Out of the dust of the earth

The wallet, just how I found it rising up out of the ground.

9/4/10 Saturday
I stayed on the tractor till 5:00 yesterday. That makes a total of seven hours running it Friday, on top of six hours the day before. It never overheated, a great relief. I ran it real slow and careful and it’s a much cooler day so that’s probably why. Ran it real hard the day before pulling that disc and it was definitely a hot day. I’ll just have to baby the tractor. It’s too valuable a tool and we don’t have the means to replace it or make major repairs.



Got lots of ground plowed. After I got done I thought “What am I going to plant there?” I really didn’t know and haven’t planned ahead well on that. Originally I had planned on planting blackeyed peas there but after spending days planting the peas where they are now and installing the drip irrigation I had run out of juice for that and had moved on to other needs. The weeds had grown up so I disked it all under and re-plowed the furrows. I think I’ll still plant the blackeyed peas but not in order to make peas. They are what’s called a legume, which means the plant fixes nitrogen in the soil, so I’ll plant them to prepare the soil for next year.

With that in mind another project I need to pursue is to dig a trench to that area in order to lay pipe down and install irrigation there. All part of building the infrastructure of this farm. If I can get fences up and pipe laid we have an increased hope of actually being able to produce enough to make a profit. That would be a first. I’d have to go back in the journal and see but I think I went through a major depression or something at the first of this year. Can’t remember what happened, all I know is that we didn’t get much of anything to grow at all. Now that I think about it I think that most of the seeds never germinated because the well water is so nasty. Odds are that didn’t help any depression and perhaps triggered it. I’d have to go back and read the journal but it’s not that important to me right now.
We plan on rows of sunflowers here and also more wind break trees so irrigation tubing will be installed underground in one of the furrows. We can tap into it anytime later. More long term infrastructure planning

I got furrows plowed along the rear of the five acres and also plowed up the area we are going to grow fall corn in. Unfortunately I’ve used up all the drip irrigation parts I had so must quickly order more in order to get the corn planted. We have just enough in the farm account to get the parts so I’ll order them now before the money does what money does so well, disappear.

Guess what??? Remember the wallet that fell out of my pocket as I ran the tractor a few months back? I knew that it would eventually resurface and it did. Was pulling the tractor in to unhook the disc and hook up the plow when I saw this. It’s a mess and shows evidence of being run over with the disc but I found my wallet. There was twelve bucks inside along with my license and all the bank cards we canceled, plus my social security card that I’d not yet replaced. Plus I recovered some business cards and phone numbers I thought were gone. I guess the rain helped uncover it.

Ordered the parts so they should arrive by Friday. Shipping prices sure have climbed up there. It would cost more than the parts to get it next day air. Seventy bucks for seven pounds of parts that only cost $44. Not going to do that. I can do a lot of the installation work without the parts and hook it all up when the parts come in. Ordered a lot of the repair parts because I know there will be more problems with gophers chewing things up and I’ve already demonstrated my ability to get careless with the hoe and damage it myself.
Where the corn will be planted

We will run to the farmers market today. Need to stock up on honey and I plan on setting up there next week to sell blackeyed peas, tomatoes, and peppers. Took a bunch of that to church last Sunday and Wednesday and gave it away. If any of y’all would like some drop me an email. I’d be happy to deliver on the days I’m in Midland. Other than that you’d have to come out to the farm. Cherie just let me know that we will be in Kairos Prison Ministry training for the next few Saturday’s so that leaves out selling at the farmers market for a bit. Hate to watch things we worked so hard to grow spoil on the vine. In fact I refuse to do that so will find homes for this organically grown produce one way of another.