Seasons in the Soil

There is crazy…

Annette — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 04:49:56 +0000

Catching up

Annette — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 19:22:09 +0000

So I let the daily blogging thing go by the wayside. Winters – or, more accurately, waiting for spring to really get rolling – are a bit boring on the ranch. I probably should have been painting more, or working more on the neverending to-do list, but the fatigue factor really got to me. Now that I’m on some supplements to get my B levels back up, I feel a whole lot better, and more like my old self. Still not taking iron supps, though, and I’m definitely not eating any liver, so that’s still a work in progress.

But progress there is: all of the first round of flats, except two, have been transplanted: tomatoes and peppers, mostly. The other two flats have onions (plus one lonely little datil pepper that isn’t going to make it, like the other dozen that never bothered to germinate) and herbs (plus artichokes to replace the ones zapped by the severe freeze we had). I’ve also sown shelling peas, snap (green) beans, peanuts, three kinds of cucumbers, okra, carrots, spinach, and sweet potatoes, along with various herbs and flowers for the bees. Out back in the chicken yard, where we had composted some things over the past year and where the chickens had scratched around, I put in lima beans (ugh), sunflowers, and corn. Yes, corn. It is my personal windmill here on the ranch, and I have another variety I’d like to put in somewhere, too.

Yesterday we got over an inch and a half of rain, as measured by our very own weather station. Before the rains started, I had transplanted out a flat, and gave it up when the big thunder started rolling across the sky. It was only around 10 AM that it started storming, but it lasted almost all day. Much needed rain, although we’re still very short of normal.

Today, more sweet potatoes put in, the other flats put out, as much newspaper and hay put down as my back could stand, and two more flats started and put under the lights in the barn: paisano tomatoes for sauce, sweet basil, purple basil, and two types of tobacco for mom. Got another canvas started, added to one of the earlier ones that is now dry, dealt with an asshole who thinks we should have known to remove his account when he never bothered to let us know, bitching about the invoice the system generated – hey, my superpower of ESP still has not kicked in from the radiation, and no others have appeared either. That’s a bummer.

Several trees my mom swore were dead were just a little dead, and are now upgraded to alive, leafing and budding out. The peas, cukes, and okra have all started to poke their heads up. The snap beans are probably a week or so away from beginning to flower. We’ve had asparagus spears popping up for the past couple of weeks. It’s time to start prepping the spots the beehives will be in: two in the rear, one up front.

Tonight: seafood feast by request, as my sister is visiting from Illinois. Another attempt to view Jupiter and its moons before it slips away beyond our viewing period as the days get longer. Starting another canvas while the others dry a bit. Starting the reworking of our tutorials for our users, since our control panel has changed since the first round. Doing end of quarter stuff for the business. Relaxing. Maybe.

RIP Henrietta

Annette — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 16:03:39 +0000

Once upon a time we had three chicks that grew into happy, fat chickens. One flew the coop, never to be seen again. One was killed by an unknown four-legged assailant. The last one, Henrietta, chattered and ran around the yard, living her carefree life, happy enough to peck and scratch and eat treats we brought out for her. Over the past few days, we noticed a change in her: she wasn’t running for treats, and mostly she was sitting under the palmettos or under the rack in the coop, not wandering the yard. Yesterday, she was panting and not moving much at all. Mom and I were out looking at the girls (since we added more chickens to keep her company the past two years) and a storm blew up. I gathered her up from under the palmettos since she wasn’t moving to get out of the storm and took her into the coop, then out of there to the back porch into a box lined with a towel. We knew she was on the way out, so we made her comfortable and kept an eye on her. Last night, she finally stopped breathing and this morning I buried her out on the edge of the property where I’ve buried two other chickens.

So long, Henrietta. You were definitely the favored one amongst the girls.

A good tired

Annette — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 00:25:15 +0000

Lately I’ve been feeling pretty tired, all the time. With some B12 supplementing and some working outside in the sun once more, I’m now feeling a lot more like myself. Today I replaced three (of four) boards on various frames that needed to be repaired, fertilized some frames and worked that in to prep them for planting, replaced all my watering timers as the current set froze over the winter and then cracked (didn’t toss them, though – they still work, they just leak like hell which will be fine in areas like the orchard), planted the first round of sweet potatoes, reran some irrigation lines, and cooked some steaks, sauteed squash, and baked some potatoes for our dinner. I even managed to get some steak down, a major accomplishment.

