And Then There's...

Silage.
Yup, grains and grasses to improve the pasture too.

There's something here called "leafy spurge" or as I call it, leafy SCOURGE. Very pretty yellow flowers. Completely worthless and inedible to animals. Hard to get rid of; so far no one's found anything to strangle it. It is rhizomous, which means it can propagate by seed, but most frequently takes over by the roots, growing year to year. What to do besides digging it all out and burning it - and hoping that you get all of it?

I'm a big believer in strangulation. Well, ok, not for people - they take a swift knockdown like a bullet; the Roundup of the animal world. But for plants - if you don't like what's growing, try to overwhelm it with something you DO like.

So this year I'm going to start preparing the pasture for the future cattle. I've ordered some sweet clover - not the kind you see dotting the roadsides with pretty red and white flowers, but the grassy kind you use for honeybees. And then I'll mix with it some sweet silage, some high-sugar-content grasses specifically for cattle; two kinds of that. then I'll broadcast it over the closest two acres of pasture and see what happens. If it works, then when it goes to seed I'll harvest it and use still more seed next year. I'll plan on increasing my banked seed and pasture proliferation year by year until its time for the cattle.

And then there's the oats and the wheat that I'm going to try too. Hulless oats, so I don't have to beat it to death to get to the oat grain. That will be good not just in my bread but in my breakfast - and the cattle later can feast upon the straw. Because yes I will save the seed from that, too...

Wheat - well, I have a grinder, why not see if wheat will grow here too? And then I can practice making my own flour - unbleached, with all of the naturalness, the nutty wholesome taste, of the wheat germ built right in.

Slow growth. Slow and gradual progression towards a goal. A bumper crop of oats that just might get its seed mixed in with the pasture grasses, too.

I have a purpose and a plan. I am willing to spend a little to test a theory, and to either improve the growth around me that I will eventually come to depend on - or to disprove a theory and try something else later.

I know that folks who have depended on the local pasture, free-range, would probably laugh at me. Meanwhile some of my friends back east have puzzled looks on their faces - why do all this? Why work so hard for cattle that aren't even there yet? Why trouble yourself so hard, and spend so much money, time, and energy, on something that may not work, on a future that may not exist?

Can't help it. When I was planting my peach trees years ago, one of the tiny neighbor children came up to me and asked, "Well, if you aren't getting peaches this year, what's the POINT?" The point is that sustainability takes time, takes work, takes attention, takes investment - and takes a leap of faith. Just moving here was an immense leap of faith. Now, the other smaller leaps towards my realization of self seem almost predestined, preordained, as I grow to meet the challenges I have set for myself. No true gardener believes in Armageddon... because there is always something else to do, to try, to grow, to experiment with.

Wishin, and Hopin', and Dreamin'

I always bite off more than I can chew. I know this about myself. Sitting in a sunbrightly-lit living room, perusing the seed order catalogs, going online and making lists - this is what I have done every season, every year. Oooooh, look at that! What about THAT? Should I try that one or this one? What if I ordered two?

I look at the huge south-facing bay window, lit up with the glorious intense midmorning sunlight. The orange trees are doing well in the big dining room window; almost all of my windows are ceiling-to-floor here (not good for a nudist who has had to retrain herself). The sun that pours in here, all day, every day, will be perfect for the trays and trays of seedlings and bedding plants. Sixteen flats with 72 cells each will give me 1172 tiny little plots for seedlings. The question is - will it be enough?

Well, the potato cuts and the onion plants will not go there, of course. Neither will the blueberry bushes. Yes, blueberry bushes. The mangel beets I'm going to try - for future chicken and cattle feed - may not go there either. But because I moved from a Zone 9 to a Zone 4, almost everything else will have to. I'm talking and dreaming about a luscious and productive garden, dreaming about harvesting vegies and fruits, and the grasses are still brown on the hills. Seems like a lot of hope that is currently frozen - the temp here, right now, is 20 degrees.

I'm keeping back the canned vegetable seed I bought last year; it is all heirloom, open-pollinated, sealed airtight and oxygen-free for a guaranteed 5 years in a big #10 can. I don't want to use that yet, or at all, except in exigency. Too much chance of cross-pollination. It is emergency seed, ready if and when I need it. Things are not so bad yet! But if I get a late May snow (like they did here, last year) I may have to start over quickly.

I've always wanted to grow some things that I never had space for before. The big pumpkins, the potato towers of old tires, all will be relegated to my east-side "experimental" garden, right in with the already-established asparagus. The mangel beets will be there too. I want to have a fall 'punkin patch' for the neighborhood kids, and now I can. I hope.

The west garden - the one where the horseradish lives - already has the walking onions in it. We'll see how soon they pop up; then I can put in the "keeper onion" plants - the red, white, and yellow plants I'm ordering of onions that will keep for a year after harvesting. No sweet Vidalia-types here - their sun requirements just won't jive.

