4/4/08 Friday
Yesterday was a day of accomplishment and disappointment. So far I have planted sixty of the ninety afghan pines. I looked at the strawberry plants that are on the north side. Out of seventy plants there are only about seven that still have leaves. Some of them show signs of bugs eating them. What a bitter disappointment. I don’t know if bugs got them all or a rabbit or something but whatever it was hit them hard. I’m almost afraid to go out and look this morning. The strawberries we planted where the old melon patch was are doing much better. I folded some of the wire fencing recovered from the landfill to provide some protection from rabbits and such. Bugs are a different matter. As much as I want to go organic it is vital that we make sellable crops this year so I may have to use pesticides. Right now we are building a farm with toothpicks when we need logs. The tiller however is a big boost. Any income we bring in can be used to get things that will help us do better next year. And doing better next year will improve the year after that. Little by little we will do this. On top of getting the material building blocks (so to speak) each year adds to our experience and knowledge of how to do things. Unfortunately I am learning again much of what I learned last year because I forget so much. I read what I downloaded last year regarding growing corn and it was all brand new to me. Eventually it will stay.

I was surprised this morning that I didn’t need a pain pill, especially after how hard I worked yesterday and how sore I was when I went to bed. Cherie and I were out watering and working till way after dark. I separated cloves of garlic till after ten. Unfortunately it is all in pretty sad shape. There are fifty or sixty heads of garlic that Matt gave us some time back. They sat in the box out of sight and out of mind. I was disheartened to learn that they should be planted in the fall. Now the ones that sprouted are all shriveled up. I think I’ll run them through the blender and put the past around plants to see if it wards off bugs. Perhaps I’ll see if I can produce a liquid I can spray on them and see how that works.

While I didn’t need a pain pill I unfortunately have one of those killer headaches that come by every now and then. Laid down with the blanket (we don’t have drapes yet) closed over the window to reduce the light. I did that till the alarm sounded to let me know it was time to move the water sprinklers. I’m running them again to help the rye as much as I can. Didn’t run them when I was focused on planting the trees. Just couldn’t do two things at once.

I’m fixing to head into Midland headache or not. I’ll stop by Walmart first to check on some Azalea mulch they have on clearance at sixty cents a bag. It’s high in acid so will be good for a lot of what we want to grow. The peat moss is all gone. I checked on that yesterday and was disappointed to see that. They told me that if it didn’t get sold it would be thrown out. What a crime that is. If it didn’t cost me eight bucks in gas to make the forty mile round trip I would have gone up every day to hopefully get a deal on it before they tossed it in the dumpster. We are spending $250 a month on gas as it is. That’s a big chunk out of a nine hundred dollar monthly disability check.

After Walfart I’ll hit Janie’s to poop scoop and go online.