Gentlemen, Start Your Tractors!

After all these years, it still amuses me to see my neighbor Joel stop by for a quick visit...on his tractor.  We have a common gate between our adjoining properties, otherwise it's probably a mile going around by the big road.  We are starting to seriously think about our vegetable gardens, and Joel is going to try using some of my extra industrial plastic barrels for above-ground planting.  The first garden I planted here was wiped out by deer and my then-neighbor's donkey that jumped the fence.  The next year Steve fenced in a large area out on the west point and we tried again.  For two years, I fought with the gophers, ground squirrels, and voles.  I was holding onto a cabbage plant while a gopher was tugging it underground...true story!  Pumpkins grew large and beautiful and just at the point of picking, I'd go out and find them "deflated."  Gophers would come up underneath, gnaw a gopher-size hole in the bottom, and eat the pumpkin from the inside, not touching the outer shell.  How disappointing is that!  Water is a precious commodity, and the soil here is called DCG (decomposed granite).  What could be considered a thorough soaking elsewhere only goes down an inch or so and then runs off before it gets to the root system.  The solution to the problem was lidded barrels that Steve brought home from the commercial laundry where he worked, cut in half, and drilled.  Esthetically, my garden has all the appeal of a tank farm, but until gophers learn to jump three feet, the barrels thwart the little buggers and conserve water.  Some of the barrels are five feet across, perfect for the pumpkins, some only three feet.  Joel is going to try the barrel system this year, having fought his own good fight with the underground wildlife.  My girls, furred and feathered, provide enough fertilizer for both of us.  Joel and I try to plant different crops so only one of us is overwhelmed with zucchini or cucumbers and we trade the excess.  Nothing goes to waste, however, because the chickens gorge on overripe tomatoes and other trimmings.  I've missed the planting window two years in a row now, and it's not gonna happen this year! 

But A Memory...

I took this photo of the rosemary bush a few days ago, knowing that the grey days were coming again and I might need help remembering the sunshine.  Sho' nuff, we're back to the two-fer days...two pair of pants, two pair of socks, two shirts.  There are actually a lot of memories connected to this rosemary-for-remembrance bush.  I planted it from a two-inch pot when we moved here going on thirteen years ago.  The thyme and oregano still thrive, but deer consumed the sage, borage, and other tender herbs, and heat and drought wiped out the varieties of mint.  Wild yarrow and feverfew moved in to fill the gaps.  I thought when we came here that I would finally have all the flower and herb gardens one could ever wish for, and planted accordingly.  Hollyhocks, sweetpeas, roses, black-eyed Susans, daisies, and so many, many more.  Our resident deer were the best fed on the mountain.  I finally put roses in planters on the deck, and then would wake in the middle of the night to the clomp-clomp of deer, coming all the way around to have a midnight snack right under the bedroom windows.  I blamed the deer for eating newly-planted marigolds in the half-barrels by the front porch, until I actually saw a plant disappear underground as it was stolen by a gopher that had chewed through the bottom to get to the goodies.  It's a life lesson...you don't always get what you want, so be happy with what you get! 

Item for the Remember List:  always empty the alfalfa out of the bibby cuffs before putting into the wash.