Peas, green beans, broccoli, tomatoes, cucumbers, spinach, lettuce, radishes, carrots, cabbage... the list goes on and on. Cool weather plants, warm weather plants. I saved some collard seed from last year; we'll see how it does. Herbs like basil and sage. And even some flowers as well; petunias and morning glories. The petunias I'll probably start in the hanging baskets where I'll keep them all summer.

Thinking about what to put where; no restrictions on space here. In my mind, I can see the rows of vegetables in the West garden as clearly as if I had planted them months ago. No clay soil to fight to eke out a few stunted carrots or other root vegies here, at least. In the sandy soil they will grow straight and clean without having to push against the hardpack.

I know this will mean a LOT of work; as soon as the seeds and supplies come in I'll have to rearrange the bay window to set everything up, get all of the little babies going. Then once the frost line drops in the garden, I'll be out there hoeing and digging and sweating in my hoodie. Hills for the pumpkins. Hills for the potatoes. Long cuts with side fencing for the peas. Bush beans instead of pole beans. I can put the cherry tomato vines around the front of the house, in the flower garden. The morning glories along the board fence and up the trellis that spans the walkway. Lots of digging, lots of carefully percolating the compost pile as soon as the weather warms so that every bit is black and crumbly.

I pop in to some forums now and then and read where folks want to have a self-sufficient lifestyle. They dream of growing their own produce, of canning and dehydrating and preserving. Few understand what hard work it is. They think you throw some seeds down, add water, and POOF! - food! I know how hard it is - and every year I try to do more and more instead of less. Now that I've got a big enough place, I can do what I have always wanted to do, without restrictions or worrying that the neighbor's brats will steal or destroy everything.

There. The order's in. $200 worth of seeds and supplies. It should be here in two weeks. And next month I'll order the chickens and I'll really get moving. The winter solstice is far too short a rest period...

Snowing and snowing and snowing!

I just can't help it. I love the way it just keeps coming down. Friday it snowed in the morning for three hours after sunrise, and then by that afternoon had melted away. Saturday I woke up to grey skies, and snow drifting down. We went out to start building the new chicken coop, and the snow started to come down harder and harder, so we came back inside. Sometimes it comes down so hard you can't see; sometimes it is in little invisible pellets and sometimes big soft floating flakes. This morning when the sun shone dimly through the clouds, it reflected off of the snow on the verandah roof outside my bedroom window and lit up the room like a white and glowing fire. Last night when I walked the dogs, the faraway streetlight and the flashlight lit up the snow like glitter; it looked like every 'snow scene" I had ever made for my ceramic displays.

This weekend it has been fairly windless; only 10 to 15 mph. The snow eddies like dancing fairies in the breezes; swirling around in little gaggles, blowing away across the yard again once the dance is finished. You can almost hear the fairy music in the endless silence. Everything is muted in the soft cushions of snow; even the occasional car going down the gravel road sounds like it is whispering its presence.

You can always tell when the Cheneys have stoked their fire. In the morning the white smoke suddenly pours from their chimney. At night you can smell the fresh load of wood they've put in for the night. It is a biting smell that cuts across the cold clean air; not unpleasant at all. A home with 5 kids and one income, and they use wood to heat their home. They bank it down once it gets going, and you can't see any evidence, can barely smell it - a good use of product and ember heat. When you do it as a daily matter of course you don't waste time staring at a huge wasteful blaze.

This morning the snowfall is larger drifty flakes; coming down like the last remnants of a ripped-open feather pillow. It lies dry and light and soft on the ground, the house, like a good down quilt.

I can see why some folks hate snow; if you've lived in the city and seen it plowed up with sand and salt and rocks, shoved into piles and against curbs everywhere, turned into black and green slush with trash and unidentifiable objects scraped into it and frozen into garish piles or melting into a sticky morass - yeah, I would hate that too. Hate having to live around it, drive around in it, slip and slide and watching others do the slow careen from stopsign to stoplight, coasting through, swearing, banging, huffing of the snowplows that never seem to stop. Hate having to walk around the piles, falling into them, slipping and sliding on salted sidewalks and drives that have refrozen in the night, dodging the slippery spots from downspouts and overflows that have frozen into dangerous black and dingy glaciers - city snow is so different. Here all that happens is that an occasional car drives down the gravel road and leaves a dark-brown path that is soon covered over by the ongoing snowfall. Our footprints, the horses' hoofprints, the rabbit and turkey and antelope prints, fill in and become nothing more than obscure circles - and then - nothing.

Quiet, quiet, quiet. Today's a good day to bake and create things, sealed away from the world, MIA, grey and peaceful, soft and happy, in a world, a country, all my own.

Another Busy Weekend!

The Speech Team for Aca-Deca needed some practice and some help. So I volunteered to help them with their speeches this weekend. So there I was, back at the high school on a Saturday this morning, to give them a hand.

