Digging in the dirt

We had an adventurous weekend, Gene and I.  Saturday morning started early when we loaded up calves to take to the sale.  Our grandson, Zeb, pretty much camps out at his ‘country home’ on weekends so as Gene pulled away from the pasture with a load of calves in the cattle trailer, Zeb and I pulled out of the yard with a load of pullets (young female chickens for those who aren’t hip to country-speak) in a cage in the bed of my truck.

Zeb and I parked the truck at the sale barn where a lot of trading and wheelin’ and dealin’ was going on.  There were folks there with seed, chickens, pups, grown dogs, rabbits, goats, fresh eggs….all kinds of interesting things and a whole lot of haggling was going on.  We didn’t have to do anything really.  I just sat the cage loaded with pullets on the ground and they sold themselves quickly.  I will add that Gene and I ordered these sweet chickens from a very well known supplier in February (first hatch).  Half of the order was Buff Orpingtons and the other half Jersey Giants (black) and they sold like wildfire….and brought a sweet price.  We made enough on the sale to not only pay us back for our initial investment but to also buy a used tiller for the garden!  Oh, and we still have 13 pullets to add to our flock.

Once home, and after a big breakfast, Gene and I headed out to the garden to try out that tiller.  Oh boy, did it ever get the job done.  Gene tilled up one side and down the other until the rest of the garden was ready to be planted.  That’s when I broke out the fertilizer and the new Earthway Garden Seeder, a gift from Gene.  This contraption is incredible.  It’s lightweight, has a big wheel on the front, a smaller wheel in the back and a hopper in the middle.  On the inside of the hopper, to the side, is a gear that you attach various plastic wheels to that have the capability of grabbing seed and dropping it in specified intervals onto the ground.  Each plastic wheel is for a different size and kind of seed…..corn, beans/peas, lettuce…etc.  There’s also a chain that hangs down behind the hopper and drags on the ground.  So it works like this:  Pour in the seed and start pushing the Seeder down the row.  Seed drops, chain drags over it covering it with soil, back wheel sort of tamps it down.  What a back saver!  I planted corn, purple hulled peas, pinto beans and pole beans that way.  We also planted watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, tomatoes and peppers.   

It was a long, beautiful, glorious, hardworking day in God’s Bounty and we loved every minute of it.  Oh, did I forget to mention that the peas and beans that I planted last Monday are sprouting?  And the potato plants are reaching for the sky?  And the turnips…….well……you get the picture.

“The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes”

Matt Redman. “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).” Lyrics.  10,000 Reasons.  Sparrow. 2011. 

Rapidly warming ground

Leslie says:

April 1^st and the only one fooled was me….. I was deceived by the weather.  The day’s high on the ranch was in the low 90’s and it felt even warmer in the garden which has no shade for respite.  Of course, I didn’t make it to God’s Bounty until after 1 when the sun was at its most brutal.   I turned on the music and started working, practically dancing around the rows.  I was soon joined by Donna and we commiserated about the early heat as we began hoeing and planting. 

The nicest thing happened today when Gene brought the little hand plow into the garden in the back of the Gator.  He hooked up the plow to the Gator and I drove while he steered the plow.  We made short work of three very long rows.  Gene’s motto is ‘work smarter, not harder’ and it saved us much hoeing and sore muscles.  We planted more lettuce, sugar snap peas (and are both wondering if it’s too warm for them to grow) and dropped beautiful Contender beans into the newly plowed rows. 

The radishes are coming up as is the spinach and some lettuce.  All will soon need to be thinned.  The turnips are trying their best to make an entrance and the garlic appears to be very happy growing in the new corner of the garden.  The potato plants are rearing their regal leaves leaving us surprised at their very early appearance.  Onions and chives are thriving too!  Oh, and we found the ever invasive mint and some of last year’s lettuce sprouting and reaching for the sun at the east end of the garden.  We’ve decided to make a rock bed around the herbs to try to keep them in check, in the garden and to prevent them from making their way into the pasture.

Speaking of the pasture…..God is shining all around us and the pasture that surrounds the garden as the grass is reaching skyward.  What was so very dead and dry and grasshopper eaten last year….what crunched under tired feet and had no life whatsoever has responded to a warmer winter and rain after rain and is now lush and green, thick and growing.  We are praying for a bountiful hay harvest that might, just might, come very early this year.

So now I head to the shower which reminds me that there’s nothing in the world like a cool shower after a long, hot afternoon working in God’s Bounty. 

“I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
A vapor in the wind
Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord, You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours, I am Yours”

Casting Crowns. “Who Am I.” Lyrics.  Casting Crowns.  Beach Street Records. 2003.