After more days of mid-summer goofing off, including an impromptu visit to our local swimming hole on an extremely hot and windy day, which deliciously coincided with the visits of our two other favorite families in the valley, a birthday party, a potluck for our group of playgroup parents and kids, Drew and I got back to work on some things over the weekend, and into today. We finished off our ferro-cement raised beds and filled them with dirt! Yippee!
The tractor was a god-send in this department, though a lot of hand work was still required to move the material around evenly, and then to amend the soil with our customary chicken manure and oyster shell flour. But we got it done while Ella complained about needing to be held, and we mulched it all up. The best part was that the entire giant pile of powdery dirt was eaten up by the beds! None left! Drew smoothed it out with the bucket of the tractor, and this morning we seeded and mulched it with our own site-mown grass. It is so satisfying to finish a project.
I wasted no time in planting seeds. Time is a getting short for starting the winter garden, and the moon is waxing (a good time for planting), so this morning, I sowed carrots and beets. I will plant another variety of beets that likes to overwinter when I get a chance, probably tomorrow. It feels SO very good to be investing this time in our own food security here at home!
1 comment:
Oh my, oh my....I just spent an hour catching up. I love the detail about the food, and the recipes and the stuff about picking your own seeds and the reason why you garden the way you do. I wish I was working with the Croatian too......But I am not.
I am living the dream, vilified head of a mortgage department, in a small community Bank. You know the mortgage lender is like being Jewish in Germany during WWII, an exageration I know but I am feeling extreme. Suddenly it is the home lender that is responsable for the excesses of this country that was drunk on cheap money. What unfolds in front of me every day, not just in the greater finacial picture, but to the rank and file everyday person who sits in front of me, looking for a path, a way, makes for a challenging day.
Beyond that, it is not just what we are going to do with the lines of used SUV's and Trucks that we see lined up in the streets with wishful "for sale" signs in the windows, what are we going to do with that yard full of new ones sitting at Harper Motors. You cannot even trade in your truck or SUV much less looking to buy one. If people are walking away from houses that have lost half their value what do you think they are going to do with all those big vehicles. But to end with good news, every week I have a conversation with a land owner, perhaps someone who has some land in the bottoms and they run cows or land somewhere and they are coming to terms that it will be a long time before they will be able to develop it and you know, make a $100,000. Geez what is it about that number, everybody wants to make $100,000. With the price of food and fuel going up the strangest folks are having conversations about wonder what I can grow on that piece of property instead of what they can build. Now isn't that something. I love you all, thanks for the time you spend on this, it allows me my moment to remember what it is like to breath the rarified air when I am with you. Love TAS
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