Adventures in Homesteading: Friendship Farm: A Good Kind of Tired...

Last night, I looked at the Seeds of Change website. I looked closely at the catalog. And you know what I felt? OVERWHELMED. I was GIDDY looking at all those great heirloom varieties, all those colors, all those different things to choose from!!! Expensive. Yes. But worth it! So, I started clicking around and building my seed basket. Within ten or so clicks, my balance was over $30 and I hadn't even gotten past the herbs, yet. Then, I thought about how I'd have to pay for shipping. And how I'd have to WAIT to get the seeds. I started thinking back to the organic seeds I saw in Lowe's and then started rationalizing. If I bought my seeds at Lowe's, that would be a LOCAL purchase, benefiting my LOCAL community (even if it IS a big chain, the people who own it and work there are my neighbors). It would save the cost of shipping (and the carbon footprint thereof). AND it would mean that I could have my seeds NOW!!! I closed the window on Seeds of Change. I might go back on there later and order my onions and potatoes and maybe my fruit and bushes and trees, but I needed to get my herbs and veggies started NOW!!! So, I gave up on them and went to bed.

This morning, I woke up at 6:30am wishing I had followed my gut and gone to get the wire fence I wanted to buy to build a compost ring for my leaves. It was cool and clear and would have been the PERFECT time to get started on getting the leaves squared away. But NOOOOOO, I let my fatigue talk me into staying in. Stupid fatigue. I could have gotten SO MUCH done and then could have started breaking ground this MORNING!!!!

My sickly sidekick was well enough to go to school this morning. Well, I mean, I think he was. Either way, he was going. When I told him that he wouldn't be able to go to school if he couldn't finish his raisin bran, he actually cried REAL TEARS!!!! What IS this strange phenomenon? Child who WANTS to go to school? Who CRIES to go to school? *scratches head*

I dropped him off, had a VERY cool conversation with his teacher in which she gushed about how smart he was and how she recognized the advantages he had as a bilingual kid. How he problematizes things differently (and I guess, more thoroughly) because he has become used to looking at one thing from two very different perspectives. I LOVE that she recognizes and celebrates this. She ALSO captializes on Ryan's LOVE of art and invention. Whenever he needs a little motivation, she tells him that if he finishes the task they're on, he can draw on his own. She ALSO said that his elevated energy level doesn't intimidate her. She said that as long as his jumpiness doesn't take away from his academic performance or become too much of a distraction to the others, he's more than welcome to stand there, bounce on one leg, whatever... because he's a SIX YEAR OLD!!!!! I almost cried. No WONDER Ryan loves it there so much!!!

So, with him dropped off, I went straight to Lowe's. I have probably seldom been so focused. I headed straight for the seeds. Within minutes, my cart had peat pots, starter soil and fifty plus envelopes of seeds!

Then, I headed outside to find the stuff to make my compost ring for my leaves, but along the way, I wrote down prices for other things I'm going to need, like six foot wire fencing to fence the Dream Garden in to keep the deer out. And half inch wire mesh to attach TO the wire fencing (at the bottom) to keep the bunnies and snakes out. And six foot wooden posts. And six foot metal posts. And concrete stepping stones for my eventual walk way. And lime. And compost. And, and, and... Well, you get the picture.

I got the wire fencing, shot back into the store to get the 16 guage galvanized aluminum fastening wire and some wire-cutting snips. On the way out, I saw some little labeling spikes that I couldn't resist but now I wish I had just bought a pack of popsicle sticks and skipped the plastic. *eye roll* What can I say? I was hooked on euphoria. I also came across a kickin' little cultivator thingy I'm going to call Tom, but I won't introduce you to him (and his girlfriend Tessy--my other cultivating fork) until I actually get out there and use them.

After spending over $200 on all this junk, I loaded it up and headed home. By the time I got home, it was already 11am!!! I had lost most of the morning. Thank GOODNESS it was a slightly overcast day. I have already told myself that I'll work until my belly button hurts (think incision site) or the wasps come out--whichever comes first. Well, today, they both happened at the same time AND my hunger kicked in on cue, as well, since I skipped lunch. I only got two hours of work in, but I feel like I got some major stuff accomplished. AND I feel like I dug ditches or something. I'm just plum tuckered out.

