Retired from work (not 62 yet, but getting there), just got tired of the big mega- corporate employee life. It used to be fun and easy to build apartment projects, but between corp insurance risks, accounting dept freak-out fears, lousy design teams, slickster development associates, and ever growing and over-reaching municipalities' rules and regs....you seem to spend more time protecting your back side than just simply building future slums! That 60 mile -Each Way- commute across DFW to Dallas wasn't fun either. Tried to depart in Oct, but bosses asked me to stay until after Jan one, so I did. Friendly split and no hard feelings on either side.
Anyway, the last 3 trips out west last fall resulted in 2/3 of those trips being in crappy, cold, windy, rainy, drizzly, miserable weather. Spending a week inside huddled around a propane heater playing solitare...is fun for a day or so, then not so much. I mean you can only drown so much misery in a bottle of good bourbon, then you just wake up the next day feeling lousy, and still huddled around an LP heat source.
Been piddling with getting a decent sized garden started here west of DFW on the back/lower part of my hard-scrabble 3 acres. Previous attempts at Square Foot gardening near the house had mixed results, easy to get to, but summer heat eventually knocks out the producing of any veggies. Upper half of my place is rocky, scrubby, "Where the west begins" type land. Bottom, lower half was a thick tangle of tall skinny trees and undergrowth that a whipsnake snake slathered in Crisco couldn't get through. But I found some guys that had a service that could clear brush with a Bobcat and a front end attachment like a huge wood chipper about 7' wide, that was loud as hell, flung big wood chips as big as a foot ball 100 feet around, and could grind up trees up to about 3-4" diameter and just walk thru a forest like I had. I told them leave the good trees, and take out the rest. Ended up with me having to go back in afterwards and chainsawing down a few more to open it up, but over all very happy with the newly usable open land area. And the soil down there after years of leaves rotting was really nice and crumbly. So I found a seemingly good garden area, and have been fencing it off to keep deer, rabbits, etc out. Had to run a long hose down there, but I'm on well, with so far good water table, so watering shouldn't be an issue.
Snow, ice, sleet and cold has been delaying me after a few teasing weeks of 75-80 degrees in early/mid Feb. (shoulda known)...But 3" of snow 5 days into March? Al Gore, even though he invented the internet, seems to be off with these cold winters - esp up north.
red area is onion rows, future stuff in yellow box tilled up and ready
rented a mini-excavator to get tree stobs and roots out - worked "okay"
pickup load of alpaca poop compost - supposed to be top notch for gardens
sideways pic of potatoes planted just today
$300 nearly new pawn shop treasure that makes that soil like brown sugar (I hope)
Got two rows of onions in prior to last weeks snow and ice 5 day long event
Fenced in area...not fully fenced yet, but soon..!! with gates. Lucky it's easy digging down here.
Okay...that's all I got for now. need to get some more things into the ground tomorrow....MORE RAIN COMING SUNDAY/MONDAY..!! but at least the cold is gone ..it seems.
Used the little excavator to dig a couple of holes for fruit trees, gotta get to Wally World for some now, their shipment finally came in a few days ago.
And gotta chop down a few of those lingering trees...too much shade for most veggies.
Later.
