Keeping my head up

9/3/09 Thursday
I’ve decided to put off planting this fall. Maybe I’ll put some stuff out and hope for rain but the fact that irrigating contaminates the soil and that the contamination doesn’t just go away makes irrigation a bad thing to do. Sure I can eek a little out of it and the first year would be not terribly bad but I’ve already seen the results in the second year with our blackeyed peas. The peas I planted in the same rows I planted last year were noticeably worse despite all the compost and careful fertilization. I put lots of compost on two rows and that made a difference. The reason being the compost wasn’t contaminated with the chlorides and also nitrates so was essentially fresh soil. The nitrates are another thing that went way up, from 4.1 in 2007 to 26.3 this year. This is from all the fertilizers that percolated down from the surrounding farms. Amazingly the sulfates were almost cut in half in that time though they are still beyond recommended levels.

I took more pictures of the Morning Glories as they are out in the morning, hence the name Morning Glory. What’s striking is how different the color of the flowers are. All these come from the same plant. So I must conclude that the difference is because of the water. You can see how some of the leaves are burned on the one vine with the lighter colored flower. Plus there are few flowers on it at all. Seeing this makes me question the quality of produce that comes from this water and I worry about potential health issues. That’s something I need to research.

Today I’ll just chop weeds. No more installing drip irrigation till we get it figured out. So I’ll clean up and maybe organize the garage. Yesterday I didn’t even walk beyond the house other than to get in my truck and pick up mail. Just didn’t want to look at everything, at all the work I’ve done for two years that may have been in vain. I’ll call around to some well drillers and see what I can learn regarding what can be found water wise under this place. And get an idea of the cost. Depression will again be a fight and I’ll have to work to not let it bring me down. But I don’t quit easily and have been fighting my whole life to overcome that which holds me down, those things that would destroy me if I let them.
Just the difference in the number of blooms tells a story. With vegetables each flower represents a fruit so the fewer the flowers the less they produce. Water is life out here and the quality of the water influences the quality of life.

By the way, my dad isn’t doing well right now. He has an infection and they put him on an IV drip antibiotic to fight it. He’s too weak to continue the chemotherapy so that’s put on hold. It’s a tough fight he has to face, far worse than me for sure. So pray if you could.

I do want to take this time to thank the person who made a donation through the Pay-Pal thing on the right, to help with Ron Charles and his wife coming down to be on the GLC Christian television network. We appreciate it and every little bit helps. Thank you.

That’s it for now. I’ve got to keep my head up and get out of this house and get busy doing something, anything.