I guess I'm just not used to it any more. I used to work out every day at the Y for a couple of hours. Every day. And in just these two days of working in my garden, I feel FATIGUED. I'm going to blame it on my post-op status. Yeah, we'll just go with that for now.

Anyhoo, sorry it's not more exciting--like actual ground-breaking or soil testing or whatnot. It's not much, but it's better than nothing. The cool part is that, looking at the seed packets, I'm not as behind as I first thought. I mean, it's time to get all the veggies in the ground now. I'm a little behind on the tomatoes but for the most part, I'm good. If I can get the ground broken and get the garden tilled up, cordoned off with logs and fenced in and planted within the next ten days, I think I'll be golden.

So, after I got done, I talked to Sam on the webcam for a little bit. Said hi to my girlies and blew them so many kisses my lips still hurt, and ate a late lunch. As I was chomping, I was surprised to see the Fed Ex delivery guy coming up our driveway (!!!) with my new "waspinators"... I'll be sure and take pics of those tomorrow if it doesn't rain too hard.

Back while I was raking up the last of the leaves and getting all sappy about how excited I was/am to be here and how much healing I'm feeling from these activities, I stopped myself short with fear. It seems like just when I start to think everything is going to be okay, some other catastrophe occurred. And I didn't want any more catastrophes right now--especially while I'm out here alone. Well, sure as shit, as I was talking to Sam, I got a call from my neighbor back in Charlotte saying that my tenants in my old house want to know if they can get out of their lease a month early.

*sigh*

Know what that means? It means that we're going to have to start paying that mortgage, too. We don't have it. We don't. And I was going to go into town early next week and buy that Camry Hybrid we've been looking at that's marked WAY down and would be our PERFECT family/Sam's work car. I just wanted to get the road fixed first. But now it's going to be get the road fixed OR buy the Camry. Or neither. I was banking on that car to be able to make trips to Charlotte. I can't drive the Brute down there and back more than once a year because of the gas guzzling. Sam said he would re-evaluate the budget and see where this puts us. But you know what sucks? After 8 months of living in France, we were able to pay off our credit cards. And now, we're smack dab in the middle of debt city again and now we're going to have to start paying on that other mortgage because we're losing our renters. So, if you pray, get on it... See if we can get the house rented out real quick like in June, eh? Hook me up.

So, since the wasps were out in droves, I did a little seed packet reading and then I ran into town to get my sidekick.

When I asked him how his day went, he said, "Oh, very very well!" *sigh* He asked me if he could tell me about his day but not in order. LOL! He started with lunch and worked his way back to all the fun stuff he did. We stopped off at the library to drop off the old and pick up some new. In giving the person working at the desk some leftover bookcovers I had bought with my own money for a program when I worked at the library in Texas, I struck up a conversation. I told her I was a Librarian, that I had my MLS but that I feared I'd never be able to find work. She said that though she had her MLS in SCHOOL library, it still took her an entire year of volunteering for our local public library before she could get hired on. She told me to hang in there and asked if I'd like to do any volunteering. Is she KIDDING? I'd LOVE to. So, I'm going to go and help out with their Friends of the Library booksale next week. Let's hope I don't spend any money there. Baskets and books. My DOWNFALL, I tell ya!

Anyhoo, so I'm tired. As my mom likes to say, "T.A.R.D.--tard!" It's a good kind of tired because I know that these knots in my neck and shoulders came from my Dream Garden.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow. I'll probably stay in and start my tomato seeds. If it doesn't rain too hard, I'll go out and clear out some of the truck trash I found down in the woods (an old beat up truck, some windshield glass, some rusty rims, some rubber inner tubing, etc.). I might go down and rake up some of the runoff gravel, pile it into Big Red and try to patch up the road a little, Old School style. If it DOES rain, it might be a blessing in disguise because, dude, I gave Tom a trial run on the Dream Garden but the soil is so hard and the sod roots so tight right now, I'm actually considering renting a roto-tiller to do my first once over. *blushes*

Goodnight y'all!

Pix:

One I forgot to post from yesterday... The brush pile:

Today's project--The Leaf Ring--starts with welded wire:

Fastening wire:

And a pair of snips:

Snip off a length of wire fence:

Snip some short lengths of fastening wire:

Double the wire fence around and attach it to itself with the fastening wire by twisting it around the corners (just here and there... not EVERY corner... just as long as you can "seal" the seam: