Introducing my truckactor

*photo credit Andrew
When you're desperate - you punt! I was desperate! I'm about a month behind on planting and I've moved the garden to a much bigger location. The old location was very small for what I want to do and didn't really get enough sunlight because of the huge old oak tree to the west of it. I'm not about to cut that down beside it's the best place for hanging the tire swing.

This is the area that was really overgrown last year, so we ran the pigs in there, and what a wonderful job they did eating the grass, weeds and rototilling by rooting it all up. Nature doesn't like bare open ground so by being a month behind schedule there was lots of bare ground that was fair game as far as weeds and grass were concerned. So I borrowed my brother-in-law's spring tooth harrow (that "old fashioned" as Andrew calls it - piece of equipment behind the truck) having used one with great success before I knew it would work. Only problem was that the wallows or nests that the pigs had made were too deep for me to drive the tractor over with the mowing deck on. I nearly burst into tears out of frustration. I walked into the house defeated and told Ron my woes. He brilliantly suggested I use my truck in 4WD! I never pass up the chance to drive my truck, I LOVE driving it. So I grabbed the keys, a chain that I'd used to haul out some logs (with my truck) a couple years back and went to work. It worked great, I cranked the harrow way down so it would really dig it up and was even able to smooth out all the wallows from the pigs! Once that was done I knew from past experience that I'd be able to pull it with the tractor. Yea!

Now that that was done, (I am forever thankful for the harrow), we could plant! I've got big plans, but have to first see how things go and grow here this year. Andrew has big plans too, he wants to have a vegetable stand. Great idea, right? well we only have 5 people on out entire road and we're so far off the beaten path that he'll likely have to tweak it just a bit. I'm sure he'll figure out a way to work it. Ha! He'll soon have Buckley harness broke and driving and plans to build his own goat cart, he'll likely be driving his cart to all the neighbors veggies in tow - how will they be able to say no to that?! Watch out world, Andrew's coming!


Clearly we did a bit of planting before I was able to get it all harrowed, I'm not the most patient person you know!

And of course they had to be inspected by Bridger, Mr. Potato Inspector.
After the rest of the potatoes were planted; and just for the record was about 10-12 pounds of seed potato, which should produce about 100-120 pounds of potatoes. I don't know who figured that out, but that what I read somewhere so I'm going with it. Anyway, after they were planted Andrew wanted to plant his corn, he loves sweet corn and Indian corn or ornamental corn and had tried desperately to grow it for years in his square foot garden with minimal success. He'd have an unannounced competition with the local dairy farmer as to who's corn would be up first and who's corn was taller and get so excited when he won. This year since we've got a much larger garden he's planted several types and rows of it. I sincerely hope he's successful! And now that I could use the tractor, I did! And Bridger; my faithful sidekick, followed along dutifully. Since this was in fact Andrew's corn I thought I'd let him have ago of harrowing and making a row to plant his corn in. (I was going to let Faith have a go at it too but the rain forced us to get as much in the ground as quickly as possible, I'll let her have a turn next time.)
You want to talk about an excited little boy?! Over the MOON happy!
I think this grin is permanent! He said to me today, "I love being a farmer!" Me too; son, me too.

Faith is such a trooper! It spit rain on an off for most of the afternoon, which incidently is when we were trying to get it planted. I'm not complaining, I'd much rather plant in the rain or spitting rain than the stifling heat we had last week.

Beautiful hands. Just like the young lady they belong to. We were forced to stop planting because the rain got heavier, but tomorrow's weather looks like ti might work. Honestly though if it doesn't too bad for me, I'll have to suck it up and deal with it, I've got to get it planted! We had a wonderful day today; being silly, slightly hucklebuck, working like crazy, making memories and
capturing smiles!

One row planted!

Not a chicken post...

This weekend is official time when it's "safe" to plant your garden where I live and I did my part in the annual tradition but spending most of the weekend in my garden. To say that it was in a depressing state if disarray is a gross understatement! Weeds in some places were up to me knees! (Well, in all fairness to the weeds, I have short legs.) It's so much easier to weed when you've got the motivation of loads of company coming to the the farm and the weeds are big enough to have something to hang on to and when you give a good yank the whole damn thing is ripped out of the ground! Only then is weeding that satisfying. It's done, thankfully, the kids and I are tired, covered in dirt, and so excited to see how the garden does this year. We're hoping that the late blight that wiped out all out tomatoes and potatoes last year will not return and that if it all comes in that we'll be eating like kings!

Since the broilers are being housed so close to the garden and nothing significant had been planted yet I thought it would be ok to let them out and knew they wouldn't wander off. Well, shortly after they came out, this little guy came over to "help."

*Mom, I felt like asking him to go vacuum he was so much help!

He was a smart one though, he knew I'd be the one doing all the work and he'd have to just stand there and eat the worms, bugs and well, whatever else he was eating that had just been unearthed. A few others joined him later, but all together they were too much help and had to be shooed off.