Oh, and I got the first sunburn of the season. Luckily with my heritage, by tomorrow it will be faded and I’ll be back to getting my farmer’s tan on.

Tomorrow: beginning the tomato transplants, as they’re ready to come out of the flats, sunflower sowing, thinning some onion and leeks that were started in the front garden late last year for replanting to give them all some more room, and washing/sanitizing wine bottles and the fill bucket so I can bottle the rissling for storage, then beginning the honey weizen. Always something to be done at the ranch.

Who is Sal?

Annette — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:04:02 +0000

Seen on a sign on my way back home today:

Property for Sal

Who is Sal, and does he or she know that there is property waiting for them?

Doctors, doctors, everywhere

Annette — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 00:50:40 +0000

Dentist yesterday – two more rebuilt teeth to give them a little more life. Eye doc today – to check the clouding in one eye, and to learn that one of the major problems is that the right eye is too damn good at 20/15 while the left is at 20/20, and the left is my dominate eye. ENT next week – to deal with ice pick pain in one ear, rampant spasms, and a cough I can’t shake. I can think of very few months over the last few years where I haven’t visited some doctor’s office for something or other. There’s a bit of consistency to it all, I must say, even though some visits (dentist, ENT) can be moderately to very painful given the stress on my jaws from trying to open widely enough so they can get in there and do what needs to be done. I’m hoping to have more and more doc-free months as we go along, really. There are too many things that need to be done around here.

You don’t say

Annette — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 17:18:32 +0000

What’s most sad about this is that it has to be explained at all. Either people have gotten moronic over the years or it’s just more noticeable now that we’re in the Internet age.

In other news, a ton of weeding done in the back garden: five and a half rows done before my back decided it was time to stop. But there may be sowing of seed yet today after a little break.

What is this – Saturn?

Annette — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:51:18 +0000

I don’t think this wind speed is quite accurate here.

Don’t get me wrong, it is pretty windy outside. It just isn’t that windy – yours truly would have been blown three states away, were it. Instead I dug out eleven holes, backfilled them a bit with topsoil and cow poop hauled by wheelbarrow, put in two raspberries and nine blackberries, topped them off, ran irrigation to them, and watered them in for half an hour. I also filled four bins with mulch for my sister, who is redoing her firepit area at her new place. For the first real day back at working ranch stuff, not bad, although my back started seizing up at the end and the random throws I was making for the puppy, whose orange ball is his number one prized possession was giving me some fairly savage stabbing pains down my side. But: stuff got done. That’s what matters, in the end. With any luck, my back will loosen up just a bit and I’ll be able to get back outside to do something else as we make steps to ready for spring. One thing at a time.

One week

Annette — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 02:18:06 +0000

One week into clarifying, and we’re making progress.

The clearing continues from the top down. Another week or so, and we should be ready for bottling and aging. Since we’re into spring here in Florida, we’ll be picking up some strawberries (local!) and getting started on some strawberry wine by request.

The numbers don’t lie

Annette — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 02:48:43 +0000

Finally, getting together with my doctor’s office for the results on the blood work I had done. I swear, it’s impossible to reach them, or they don’t call back. Much as I love my doctor, I think I’ll be finding another one just to avoid having to deal with his staff.

In any case, all the good stuff is low, and the bad stuff is high. Low B12, low iron, high total cholesterol, high bad cholesterol, high liver enzymes, etc. Apparently the B12 is so low they want me to come in for an injection for the next two weeks, and then take a supplement. That low level, and the iron low level would certainly explain the constant fatigue, though, so it’s a good thing we did the testing. They want me to take drugs for the cholesterol (nope) and no more tylenol or anything with acetaminophen due to the liver issue. The worst of it all is the lecturing from my mother and the planning by her and my sister without me about what to do about me. It’s a conspiracy!