My asparagus has been found!

When I woke up yesterday, Shawn told me "oh-- I found your asparagus!". When we bought our house, we were told we had rows of cultivated berries, and an established asparagus patch. Once the snow melted, I was having the hardest time finding it, though.... Lots of weeds and overgrown stuff-- but no little spears poking out anywhere.
Low and behold-- under a LOT of overgrown stuff---- asparagus. ( And onions, actually!)
I spent the majority of yesterday cutting away weeds, woody stalks, and pulling weeds. From around the plants that are definitely growing like crazy.

Once I was done, I wanted to add some soil (since the patch is on a sloping hill and there seems to be some run-off). I asked Shawn if he had any plans for the pile of soil/compost pile next to one of the sheds- which he didn't, so I started moving soil and sprinkling it among the spears and onions. It wasn't until I was mostly done that the compost pile shifted and Shawn saw them. 2 broken jugs of what appears to be used motor oil.

I'll back-track a bit to fill in some detail. We moved here just over 2 months ago. I'm told that the man who originally had this house built it with pride and kept his property nice and well maintained. This shows in some of the photos we've seen, and some of the detail in the house. The folks to whom he sold it ( and we bought from) lived a bit differently. We've had a lot to clean up, dig out and fix as a result of that. Shawn's worked very hard to make our yard look presentable to us and others, and not so much like nobody cares. Enough said on that subject- I'll just say we all live differently, and this has been a challenge!

So. All that soil I so carefully sprinkled and spread out, in order to cover the roots and bare spots, needed to come out. And now..... All without killing much of what I'd spent the better part of the morning keeping alive. Fortunately, it was all pretty much dry soil- both on the ground and what I'd just added. So- by the handful and fingers full, I pulled out all that soil that I'd just put down ( about a wheelbarrow and a half full). I pulled, dug, brushed and went down and even removed the soil just under the bad stuff. Then I sprayed and washed away what may remain ( though there wasn't any more) and let it all drain down the hill- until there was no more smell of oil ( that was hard-- we both smelled of it after digging through it). Once we were both sure there wasn't any left, I worked on adding back soil again. This time, from one of the gardens that Shawn had tilled. Filled the wheelbarrow, pushed it along, stopped just before I started down the hill. Over went the wheelbarrow. Soil all over the grass, through the fence, and none left to be had in the wheelbarrow. So, I shoveled up what I could ( about half of what I'd actually started with) and filled in what I needed in the asparagus/onion patch. I had Shawn move the rest for me after I filled the wheelbarrow. I don't think I could have dealt with another tipping wheelbarrow! :)

So, the photos here show the end result after a long day of work. I had planned to plant cabbage, peas, beans and maybe lettuce yesterday- but with the finding of the asparagus and the setbacks- I managed to get the 6 red cabbage plants we picked up the day before, and not much more. I did get a sunburn in the middle of it though :)

It was a great day even so, and we had supper on the sun porch, watching the ducks in the pond ( they didn't stay long-- we figured out why a short time later when we saw the hawk emerge from the brush on the other side of the pond), enjoying our indoor birds on the new bird tower that Shawn built yesterday, and watching the birds at the feeders just outside the porch.

We do like it here, we like it very much!