The heat is back

Before

7/11/10 Sunday
The heat is back. It was nice for a while when the high’s were only in the 80’s, despite the 90 + % humidity. We went to church this morning and enjoyed fellowshipping with our many friends there. After we went to visit some other friends and were surprised with a barbeque rib cookout. We discussed some issues they are helping us with and I’ll go back over there tomorrow to do some work for them. Unfortunately that took up the cool of the day and there is lots to do so when we came home I went straight to work. Didn’t last as long out there as I thought I would so came in to sit in front of the fan and cool off. It’s 6:00 now so should start cooling off soon. It will be a late day again as I work to get as much done. I told our friend that I wouldn’t come over till later as I plan on getting as much done as I can around the farm during the cool of the day.

After, same area minus weeds.

9:00 – I’m done for the day. Worn out again. As much as I would prefer to be planting seeds I’m forced to spend time fighting weeds. Been mowing them for days now and have barely scratched the surface. You can see in the first picture how high the weeds are. Many of them are five foot tall now and got that way in just three or so weeks. There are areas that were cleared to the ground with a hoe twelve days ago and the weeds are back, already a foot high. That’s the rain. Desert weeds are geared to go for broke anytime it rains and, boy do they go.

I spent four hours mowing these weeds down. Now I know that because I just mowed them they will grow back right away so the next step is to break out the tiller and till what’s left under. The reason I mowed is to catch the clippings with the grass catcher in the mower. These clippings will become compost in the raised beds I never was able to finish. The front end loader died before I could move dirt back into them and I was never able to get the sixteen remaining railroad ties needed to finish building them because of whomever convinced the old man I was out to take advantage of him. May God deal with them. So I’ll pile clippings there as high as I can and next year it will be some good fertile soil.

Cherie went through seeds and picked out some for me to plant. That’s a big help for me. As much as I need to keep up with weeds I am also pressed to plant seeds. We hope to have a fall crop due to the rain fall we’ve been blessed with but the ground is drying out quick. It’s a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation. Weeds need to be removed from where I need to plant for sure. One of the comments we received at the USDA meeting was an observance of the weeds and with that the question came up regarding my ability to keep up with the work. Frankly I can’t by myself and explained that if we can create an income we can afford to pay for the help we need. Meantime I do the best I can with what I’ve got, and all I’ve got right now is me. Not much to look at and a little disabled but I keep on plugging.
This was just a few small spots of grass a few weeks ago.

We’ve got a few spots where some of the tens of thousands of Bermuda grass seed actually germinated. It looks real good and I had to mow it. The grass on the side of the house I wasn’t sure about because I didn’t have an eye to be able to tell what kind of grass it was, so I left it alone hoping it was the Bermuda I planted there. It wasn’t. Don’t know what it is but it’s nasty looking stuff so I’ll have to till it all under and plant Bermuda again. I’ll take some of the Bermuda that came up in other places and transplant it Once it takes root it’s proven to do quite well and spread rapidly. Eventually we will have a yard.

With all the rain there have been lots of mushrooms come up. This bad boy is as big as my hand. In Michigan we had morel mushrooms come up. I knew someone who pointed them out to me so knew what they were and picked them to eat. Not even going to think about that here. Too many mushrooms will kill you in a heartbeat. But I can enjoy the pale beauty of them and wonder at how quick they come up.

I’m tired and plan on getting up with the sun to get as much done as I can. See ya when next I can.
Be