All treed up

It is spring planting time in the Ozarks. The young tree saplings arrived from the tree foundation. Pines, redbuds and sycamore twigs too small to plant right now. So I am potting them up for next year.

And on the veggie front, tomatoes, melons, onions, shallots,herbs and cabbages are thriving in the ground.

Everyone I know who is able is putting in some kind of garden this spring.

We took a drive to the local river town and wow they have been busy. All along the current river are tiny cabins that were never there before. Anyone who has some land has thrown up a shed and called it a place to stay. Better than a tent! All is for the expected flood of visitors to the Ozarks expects when school is over and people are free for the summer. Never have I seen this here before. I guess after last years incredible volume of visitors, locals got busy. The problem? No river water. Thanks to the local government river rules, no dredging is allowed, so the gravel and silt and rocks have risen where water used to be. This means all these cabins have a view of a gravel sandbar and that is it. This means if hard rains come, a flash flood is a real possibility. Some years are high water some years are drought. Will be interesting to see how it goes this summer, with Covid restrictions over and everyone itching to get back to normal. Meanwhile on our town of 500 two businesses closed, the local mechanic station and the animal clinic. This means long drives to the other towns for car work and pet care. The animal clinic building was sold to city folks and the local mechanic retired. We have had several new homesteaders move into our small town. They are all expecting the same amenities they had in the big city like septic system and internet. For some this is a retirement home or a second home. People from Illinois and California mostly. And with the tourist also comes the roadwork May through Nov. Not fun when tourists not used to our roads and all going in the same direction with no other roads to get there. Going to be interesting summer this year in the Ozarks.