out there he's managed to slide into a new position. What a nut. I'm hopeful that the bunny barn will start construction sometime next week, and then they will all be in a nice cosy new home, with stands that won't let them slide off no matter how much they hop! (I am also really excited about the small animal swap coming up on June 11th! One more doe and a big boy buck, and let the rabbit relations begin.)