It was fun. These kids are really great. It is nice to watch them struggle and grow, and all at different times and places in their lives and experiences, all taking the challenge of doing things that most teenagers would never dream of doing,...

Tomorrow it is supposed to start raining and turn to snow tomorrow night and Monday. Tomorrow is the big fundraising dinner for the Catholic Church in Nenzel, and we have tickets. A prime rib dinner, a band, and Marty's cowboy poetry... I really do NOT want to miss that, so I hope the weather stays clear enough to drive!

Tomorrow morning I need to stock the wood box and make sure we have enough for three or four days, in case the power goes out, with the ice on the lines and the high winds predicted for Monday. Of course it could just peter out or pass us by, and we won't have a problem - but it doesn't pay to hope for the best and not plan for the worst!

Today I was talking to Terri and asked her about her family's grape growing. She was amazed that I was interested, and invited me out to come and see it. That is really exciting - grapes in Nebraska. When the weather clears, I will. Terri is scheduled to go to classes 4 hours away Monday, and to take the Leadership teens to Ainsworth, two hours away, on Tuesday. If the weather gets bad Sunday night, she won't go. She doesn't want to be stranded after the Monday's predicted ice and snow.

Around here a lot of what happens has to do with the weather; planning around it, planning for it, planning in case of it. Will there be school Monday? Will we have electricity? Will we be able to drive? Will the cattle be ok? Will the kids have to stay home and ride out to feed and water them?

So many things to consider....

Antelopes and OMIGAWD!

There were five antelopes on the hill this morning. I didn't have time to grab the camera, and they were gone at Sasha's first bark. But five pronghorns is a sight to see, bounding over the hills. They are pretty stupid creatures - they will chase a car or just stand there and stare most times (sans dog) if you walk up to them.

But what I DID get a pic of was the turkey on the hill this evening! Geez, he musta weighed 40 pounds!

This ol tom must think that spring is here, with the snow melting and the 50 degree temps.

Getting Plastered on Super Bowl Weekend

Well, Ok, not the way you think!! LOL
There's this wall in the basement that the stairs are attached to. The plaster has been broken off in a huge chunk from the ground floor basement door clear to the far wall, showing the strips of board underneath. It's been bugging me.

Well, Of course I have plaster, it's what I make my ceramic molds out of. So I was mixing up little batches of it yesterday - plaster dries QUICKLY - and patching the hole. What a drag! There was a little hole right around the light swtch, so I did that first, and then started down the wall. I was going to sand it down today, but it is still cool to the touch - not cured yet. Sigh.

Nancy had Jim bring one of the BIG rolls of hay for Lake yesterday. We put Lake in one of the stalls and shut the gat. She could smell it, though, and was pawing the dirt impatiently. He was kind enough to put it in the corral and turn it so we could roll it into the barn. Lake came immediately out of the stall when we opened the door, and went to munching. She is soooo fat already, but you'd'a thought she was starving! LOL It was warm yesterday - 50 degrees and sunny, with a wind. Today it is 35 and REALLY windy. They said we might get more snow flurries and it really clouded up for awhile but then the clouds went away and it is still sunny. I've been working on a deer roast and making apple turnovers and doing laundry.

I really don't care about the Super Bowl this year; I'll go in and watch it in between times but no team I like is playing, so I'm not glued to the screen. I have stuff to DO, after all!

Tammy finally got hooked back up with Mark again; now maybe they can sell that house. She is flying out to be with her new BF in Vegas soon; just for a short visit. He paid for the ticket. That's the first boyfriend she's ever had that WASN'T a parasitical whiny selfish pile of horse poop; that actually spoils her and treats her like she deserves. I'm glad she finally found someone decent. I kept telling her that the Jasper County and Aiken trash wasn't good enough for her, and I'm glad she finally realizes that there are more types of men - honest, hardworking, and decent - out there besides the scumsucking barbarfs she has been meeting. I of course am reserving my opinion of him until I see how he treats her without all of the sugar and spice, once the "new" wears off. Trust no one. But at least he has a J-O-B that he has had for years, and has some idea of where money comes from!

So we've been IM'ing back and forth, and Rodney sent me an invite to join Facebook, so now I'm on there with Jimmy and Blondie and the people I still like. It's fun to a degree; but I have a lot to do and can only bump in occasionally. And Linda Hunnicutt, the Granny Warrior whom I spent so much time with last year, found me on there too! Good - ANOTHER crazed old lady on there makes me feel less like I'm trying to fit in with the kids!

Who has TIME to drink and REALLY get plastered? Grin. When it warms back up into the 50's again, I HAVE to go clean that spoiled hay and horse poop out of the corral and wheel it over to the compost pile. And come March I'm ordering chickens, so we've GOT to get that garage down to build the coop! Sigh. Soooo much to do... And now it's already February! Winter's almost over and I feel like I haven't done a THING!!! ARRRGGGGHHHH