blackeyed beds

5/12/09 Tuesday
I worked till 9:30 last night preparing the beds destined to have blackeyed peas planted in. The blackeyed peas were our best money maker last year so I want to plant a lot of them. I’m so far behind on things but that’s my fault. I wasn’t diligent about preparing early for planting and probably got a little lazy over the winter. So I’m paying for it now. Got out early this morning to take advantage of the cool of the morning. My goal is to get the blackeyed peas planted today. It’s a poop scoop day so I’m going into Midland. I’ve been intending to visit my friend, Don, but haven’t made it. Today I want to make an extra effort to do so.

I just finished the initial step in preparing these beds. Only made ten rows on this section because of the mesquite tree that’s in the middle of the plot. There’s a lot of them all over the place that need to be pulled up. You can’t just cut them off, have to pull them up by the roots. I hope the tractor has enough gumption to do that. The old man has a back hoe and offered to bring it out and do that after we had a good rain. A good rain hasn’t happened in a while out here. Besides I’m real unsure of myself regarding things like that. I haven’t finished working on his wood sculpture and worry that he’s upset about that. I don’t want to ask for a favor when I haven’t completed what he asked of me.

Wish I didn’t get tired so quickly. I’m moving a lot of dirt making these…I can’t think of the name for them...the rows of mounded up dirt like in a plowed field. The grip in my right hand has never recovered from the wreck. That’s the side that’s partially paralyzed. I have a hard time using a hammer and often must grip it near the head to keep from dropping it. When working the hoe I must rest often and switch my hands to even out the strain.

The second step will be much easier, I’ll just run the wide scoop shovel over the top to flatten each row. Then I’ll install the drip feed tape down the middle, that’s step three. That will give me room to plant on both sides of the row so one row of dirt produces two rows of plants. I did it the same way with the corn. With the tape in I’ll be able to plant the blackeyed peas. I’m debating mixing in a lot of compost like I did with the corn. It’s probably the best way to do it but that is a ton of work and will take a whole day, at least I think it will. I’m just not good at judging this kind of thing, you know, how long something will take.

I need to go to the landfill and dump our garbage also. It’s noon now so perhaps I’ll run into Stanton to grab a bite to eat, check mail, and then hit the landfill. It’ll be a nice break from preparing the beds.