The Potato Condo

 About the middle of March, Herb started my potato condo and filled it with half Black Gold-half compost for me.

The potato condo is sitting on several layers of paper feed sacks that we watered down.  The pressure-treated 4x4 posts are covered with black plastic stapled on to keep them away from the soil.

About mid-April, I planted my seed potatoes in it.

I have come up with a modified--and I believe improved--design on the potato condos I've seen on the internet.

Stay tuned . . .

By today the potatoes had grown up nearly a foot tall.  (I forgot to take a picture of them standing alone.)  Herb got me a wheelbarrow full of compost, which I spread around and between the plants.

Nearly half of each plant has been covered with compost.

Next I added some old half-rotten hay that was laying around.  I tucked it in around each plant . . .

... making sure none of them were covered up and that each one had several inches of leaves showing.  Now it's time for Herb to do the next step on the condo.

Three Wonderful Things, Yea Four

In the vein of Proverbs 30:18-19, there are three things that amaze and delight me, yea four:

Sun shining through misty rain over green pastures,

Horses grazing in the rain outside my back door,

A man and his tractor hard at work in the rain,

And (please excuse the unbiblical-sounding language, but I'm paraphrasing Herb this time) good shit, hard at work!

You will learn several things from this (somewhat) biblical meditation:
1)  In this year when we are already almost 2" short on rainfall by mid-April, we're thankful for every drop!
2)  Julie is more or less integrated into the herd.
3)  Herb is putting composted manure around all his fruit trees, using the tractor to get it down there.
4)  Herb completely flabbergasted poor Shawn, who trims my horses' feet, when my normally rather quiet husband stopped his tractor by the barnyard to crow, "I'll tell you one thing we do well here--we sure make good shit!"
5)  We're pretty easy to please!  A little rain, a little you-know-what, and our animals nearby is all it takes to make us happy!

Color My World

Black for Black Gold, ready to go in the garden beds.  How did the nice, neat pile Herb made get scattered?  Stay tuned . . .

White for cauliflower, my very first!  This sad little plant made it through the winter, so I decided to leave it.  It might want to bolt in the 80-something heat we've been having (who wouldn't want to bolt?!), but I'm going to eat it no matter what!

 White for strawberry blossoms, promise of Red to come!

White for dogwoods at the edge of the woods . . .

... and dogwoods lining the driveway.  (The telephone pole, sigh!  But it brings us DSL!)

White for crabapple tree in the front yard.

Black and White for a dirty dog.  Chicago is running through my head right now:
The dog is black,
The dog was white--
I can't believe I'm seeing this sight,
But she's staying outside!

White and black for white dog in play clothes and black dog in his tux.

Black and white for Misty and the pile of Black Gold.  Now you know "the rest of the story," as Paul Harvey would say.  What you can only imagine is the absolute orgy of rolling that Misty enjoyed this morning while I was in the garden (without my camera handy)!

Black and white for rich, black soil and white row covers (and that's another story!)

Green for peas coming up in the garden.

Green for the grass that is finally coming in!

Green for baby bok choy leaves glistening with raindrops.

Brown for a pinto pony that rolled in the mud!  (Apparently, Julie is a bay tovero, but I'd be glad for someone who knows to straighten me out!)

Brown for Brandy and green for the weeds I tossed into the barnyard, one of which landed on her head.

Brown for a bad roll of hay that our hay man made good on.  We're happy clients, and we have some hay to strew on bare spots of dirt near the pond.

Brown for compost.

Pink for blueberry blossoms.  I can already see them forming--and practically taste them!

Pink for a panting puppy tongue after Misty's run with Hero.  This picture reminds me of an old joke with a new twist:  What's black and white and pink all over?

Blue for Blue-Eyed Mary, one of my favorite wildflowers.  I bought these at Reflection Riding's plant sale last spring, and they came up again.

Purple for wildflowers at the edge of the woods.

Purple for raindrops on Dutch irises from my sister.  Thank you, Barbara, they're beautiful!

My Kubota Go-Kart

After a recent misstep on uneven ground--on my bad leg, of course--set me back several days, I wished for a John Deere Gator or Kubota's equivalent.  Then I realized we've got something almost as good.  So Herb charged up the battery on our Kubota lawnmower, parked it in the garage, and Saturday I tried out my new go-kart.

The big animals in the barnyard were quite suspicious of my noisy transport, and even when I turned the engine off, they were leery.  I think Angel and Brandy have their feelings hurt that I haven't been to see them in two months!

But someone was glad to see me!  As soon as the chickens heard my voice, they came running to the gate.  I wished I had some goodies to reward them for their faithfulness!

Since I didn't, they went after the grass that's greener on the other side of the fence.

Siobhan came close enough for me to get a glimpse of the warts near her eye that Kara had reported to me.  The vet is due in a day or so to check on them.

The budding pink tree by Kara's house has been beckoning to me the past couple days, and I was thrilled to take advantage of the sunshine to check it out.  Kara was taking advantage of the sunshine to get in some reading.  (Yes, this is February!)

On the way back to the house, I followed Zephyr's gleeful barking over to where Herb was shoveling manure into the new compost bins he built from pallets.  She still remembers the "Poop Ball" game I used to play with her when she was a puppy:  I would throw a forkful of manure from the round pen onto a big pile, and she would bark and chase the balls of manure as they rolled off.  Unfortunately for Zephyr, Herb's new compost bins don't let anything roll off!

He's already filled the first bin (at right) and is halfway through with the second one.   As they get filled up, he'll add more bins.  The goal is to have four bins in a square.  When three bins are full, Herb will shovel the third bin into the last one, and each bin will get shoveled into the next empty one and so on down the line, thus turning the compost from all the bins.

There's an easier way to build this system using only 12 pallets, but they have to be more or less the same size.  Ours are all different sizes since we hauled them out of the dumpster at Tractor Supply last fall (after asking permission).  So at least this provides a good system to contain a large amount of compost in a compact space where the dogs can't dig into it.  At the same time, we're improving some bad soil underneath.  Not to mention, keeping the barnyard clean, giving Herb some exercise, amusing Zephyr, and giving me something to blog about!
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In case anyone is interested, the above diagram shows how 12 pallets can be connected with large hooks and O-rings.  This allows them to be opened from the outside for removing compost or to be completely dismantled.  That's on my Wish List some day when we find 12 pallets of the same size!

Second Chance

Herb wanted some compost for his fruit trees, so he had to pull up the long grass that's growing on our compost heap since the chickens scattered it (when they used to free range).  He was about to yank out a handful of green stuff when he looked a bit closer:

There were half a dozen cherry tomato plants "volunteering" in the compost pile!  They seem to be the Yellow Idli grape tomatoes that lasted all summer last year despite the blight, but never produced much.  I guess they're getting a second chance!