Just fine, thanks.
Snap (green) beans, lima beans (ugh), and a test round of shelling peas. The latter are unlikely to make it, as today was yet another 90+ degree day., and the trend looks to be continuing through the week. I had originally intended these frames to hold the corn once more, and had carried each top frame up from the rear garden area. Luckily for me, I had not tied the frames together, because ultimately I decided to go ahead and put the beans in place. The day I had sown these seeds was one where we were supposed to have had rain that evening. The rain never materialized, and now the original drip lines look fairly tacky draped as they are across the top of a double frame where there is only a single frame in place. Eventually, I will double these. For now, though, I have to carry all of them back to the rear once more, where they can be used to build out more rows there for more planting – including another round of corn.
The herb garden is coming along. I had hoped to complete the work there today, but with only one of me, the brutal heat, and looking out over my little empire that actually pays the bills right now (and one day, hopefully, the ranch will start generating an income stream), I did not quite finish what I had planned. Still, I completed some things, and anything that gets us closer to the end of the job is better than nothing.
One of the things about working in such hideous heat conditions, at least for me, is that I really do not feel like eating at all when I’m hot – and sometimes, not even for quite awhile after I’ve cooled down. This afternoon, after finally calling it quits (temperature out front, according to my weather station: 94.8), I finally cooled down to the point where I realized I was very hungry. After casting about for ideas on having my sister bring something in for me, I further realized that in reality, while it may do in a pinch where I really don’t feel like cooking anything, the food out there is not only bad, nutritionally, but also crap. So I cooked.
I finished almost the entire thing, a major accomplishment for me. Then, back to work, on the other business side of things, plugging away at trimming down the list of things to do there. It is not a bad routine, really, although there never seems to be enough time to make significant progress – there is no eureka moment, heralding a fantastic breakthrough that catapults things into a new realm. Instead, it is sticking with the things that need to be done, and doing the things I can to get them done, no matter what the conditions at which I might be looking.
And now, a picture of a pooped out puppy.
That’s about how I feel at this point. And while I was typing this, that stupid SunnyD commercial came on – the one where Martina McBride is singing those oh-so-difficult to remember lyrics: “Shine on.”
Tomorrow’s goals for outside: getting the trench dug out and refilled with dirt and compost and getting the thornless blackberry canes out there in the ground. Scoping out an area to dig holes for the buckets that will hold my horseradish roots. I did manage to cross off “cut the bottoms off the buckets” from my todo list one day last week, and I consider that progress. And then: moving dirt and poop around to fill frames. Among many other things.
