Dumpster diving

Last nights sunset

4/12/10 Monday
There’s a chance for rain for the rest of the week. It’s not a strong chance, just scattered thunderstorms that could be severe. So we’ll pray for rain and hope it doesn’t come with damaging wind and hail. We need the rain badly to help wash the chlorides from the soil and also with the hope it will cause the seeds we’ve planted to germinate. Out of twenty fifty foot rows only a handful of seeds have sprouted and they are primarily squashes and melons though it looks like one of the lettuces has a few sprouts showing. If we get rain I’ll rush out and replant as much of it as I can and have still have seeds of.





Spent much of yesterday preparing more rows for planting. The ground is rock hard from the lack of rain so that was a painful exercise. I don’t know if Alan will show up for work or not. He wasn’t at church so may have gone to Dallas to visit family. Let him know last week that we sold half our stock so would be able to pay him and asked that he come to work. I sure need the help.



We need to finish tearing down that barn in Odessa. The lady emailed me about it. I talked to Eric and he said I could use his cutting torch for the job. Now that we have funds coming we can afford to finish this job and the materials gained can be used to build a barn here on the farm. Nothing comes easy but bit by bit I’m building this farm despite all the obstacles that come up.










There have been no serious bites on the truck and trailer we’re trying to sell and that may be a good thing cause I certainly need it to get the rest of that barn. Eric tried for a week to place an ad with the paper but their online thing is down so he wasn’t able to. Here’s where trusting that God has things under control comes into play. He’s smarter than me (Duh) and knows our needs and the future, so perhaps that’s why the truck hasn’t sold. I’ll relax and not worry about it.





You can see where I cut two liter bottles to use as protection for plants. These are pepper plants.


Cherie’s been having a hard time with doing our taxes. I had to tell her to call it a night and come to bed at 2:00 in the morning. She’s so fretted up and frustrated about it that she couldn’t let go and go to sleep. I made the decision that we will pay someone to do our taxes. She kept trying to use turbo tax but it kept balking when it came to our CRP payment and jacked everything up to us owing over a grand. With this farm there is no longer such a thing as simple taxes. Seems that there is an automatic 400 dollar fee for me being “self employed” because we own the farm despite the fact we haven’t made any money. But there are plenty of expenses, such as the tractor we bought, that can be deducted. So no easy simple form for us. Knew that would happen but figured it would be for this year, not last. We’ll file an extension to give us time.








That’s it for now. There’s moisture in the air and work to do. I went dumpster diving yesterday after church. We need containers to protect the plants from the wind so I went to Aldridge nursery, where I know there are often discarded plant pots. And there were. There weren’t as many of the larger ones I prefer but as you can see there were a lot of smaller ones that will work just fine. I’ll spend part of the day cutting the bottoms out of them and then transplanting the pepper plants. Plus I’ll uproot some more of the mint plants and start them in pots for sale at the farmers market. I’m sure that there are plenty of people who would love to have a mint plant growing in the house because they smell refreshingly great, and it’s nice to be able to pull a couple of leaves off for tea and other things.





Some tomato plants made it and some didn't. No rhyme or reason for it, at least that I know but I'm still learning.