cabbage
beets
swiss chard
onion sets
i tilled the garden, after adding a sprinkle of lime sand, the leca, manure, and nimue's waste straw from around her feeder. we opted out of adding any sawdust at this point mostly because i couldn't easily get my hands on any. we pulled out so many rocks that we have started another rock ring--it is almost half full. this one is special. it looks like a pregnant fence. this is a tribute to tabitha's condition. i'll take photos of it today. i built the temporary chicken barrier fence. the idea started flimsy but manifested itself into fairly robust little fence. as i watched the kids start to climb it several times during construction, i decided that it'd better be safe for unattended play. so now the idea is to plant squash and train them on that fence.
as tabitha planted the chickens frantically circled the garden trying to get to her. she has been known to stir up many tasty bugs when digging around. at one point a couple chickens squeezed under the cow gate and managed to get-in. we chased them out and i re-graded the area under the gate and shored up the sides at that weak point.
our neighbor gave us some iris, lily and "other" flower bulbs. we also got some spearmint rhizomes for around the house (natural bug repellent). these too needed to be planted.
our garden is huge!!! it is 35' by 75' this seems like a normal larger garden but when you consider that we aren't planting rototiller width rows it gets very large fast. we plan an omelay-intensive style gardening. we'll use every possible square foot. hand cultivation and mulch will take the place of rototiller weeding. we might be getting in over our heads but that is also part of the omelay-intensive style.
i managed to get blisters within blisters. the initial blisters popped and revealed deeper more painful blisters. tristan can't look at my hands without giving this awful face of anguish. it is kinda funny.
we are excited about the new baby but also freaking out a bit over decisions that will be different for this baby from the others. tabitha has morning sickness--she gets it bad. for kassi we ended up in the hospital for dehydration. she is being her usual trooper-self and "getting through" (please excuse the military metaphor).
kassi is so great, she sleeps with mommy at the start of the night. every morning i wake to her cozied into me. she is a cuddle fish. she'll wake soon for her infamous, world class "morning hug." oh, i relish them so much--i can't explain the joy they give me.
4 comments:
The BIG garden sounds great! BTW, when you got those blisters, did you cry? Remember to cauterize!
So my DH is intrigued...what does one use a rock ring for? Not that we'd be able to build one, we live on a very rock-free property...
the rock rings are a good place to put rocks--there are plenty of them here in the ozarks. they also make great corner-posts and last a very long time. a conventional corner post requires three large holes to be dug, three nice posts that'll last and the other necessary wire and tension wood and wire. by the time you dig the three holes you usually have a good start on the the rocks for a ring. some times it is just easier to make a rock ring then complete the fore mentioned work and cost of materials. the example of the pregnant rock ring is just a place to put the plethora of rock from our garden. in 15 years though when that adjacent gate post fails the rock ring will still be there holding up that fence.
it is truly surprising how many rocks there are just lying around here. besides tabitha is a rock ring artist--she's been doing it since she was tristans age. we are just doing our part keep an ozarks tradition alive.
For the record, I have always been told that the phrase is "like a trouper" and is not a military metaphor at all, but rather a theatrical one; it implies perseverance in a 'show must go on' sort of way.
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